When the 9-11 Commission’s final report was published in July 2004, some in the press were quick to trumpet one line in the report that appeared to dispense with the issue of Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda. The Commission reported on a number of contacts between the two sides, but ultimately concluded: “to date we have seen no evidence that these or earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship.” For many, that was the end of the story. But re-read the Commission’s report carefully (as some did at the time) and you realize it found a number of disturbing threads tying Saddam’s Iraq to al Qaeda. For example, the Commission reported that Ayman al Zawahiri set up at least one and maybe two meetings between al Qaeda and Saddam’s regime in 1998. The Commission explained that Zawahiri was in a position to act as a liaison since he had “ties of his own to the Iraqis.” The Commission did not explain further. But now, thanks to the release of a new study on Saddam’s ties to terrorism, we learn more about Zawahiri’s “ties” to Iraq. The Iraqi Perspectives Project report (which we’ve discussed here, here, and here) explains:

As Steve Hayes pointed out again this morning, the study cites an Iraqi Intelligence document dated March 18, 1993. The translation of the document provided in the study begins: