>I've read it. The report is, undoubtedly, big enough to be able to find a few scraps to support this sort of conclusion. The relevance of these contacts, however, is doubtful, IMO. Even the quotes, specially in the first two paragraphs, sound contradictory. First, "Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan", and then "In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces." - unclear, whether we have three players here (islamists, Kurds, Iraqi army) or two (with islamists being with Kurds against Hussein).
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>Therefore, it's an opinion, as you say.

Hussein was trying to re-invent himself as a champion of Islam (which in itself is kind of curious, as it was a secular regime) to better Iraq's stature among the other Mid-East states. Yesterday's enemies can become today's allies pretty quickly.

The point is that the commission thought enough of the evidence to include it in the report. You are, of course, free to interpret it any way you choose.

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>BTW, the choice of books they advertise is very interesting.

It's a hard-core conservative site, I'll grant you that.