MEMO LEAK UPDATE

As readers of Calpundit may be aware, the Defense Department put out a news release condemning the recent Feith memo leak to the Weekly Standard.

I'm sorry Kevin, the antiwar battlecry has been " no relation between al Qaida and Saddam " and the raw data shows such contacts and cooperation on an irregular basis at a minimum between Iraq and al Qaida. Now Iraq probably also had contacts with Hamas, Hezbollah, the PKK, Ansar al Islam, various PLO factions and groups with no obvious Middle-Eastern connection. Rogue states and terrorist groups engage in all kinds of interactions amongst themselves without being formally allied - case in point IRA members in Colombia teaching FARC to build car bombs. It would be wrong to conclude that contacts between Iraq and al Qaida made Saddam a major player in 9/11 or even a key consideration for Osama bin Laden in setting al Qaida policy. It was to the extent that ties existed, a relationship of convenience between a rogue state and a non-state actor that was unwilling to put itself under Iraqi control the way Abu Nidal Organization once did ( to the ultimate cost of Abu Nidal)  ¶ 7:39 AM