Political Quotes

“The Joint Forces Command report sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second in command. I quote: Saddam supported groups either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), led at one time by bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives. Mr. Hayes notes in his article that Zawahiri's organization was being financed by Saddam Hussein at the very time Zawahiri was working almost exclusively with bin Laden. In fact, Zawahiri had been working with al-Qaida from its inception in late 1989. By 1993, Zawahiri, as the leader of the EIJ, sought to merge the organization with al-Qaida and, in fact, the two terrorist organizations eventually merged in 1998. The Standard further reported that: Captured documents revealed that the regime was willing to co-opt support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision. The more than 600,000 documents likely revealed only a fraction of what we will ultimately know of the true relationship between bin Laden, the global jihad, and Saddam Hussein. Given this information, it is a surprise that many in the mainstream media have concluded only that there was no smoking gun linking al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, thus failing to report the key findings in the report to the American people.”