I know this sounds strange to folks here, but actually al qaeda had little to do with Saddam - he too "liberal" for them -

That's the reason why that most recent al qaeda tape to Iraq set out reasons justifying working with "socialists" -

What appears to have been the case was that Saddam allowed al qaeda to base in Iraq, but gave them no support

As far as Saddam's position in the moslem world, it's also clear from the report that he intended to begin production again on weapons of mass destruction the first chance that he got - research and development of infra-structure was continuing -

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