>>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.
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>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)

Deja vu. We had that with Miloshevich (who has more parallels to Hussein than you'd think - including the "Sloba, you Saddam" being shouted at the rallies against him). He has embraced nationalism when he thought he could attract the nationalist votes (and help), even though his once communist doctrine is strictly anti-nationalist. Then he embraced the Serbian Orthodox Church when he wanted an endorsement from the religious part of the population, and do I need to mention the communist stand on religion? He had pictures taken with the Patriarch, he even visited the Holy Mountain (on island of Atos, in Greece), though his media didn't quite mention that he landed there in a chopper, instead of going by boat and climbing the few hundred steps to get there, nor that the monks had afterwards scrubbed the cobbles in the yards where he tread.

Just a power tool. Recharge as needed.

>to better Iraq's stature among the other Mid-East states. Yesterday's enemies can become today's allies pretty quickly.
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>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.

From what I know of the Arab world, they pretty much feel they still are one huge country divided into local states, and many of Arabs feel they're visiting brothers (or at least brethren) when they're in another Arab country. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more such visits and talks - but that's why I question their relevance. The sides can be changed, alliances realigned, strange bedfellows put together on moment's notice. So anything that happened in the nineties may have gone sour, or any old grudge may have been healed with a new agreement. Just look at the OAU (Organization of Arab Unity, if I've correctly re-translated the title) - they were anything but united, from what I remember.

There's a Turkish proverb that we kept - "good day, main street, on all four sides". Meaning that in an oriental environment, one wants to keep connections with every major player, regardless of what one thinks of them. They may be needed once, and do not necessarily mean any actual involvement.