ANDREW SULLIVAN WONDERS WHY Stephen F. Hayes’ story in the Weekly Standard about the Saddam / Al Qaeda connection isn’t getting more attention. I strongly suspect that a story of similar provenance that reflected badly on the Administration would be getting a lot more play.

In addition, a commenter over at Roger Simon’s points out this from Janet Reno’s Justice Department:

According to the indictment, bin Laden and al Qaeda forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the Government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah with the goal of working together against their common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.

“In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq,” the indictment said.

Interesting. Funny that everyone seems to be forgetting this stuff, now.

In case you missed it, here’s my earlier post on this topic, with various interesting links. And don’t miss this on Saddam, uranium, and Africa — with more links from the Clinton Administration.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Biddle emails:

Re Stephen Hayes’ Weekly Standard piece on the ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, I too have wondered why there wasn’t more media attention paid to what I considered quite a blockbuster. Of course, it’s true that it doesn’t reflect at all badly on the Bush administration, so that’s one reason. But there’s another. Remember a few weeks ago a “study” was released purporting to prove that those poor benighted individuals who watched Fox News “misunderstood” some things that NPR listeners and PBS watchers understood perfectly? One of those things was that we who watched Fox seemed to believe that there was some sort of connection between Saddam and UBL… while the enlightened knew perfectly well that there was no evidence of that.

He sends the link to that story, which describes the belief that Saddam and Al Qaeda worked together as a “misperception.” Hey, maybe the Fox viewers are paying attention to Janet Reno!