There are members of Al Qaeda to be found in virtually every nation in the Middle East, as well as southeast Asia. Don't be surprised if we find more. But you'll find just as many members of Al Qaeda active in Pakistan, some with ties to members of the government there. The same is true of Saudi Arabia. You'll also find Al Qaeda camps hidden in the mountains of northern Pakistan. Iran, Syria and Yemen as well. They operate without sanction of the governents there as did the camp in northern Iraq.

None of this is evidence linking Iraq formerly to Al Qaeda or terrorist acts of Al Qaeda. In fact your article on Al Qaeda in northern Iraq says: "Iraq seems to be completely out of the picture."

The best evidence to date is the apparent invitation made in February of 1998 inviting a representative of Al Qaeda as the "Saudi opposition leader" to visit Iraq. But this is over five years ago! If this is the best we can do, then we've been lied to again.

We're grasping for straws here. What folks here seem to forget is that Bin Laden hated Saddam Hussein as much as we did. Hussein was a secularist who prevented inslamic fundamentalists from practicing their religion in Iraq. With Saddam out of the way, Al Qaeda's influence among the Shia majority in Iraq is more potent than ever.