SKEPTICS of Iraqi ties to al Qaeda appear prepared to argue that even if Saddam did have substantial connections to Ansar al Islam, the GSPC, and the Sudanese Islamic Army, these relations do not constitute ties to al Qaeda. But unless one is prepared to engage in an extremely legalistic parsing similar to that which has surrounded Abu Musab Zarqawi’s relationship with Osama bin Laden, the issue is easy enough to resolve.

Ansar al Islam: As noted by the U.S. State Department, Ansar al Islam “is closely allied with al-Qa’ida and Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s group.” Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported in September 2001 that it was al Qaeda emissary Abu Abdul Rahman who provided Ansar al Islam with $300,000 in “seed money” at its inception. Al Qaeda’s close involvement in the formation of Ansar al Islam was likewise demonstrated in an al Qaeda memorandum from August 2001 which was recovered in Afghanistan and reported by the New York Times in January 2003. It noted the existence of the “Iraqi Kurdistan Islamic Brigade” and urged the unification of the various Kurdish Islamist groups based around Shinerwe Mountain in northern Iraq into an enclave modeled after that of the Taliban. After the September 11 attacks, Ansar al Islam was to take on an even more ominous role. As the 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism noted, “al-Qaida operatives in northern Iraq concocted suspect chemicals under the direction of senior al-Qaida associate Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and tried to smuggle them into Russia, Western Europe, and the United States for terrorist operations.”