The Iraq super-blogger Juan Cole announces today in Informed Comment that newly released documents from the former Iraq Government indicate that in 2002, Saddam Hussein was on the lookout for Abu Musab Zarqawi, now the leader of 'Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia'.
Zarqawi was one of the main reasons, Cheney and Colin Powell (in February 2003 before the Security Council of the UN) found, to prove an alliance between Hussein and Bin Laden.
Ironically, these documents have been released, after many refusals, by the US army services in the Middle East, on the insistance of Weekly Standard editors. In every issue of the last months, there was an insinuating article, demanding those documents and implying some behind-the-screens manipulation by the State Department or non-conservative forces within the Army.
Our WS-friends, just returned from their annual love-boat-cruise in California, must face another deception. I am sure, they will overcome it and provide to us a truthful resume of these new facts. Their interpretation, if I may guess, will be something like: "You see: we were right - Saddam knew that Zarqawi was in his country!"