Iraqi document links Saddam to bin Laden

An American judge helping to rebuild Iraq’s judicial system says he has found an officially published document linking Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden.

Gilbert Merritt, a federal appellate judge working in Iraq, says an Iraqi lawyer provided him a published list that identified an officer in the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan who was “responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.”

Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday, had signed the document, which lists 600 members of the old regime’s inner circle. One of those members was the intelligence officer, Abid Al-Kareem Muhamed Aswod.

“It seems to me to be strong proof that the two were in contact and conspiring to commit terrorist acts,” Merritt, a native of Nashville, wrote in his hometown newspaper The Tennessean. Merritt writes occasional dispatches from Iraq for the paper.

The Iraqi list had been printed on November 14, 2002, in a political newspaper published by Uday Hussein, and over Uday’s signature. The impulsive and unbalanced Uday is said to have published the list to expose the inner circle and thereby ensure their loyalty by forcing them to stick together as the regime faced imminent American and British attack. Saddam reportedly was angry at the security breach, and had as many copies of the newspaper as possible confiscated within hours of its printing.

“I believe that President Bush was right when he alleged that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama and was coordinating activities with him,” Judge Merritt wrote. “It does not prove that they engaged together in any particular act of terror against the United States. But it seems to me to be strong proof that the two were in contact and conspiring to perform terrorist acts.”

Judge Merritt is no mouthpiece of the Bush administration. A lifelong Democrat and longtime family friend of former Vice President Al Gore, Merritt said, “Until this time, I had been skeptical about these claims.”

“Now I have changed my mind.”