While bin Laden continued to oppose Saddam's Baathist government, he was also vocal in criticizing the U.N.Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the former head of the Saudi intelligence agency Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah, noted of bin Laden: "I saw radical changes in his personality as he changed from a calm, peaceful and gentle man interested in helping Muslims into a person who believed that he would be able to amass and command an army to liberate Kuwait. The presence of American troops in the Arabian peninsula after the end of the Gulf War became, for bin Laden, a key piece of evidence that the U.S. The Saudi royal family's decision to seek help from American troops rather than from bin Laden's jihadists is considered a turning point in bin Laden's life. In response to the perceived threat to Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden offers to bring an army of jihadist fighters to protect the kingdom against Saddam. This guy can never be trusted." Batarfi himself went on to say about bin Laden: "He doesn't believe is a Muslim. According to Batarfi, Bin Laden had said, "We should train our people, our young and increase our army and prepare for the day when eventually we are attacked. During an interview with Peter Bergen, Khaled Batarfi, an old friend of Osama bin Laden, said that bin Laden had already predicted Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and had begun preparations for war against Saddam.During this lecture he spoke against Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party by warning his listeners about Saddam's expansionist ambitions in the Middle East. According to the sworn testimony of al-Qaeda member Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali in 2001, Osama bin Laden delivered a lecture in Pakistan in 1988.2.4.3 Starting in 1995, Salman Pak, Iraq.They say the revelation undermines the basis on which the US went to war in Iraq. Opposition Democrats are accusing the White House of deliberate deception. One instance of this reaction was reported in a BBC news article, which stated: The result of the publication of the Senate report was the belief that the entire connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda was an official deception based on cherry picking specific intelligence data that bolstered the case for war with Iraq regardless of its reliability. Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support. The Intelligence Community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al'Qa'ida and Iraq. Postwar findings have identified two occasions, not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative. Postwar findings have identified only one meeting between representatives of al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime reported in prewar intelligence assessments. In 2006, a report of postwar findings by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that: While there have been a number of promising intelligence leads hinting at possible meetings between al-Qaeda members and elements of the former Baghdad regime, nothing has been yet shown demonstrating that these potential contacts were historically any more significant than the same level of communication maintained between Osama bin Laden and ruling elements in a number of Iraq's Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, and Kuwait. In 2003, American terrorism analyst Evan Kohlman said in an interview: This article is a chronological listing of allegations of meetings between members of al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government, as well as other information relevant to conspiracy theories involving Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
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