In "Saddam and Osama," Edward Jay Epstein presents a conglomeration of nonsense that is right from the propaganda coffers of the Bush mal-administration. Daniel Benjamin exhibits somewhat more sober perspicuity. However, the whole exercise in futility comes down to not liking Saddam for doing what he did not do or what he should have been expected to do given the conditions primarily caused by Israel and the US governments.

Epstein starts with a loaded deck of "state-sponsored terrorism, as it is defined by the U.S. government," in which case Palestinians and Iraqis are "terrorists" for blowing themselves up in their impotent attempts to force aggressors to stop in the last desperate effort of defeated peoples. However, the US and Israel are not state supporters of terrorism as we bomb innocent Iraqi civilians to death, hoping to terrorize them into rising up against a brutal dictator. And Israel may terrorize Palestinian civilians with tanks tearing into their homes in the middle of the night because they react violently to their lands being taken among a whole list of 55 years of unholy war upon them.

So who cares how long such aggressors have been putting such victims on such a list. Hell, among their people, that is tantamount to an academy award. "And the winner tonight, for the most effective suicide bombing goes to..."for over a decade.

And how can we hold "Iraq's sponsorship of a car-bombing attempt in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush in Kuwait City," against any Iraqi who saw what Bush did to Iraq far beyond the simple task Egypt performed for the UN of driving Saddam's forces out of Kuwait, even if one didn't know that Bush's Ambassador tricked Madman Insane into trying to retrieve Kuwait into Iraq. Saddam's Keystone Kops routine was "terrorism" while Bush's turkey shoot of retreating Iraqi troops on Iraqi soil was not?

What respect did we show to the UN Charter doctrine that nations use only such power as required to defend against and stop aggression, leaving it to the UN to deal with international violations of member state's sovereignty. Powell was like MacArthur in the Korean War, he didn't know where to stop. But that killing of a hundred thousand defenseless troops was not "terrorism" simply because it does not serve our purposes to define it as such.

The techniques our Company's black ops agents taught Osama and those who later became the Taliban to use against the Russians in Afghanistan are acts of terrorism when now used against us. One man's freedom fighters are another man's terrorists, depending whether they are for or against you. When we handed Osama chemical weapons and arranged for him to make them himself to use against the Iranians to pay them back for their taking of our hostages, that was sweet revenge, not terrorism.

When we looked the other way and did not stop supplying his chemicals when he turned those against the Kurds, he was just protecting his state against the Kurdish desire to recreate Kurdistan out of lands split up between Iraq and Turkey. After all, Kurds had been "terrorists" against Turks for years.

While I know of no good evidence of Iraq's supposed "...sponsorship in 1998 of the attempted recruitment of car bombers to destroy the headquarters building of Radio Free Europe in Wenceslas Square in the historic center of Prague," that would be understandably justified given the aggressive nature of the activity we were advocating. We were trying to stir up rebellion in a sovereign member nation of the UN, an action fully against the Charter of the UN. Such an act of "terror" as Iraq is being accused of performing might just as well be justified as self-defense against American aggression as could Powell's turkey shoot in the Iraqi desert. The only difference is that one was, from our point of view, a grand and glorious victory, and the other was a stupid and pathetic screw-up. But they are the terrorists? Well, it is our list!

There is even less reason from evidence to grant "Iraq's provision of fake identity papers and safe haven to two of the key figures in the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center in New York," to be any more than fantasy. But we were the ones who had unilaterally set up no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq to cover the rebellions we were stirring up in Iraq just as we had a few decades earlier in Afghanistan. Ours would have been just a "special operations black op," stirring Iraqi citizens up to rebellion against their government, against the Charter of the UN. But theirs would have been "terrorism," because theirs was not in our interest! And it is our list.

Then Epstein uses the "evidence" that Iraq must have pursued further terrorism: "Since one purpose of covert sponsorship of terrorism is to remain hidden, there may have been other Iraq operations that better succeeded in concealing their sponsorship." That would have been laughable if Epstein had not presented it as a serious principle which he tried to apply to suggest that there is a connection between Saddam and Osama:

"Why wouldn't Saddam similarly use Osama's al-Qaida as cover to conceal his own covert actions? Or Osama use Saddam's embassy bases to facilitate his own operations? I submit expediency, not affinity, often governs such temporary alliances."

But there were no other even incompetent traces of Iraqi terrorism, in spite of Epstein's fantasy: "...didn't U.S. (and U.N.) intelligence indicate that Saddam's scientists provided the technology for the VX chemical weapons facility for which Osama supplied the funds in the Sudan?" No.

"It is in this context," that Epstein brings out the much reneged and discredited administration "...Czech intelligence report of a meeting between an Iraq embassy official and an al-Qaida trained hijacker..."

"This report," for which there never was a credible source and which has been repeatedly rejected as pure fantasy by the Czech and everyone else's intelligence, "asserts that Mohamed Atta, who had previously visited Prague in June 2000, met with Iraq consul Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani at an undisclosed location in Prague in April 2001."

Although Epstein elaborates his fantasy, "Subsequently," the whole of that is nonsense that has been thoroughly discredited.

