Please note the phrase "drove him out." Not captured, not brought to justice, not even killed, just "drove him out."

Ironically, Zarqawi did go from Jordan to Afghanistan for training back in the Eighties, in the days when the U.S. wanted help in pushing the Soviets out - guess who provided the money for his training! But Zarqawi thereafter created camps separate from those of UBL; and has ever since been seen as a competitor, not a member of UBL’s team.

Another worrisome sign is that local Iraqi Sunni fundamentalists opposed to the US presence in Iraq have begun joining Monotheism and Holy War, and wearing its distinctive orange and black insignia. These have been sighted among Iraqi crowds on Haifa Street in Baghdad and in Samarra. So now there are hundreds of al-Qaeda members in Iraq where there had been none before.

DUBAI, Oct 17: The Tawhid wal Jihad group of Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden in a statement posted on Sunday on websites usually used by terrorist organizations. "We announce that Al Tawhid wal Jihad, its emir (Zarqawi) and soldiers have pledged allegiance to (leader of) mujahideen Osama bin Laden," said the statement. It was the first such public pledge by the group led by Zarqawi, whom the United States has branded Al Qaeda's chief operative in Iraq. However, the authenticity of the statement could not be verified.-AFP

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism. Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism." But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. "Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

There is ZERO evidence that Hussein associated with Zarqawi OR Al Qaeda.

The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."

Conveniently, such analyses ignore statements like this one from Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars." U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

Bush, in his speech aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, asserted: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding."

In September, Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "If we're successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

but they do not appear to

Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."

We've removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding."

In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."

but your attempt to continue to blindly connect AQ and Iraq is sad.

KEAN: Well, there was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida. At one point, there was thought maybe even Al Qaida would find sanctuary in Iraq. And there were conversations that went on over a number of years, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessfully. While we don't know about weapons collaboration, particularly chemical collaboration, there was a suspicion in the Clinton administration that when they fired that bomb at that factory, that if, in fact, there were chemicals there, they may have come from Iraq. So there was a relationship. Having said that, we have found no relationship whatever between Iraq and the attack on 9/11. That just doesn't exist. So I think we are very careful in our wording in using that word "collaborative relationship." I mean, that's what we found. It's language that's evidence-based. HAMILTON: In further response, I think there's a very large distinction between evidence of conversations that might have occurred between Iraq and Al Qaida, on the one hand, and an emerging strategy or emerging assistance -- concrete -- on the other. And what we do not have, as the chairman said, is any evidence of a concrete collaborative operational agreement. Conversations, yes, but nothing concrete.

...but I know what you are trying to claim, and, as usual with you, you offer no facts to back up your rants. I offered a series of facts, and you are a liar.

Link1 That link makes an assertion unsubstantiated by any facts.

In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

" Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.""

Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" didn't exist either. Those "mobile chemical weapons labs" that Powell lied about in the UN Security Council didn't exist either.

Rolf Ekeus, the Swede who led the UN's efforts to track down the weapons from 1991 to 1997, said that the offer came from Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister and deputy. Mr Ekeus told Reuters news agency that he had passed the information to the Volcker Commission. "I told the Volcker people that Tariq [Aziz] said a couple of million was there if we report right. My answer was, 'That is not the way we do business in Sweden.' " A clean report from Mr Ekeus's inspectors would have been vital in lifting sanctions against Saddam's regime

In other words, we would have to prove that there was no collaboration.

PPJ's attempt to suggest that the 9-11 commission chair confirmed the lies of Bush and Cheney is disingenuous.

So I think we are very careful in our wording in using that word "collaborative relationship." I mean, that's what we found. It's language that's evidence-based.

"collaborate" 1 : to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor 2 : to cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one's country and especially an occupying force 3 : to cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected

The only war I opposed is the needless one in Iraq

And yes, there have probably been an increase in terrorist attacks. I say probably because I have no confidence in the previous numbers, or these numbers, but it makes sense because: Violence increases when a war breakouts. We decided to be more aggressive, and that means they will be more aggeessive. We think we can win on offense. We sure as hell didn't win on defense the last 12 years.

PPJ, we are talking about the same guy who thought that he wouldn't get invaded....

There have been several recent developments. One month ago, Jordan's King Abdullah explained to the Arabic-language newspaper al Hayat that his government had tried before the Iraq war to extradite Abu Musab al Zarqawi from Iraq. "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn't respond." He added: "Since Zarqawi entered Iraq before the fall of the former regime we have been trying to have him deported back to Jordan for trial, but our efforts were in vain."

Jim, on the potty: "Are you telling us that the indictment was totally false because we haven't been to court? Are you saying this, which was also in Link1, is a lie?"

(PPJ wrote/PIL quoted) "but I know what you are trying to claim, and, as usual with you, you offer no facts to back up your rants." (PIL wrote) I offered a series of facts, and you are a liar.

.....there is the evidence. In 1992 the Iraqi Intelligence services compiled a list of its assets. On page 14 of the document, marked "Top Secret" and dated March 28, 1992, is the name of Osama bin Laden, who is reported to have a "good relationship" with the Iraqi intelligence section in Syria. The Defense Intelligence Agency has possession of the document and has assessed that it is accurate. In 1993, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden reached an "understanding" that Islamic radicals would refrain from attacking the Iraqi regime in exchange for unspecified assistance, including weapons development. This understanding, which was included in the Clinton administration's indictment of bin Laden in the spring of 1998, has been corroborated by numerous Iraqis and al Qaeda terrorists now in U.S. custody. In 1994, Faruq Hijazi, then deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, met face-to-face with bin Laden. Bin Laden requested anti-ship limpet mines and training camps in Iraq. Hijazi has detailed the meeting in a custodial interview with U.S. interrogators. In 1995, according to internal Iraqi intelligence documents first reported by the New York Times on June 25, 2004, a "former director of operations for Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19." When bin Laden left Sudan in 1996, the document states, Iraqi intelligence sough "other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location." That same year, Hussein agreed to a request from bin Laden to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state television. In 1997, al Qaeda sent an emissary with the nom de guerre Abdullah al Iraqi to Iraq for training on weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell cited this evidence in his presentation at the UN on February 5, 2003. The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Powell's presentation on Iraq and terrorism was "reasonable."

...Little noticed in weapons inspector David Kay's recent remarks was his observation that Iraq was not less dangerous than assumed but more dangerous: "I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war." What Kay means is that terrorists were traveling through a country where free-lancing scientists had nuclear, biological, and chemical programs underway -- erratic weapons programs even Hussein wasn't aware of that these terrorists could have easily exploited: "We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq. And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country -- and no central control." Up until the war started Iraqi scientists were "actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin," says Kay.

...another proof about Iraq having WMD's.