the question is, is there any actual evidence? powell and tenet think so, or at least are saying so:

'Mr. Powell seized on a new audiotape believed to be of Osama bin Laden, urging Muslims to help Baghdad defend itself against an American attack, as evidence that the Qaeda leader was "in partnership with Iraq."'

having recently discussed the history between osama and saddam -- and it's not friendly -- it's difficult to resist the conclusion that bin laden has changed his tune for a reason. which reason, you ask? how about this: if the united states attacks iraq (or participates in an attack), it will be reviled in the arab world, ensuring a nearly endless supply of "qaeda recruits" and "qaeda cells" and "qaeda operatives" just like the ones we'd by trying to eradicate with an attack. clever, huh?

if iraq is actively supporting al qaeda (a 'fact,' by the way, of which no one can be sure), that sucks. if the united states then kills a lot of people trying either to root out the al qaeda connection or somehow to punish the country for harboring, that sucks too. that sucks more, in fact, because by doing so we will have assured the active wrath not only of people who are already involved in terrorism but of people who now merely sympathize, vaguely, with anti-american sentiment. leave it to the invented justifications of american hawks to make a bad situation infinitely worse.