However, the fact is that the only contact that existed between al-Qaeda and Iraq, was that after Bush renewed his threats to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam Hussein, foolishly thinking that getting rid of the last vestiges of his weapons of mass destruction would keep Bush from attacking again, offered them to any and every one who could be expected to use them against the US or Israeli aggressors. Bush cleansed Iraq of its last weapons of mass destruction nearly a year ago. And while Syria and various Palestinian freedom fighters received most of the largess, some went to al Qaeda. It was not an alliance but compliance with Bush's edict that Saddam get rid of them that led to al Qaeda's share of the inheritance.

But those did not go to the Al Qaeda in Northern Iraq which existed without the regime's approval. But they were in areas controlled by the Kurds. Any attacks on them would have brought hell-fire and damnation down upon the heads of Iraqi soldiers. Saddam wanted tom avoid another conflict with the US at all costs. After all, Saddam like most sadists and other bullies is actually a coward who decided that the safest way is to to it to them before they can do it to him.

To all Epstein's nonsense, Daniel Benjamin started by buying Epstein's one sided definition of "Terrorism" and adding appropriate actions that would be terrorism by that self-serving US and Israeli definition: "No question, Saddam Hussein uses terror as a tool of policy." Of course that can be just as truly said of the US and Israel, who use terror as an instrument of state policy daily.

At least Benjamin had the sense to point out that, "Making the case that [Saddam] and the radical Islamists of al-Qaida are working together is entirely another matter." "...U.S. counter terrorism experts have never been able to corroborate [such] claims."

But Benjamin kept the nonsensical fantasy of Iraqi involvement in a supposed Sudanese attempt to produce VX alive, merely pointing out that there was no evidence of "...contact between Bin Laden and the Iraqis or ... that Baghdad knew of al-Qaida's involvement in the VX project. (Benjamin should not "...find it amazing that [the Bush administration] never even point to the VX issue to support their case." Of course they don't point to what is a totally fabricated fantasy that even the Bush mal-administration would know they could get no further with than their claim that Nigerians were selling nuclear materials to Iraq.

At least Benjamin has the sense to call Epstein to the carpet by resume-ing the facts regarding Epstein's alleged contacts in Czechoslovakia between al-Qaeda and Iraq, noting that "...when the Czechs double-checked, the source recanted." But Benjamin so wants there to be a connection that he falsely construes some "hints" of contact where there is no evidence, and reluctantly admits that: "Still, we could not find anything that hinted at broader cooperation," thereby falsely underhandedly suggesting that there was evidence of narrower cooperation, of which there was no evidence cited-and of which there is no evidence extant!.

Most of the rest of Benjamin's list of "...a few other reasons why I'm skeptical about a serious connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, are correct except for his suggestion that "Saddam has had weapons of mass destruction for decades." While he had chemical weapons for over a decade after we gave them to him, he destroyed most of them after the first Gulf War, in the mistaken belief that he would get his sanctions relieved and he could get back to business as usual, but primarily to get the bomb. He had discovered the limited use of Chemical weapons in the fact that he dared not use them in the first Gulf War unless we actually had followed his soldiers up into the trap he had prepared in Baghdad. But we did not follow in spite of his sacrificing a hundred thousand men as bait in his trap. A couple nuclear weapons on the other hand, at least one to threaten us to get out with and one to use on concentrations of our troops if we didn't get the message...

As the same source that revealed what Saddam had done with WoMDs told us, Saddam had destroyed all he had developed. Well, he kept around enough to control internal population, and he realized that he would have to get his bombs from the black market, Korea, etc., since the US, if Israel didn't do it first would, take out any facilities for building bombs. The best he could do was create some underground bunkers in which he set up a storage and launching depot that could take a direct nuclear counterstrike and still get his revenge.

But Benjamin is wrong where he asserts a negative answer to his question: "If [Saddam] had wanted to cause America grievous harm, wouldn't he have given al-Qaida or another group a chemical or biological weapon already?"

He has done so because he learned that those would do a state no good except to maintain internal control, and even then they might bring external reprisals. But mainly, he knew he didn't dare keep even the few of those that survived around because he wanted Bush to have no excuse to do what Bush is doing anyhow. His only weapons of mass destruction either he will use in a last desperate effort for revenge, or he was unable to get on the Russian/Ukrainian black market. No one knows.

Benjamin maintains the myth that Saddam "wants to achieve mastery of the Persian Gulf,...." Actually, he attacked Iran because he was Big Bush's boy in Baghdad and since the Company under Bush had brought him to power, he aimed to please. He attacked the Kurds because they were trying to rebel from his country. Likewise with Kuwait. Its Shia Moslems had long been a hotbed of dissatisfaction for their brothers in southern Iraq. Not only did Iraq have historical claims to Kuwait, Bush's Ambassador had indicated that the US would do nothing to stop him. Of course it turned out that that was just a ploy to get him to attack Kuwait and give Poppy Bush an excuse to reduce the glut of oil on the market that was depressing the price of oil and the profits of oil corporations for over a decade.

Of course, Saddam's back was to the wall the moment Bush said he was going to disarm Saddam. It did not take a fight on his hands to get him to give what he had left of chemical weapons and anthrax to anyone who would promise to use it on the US and Israel, as long as they would promise not to use it on him. That is a done deal. It can never change, all we can do is suffer from Bush's folly. If he had just let the UN give Iraq a chance to pump oil in spite of what it did to his buddies and contributors profits, all would have been OK. But the love of money is the root of this evil.