The Undeniable Connection

Power Line comments at length here on recent Democrat insistence that Saddam and the rest of the terrorist world existed in a sort of blissful ignorance of one another. The whole piece is excellent reading for anyone who wants to be well-informed. Excerpt:

One of the Democrats' most ridiculous mantras is that there was no connection between Saddam's Iraq and international terrorism. This claim is demonstrably false, but as usual, the Democrats are playing to the least well-informed Americans. Let's just itemize a few of Iraq's most notorious pre-war connections to 9/11 style terrorism:

a) Ansar al Islam, an al Qaeda branch,manufactured ricin for use in attacks on Europe.

b) Saddam hosted al Qaeda's number two leader, Zawahiri, in the 1990s.

c) Saddam harbored, and put on a government pension, one of the few perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing who escaped apprehension.

d) Saddam harbored Abu Nidal, once the world's most famous terrorist, until, for reasons that remain mysterious, Saddam apparently had him murdered shortly before the war began.

e) Saddam harbored Abu Abbas, organizer of the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in 1984; Abbas was captured in Iraq during the first days of the war.

e) Zarqawi, the world's most deadly terrorist, fled Afghanistan when the Taliban fell at the end of 2001 and went to Iraq. Why? Because he knew that terrorists were welcome under Saddam.

f) From Iraq, Zarqawi organized the murder of American diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan.

g) From Iraq, Zarqawi organized and financed a chemical weapons attack on Jordan that could have killed tens of thousands. The perpetrators of that scheme are now on trial in Jordan.

h) Saddam paid the families of suicide bombers to encourage terrorist attacks
against Israel.

These are just some of the many connections between Saddam's regime and international terrorism that we happen to know about. Others are known, and no doubt still more remain unknown.

It is both fascinating and puzzling that the Democrats take the "no connection" tack. Maybe their base demands that of them.