Stephen Hayes lists more evidence emerging from declassified documents captured in Iraq: a series of memos from the spring of 2001, showing that the Iraqi Intelligence Service funded Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s; memos on efforts by Iraqi Intelligence to support Saudi opposition groups, including evidence of cooperation with Osama bin Laden 1994-1996; and a memo from “Republican Command, Intelligence Division,” dated September 15, 2001, addressed to “Mr. M.A.M.5,” reading:

Our Afghani source number 11002… has provided us information that the Afghani consul Ahmed Dahestani (his biographic information attachment #2) has talked in front of him about the following:
1. That Osama bin Laden and the Taliban group in Afghanistan are in communication with Iraq and that previously a group of Taliban and Osama bin Laden have visited Iraq.
2. That America has evidence that the Iraqi government and the group of Osama bin Laden have cooperated to attack targets inside America.
3. In the event that it has been proven that the group of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban planning such operations, it is possible that America will attack Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. That the Afghani consul heard of the relation between Iraq and the group of Osama bin Laden while he was in Iran.
5. In the light of what has been presented, we suggest to write to the committee of information.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs in its May/June issue is running a major article by Kevin wood, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, titled Saddam’s Delusions: The View from the Inside, drawn from a recently declassified military report. It contains (page 6):

In a document dated May 1999, Saddam’s older son, Uday, ordered preparations for “special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan].” Preparations for “Blessed July,” a regime-directed wave of “martyrdom” operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.