London's Telegraph says that they have found proof that Saddam had connections to bin Laden. I first read about this when it was posted to Indymedia last night, and a few people on that site found reason to question the legitimacy of this report, particularly with this paragraph from the article I linked:

"Perhaps aware of the sensitivities of the subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask out all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid. The dried fluid was removed to reveal the clearly legible name three times in the documents."

OK, so let me get this straight: Iraqi officials, who knew that there was a chance files like this could be found, USED WHITE OUT to protect the sensitivity of the documents? Wouldn't anybody with a brain simply DESTROY the documents?

This reports reeks of being fraudulent. The "white out" thing gets me, but what I also notice is how nobody even wants to mention that Saddam and Osama might not make the best of buddies, and given the fact that Osama is fundamentalist, he would probably rather see Saddam killed for, among other things, ruling over a secular society, not adhering to proper dress (beard, robes, turbin, etc.), consuming alcohol, not to mention Saddam's deadly repression of other Muslim groups (the Shia to the south, Kurds in the north). Are we expected to believe that Saddam and Osama were golfing buddies?

It's also worth noting that the same person who owns the Telegraph also owns the Jerusalem Post, a paper whose editorial point of view leans to the right.

This is crap. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody completely made up this story.