The Gamut

The right wing nuts are all a-twitter over this story from the Weekly Standard:

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

Funny, the second Bush's illegal wire tapping was announced in a media outlet, Bush came forward to put his spin on it. In other words, he confessed to a crime after it appeared in the press, but he is strangely silent about this.

If I had to guess, this is what I would say happened here. There are pictures of Iraqis training what appear to be terrorists. However, in reality, it was some kind of guerilla training exercise. This supposedly happened back in the 90s. That was about the same time Iraq added the Koran quote to their flag. Hussein was trying to rouse Islamic religious sentiment and politicize it to his own advantage. It would not be surprising if he didn't add an element of Jihad to his tactical training. But that is not terrorist training.

Moreover, some of the soldiers may have ties to people who also trained with al Qaeda. Mercenaries do that sort of thing. Again, nothing to see here.