The former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has revealed links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda which have come to light from the archives of Saddam’s regime. He says that Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s number two, was summoned by Izza Ibrahim Al-Douri – then deputy head of the council of the leadership of the revolution in Iraq - to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress in 1999. He also says that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi entered Iraq secretly in the same period and began to form a terrorist cell.

In Allawi's view, Saddam's government 'sponsored' the birth of al-Qaeda in Iraq, coordinating with other terrorist groups, both Arab and Muslim. 'The Iraqi secret services had links to these groups through a person called Faruq Hajizi, later named Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and arrested after the fall of Saddam's regime as he tried to re-enter Iraq. Iraqi secret agents helped terrorists enter the country and directed them to the Ansar al-Islam camps in the Halbija area,' he said.

The former prime minister claims that Saddam's regime sought to involve even Palestinian Abu Nidal - head of a group once considered the world's most dangerous terrorist organisation - in its terrorist circuit. Abu Nidal's organisation was responsible for terrorist attacks in some 20 countries, killing more than 300 people and wounding hundreds more. He added that Abu Nidal's refusal to cooperate with Islamist groups was the reason for his death in Iraq, in the summer of 2002.

Allawi is but the latest to attest to the links between Saddam and al Qaeda, a relationship the existence of which has always been denied with religious fervour by the anti-war crowd who claim furthermore that Saddam posed ‘no terrorist threat’ at all to anyone outside his own country.

So now let’s all look at how this is reported in the mainstream media...