Oh, so NOW they trust CNN

More on Iraq/al Qaeda from B4B. The post is short enough to quote the whole thing, but I dislike doing that. So here we go. "Captain Ed" quotes two articles, both pulled from Instapundit. One of them is from CNN:

February 13, 1999 Web posted at: 10:55 a.m. EST (1547 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire accused by the United States of plotting bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, has left Afghanistan, Afghan sources said Saturday.

Bin Laden's whereabouts were not known, said the sources who declined to be identified. ...

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers. [emph. mine -- C.E.]

Then another one from The Guardian:

By Julian Borger in Washington Saturday February 6, 1999 The Guardian

Saddam Hussein's regime has opened talks with Osama bin Laden, bringing closer the threat of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to US intelligence sources and Iraqi opposition officials.
The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad's ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam's most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq.

First off, as CNN reported three days later, bin Laden likely didn't leave Afghanistan. Next, these articles don't really prove that much. There's still no real evidence of any collaboration (or even bin Laden actually going to Iraq, though there is this) and the 9/11 commission made this statement:

There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occured after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.

Ed says:

So the geniuses on the 9/11 Commission have all the power of the federal government at their disposal and can't even do a Lexis-Nexis search? And if the commissioners are idiots, what does that say for CNN and the Guardian, who have acted incredulous at the notion of Iraqi-AQ collaboration?

I'm not entirely sure why Ed feels that a CNN article supercedes the intelligence reports the 9/11 commission has access to.