Straw insists on Saddam's al-Qaida link

Staff and agencies
Wednesday February 5, 2003

The foreign secretary Jack Straw insisted today that Iraq was linked to al-Qaida, saying that Saddam Hussein allowed a "permissive environment" in which Osama bin Laden's organisation was able to operate.

I just don't get it. 'Permissive environment'? Isn't that a bit like the 'permissive environment' in the US, allowing al-Qaeda to actually learn how to fly a 767? Saddam just doesn't give a shit, basically, just as the whole west didn't give a shit pre-9/11. It's not as if these al-Qaeda operatives were anywhere else other than in the UK, US, Germany and France.

The flexibility of the notion of 'link' is what they're attempting to leverage an essentially spurious argument with.