Charles Gibson of ABC: Saddam had no links to al Qaeda

In the latest categorical rejection of Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda Charlie Gibson said the following in an interview with President Bush:

Gibson: And that's the one thing that I question, whether people do have any sense of that. For loathsome as he may have been, Saddam Hussein was not connected to al Qaeda

This isn't just bias. It means that ABC isn't telling the truth now or wasn't telling the truth in some of their previous reporting.  Charles Gibson doesn't need to even go outside of his own network to find examples of Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda. 

Did he even bother?  On what grounds is he dismissing the evidence of links between the two sides?  Just a few examples of ABC's own reporting that contradict Gibson's hasty assertion can be found with a few moments of Google searching.

On March 23, 2006 ABC reported on the documents recovered in postwar Iraq that revealed that Saddam Hussein had personally approved of meetings with bin Laden and the two sides had (at least) agreed to cooperate on anti-Saudi propaganda and discuss joint operations against "foreign forces" (Americans) in Saudi Arabia.

In 1999, ABC reported numerous examples of Iraqi support for al Qaeda (video here) in a  segment where they also covered examples of Iraq's support for Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas and other wanted terrorists.

There is also ABC's report before the invasion about the buildup of al Qaeda forces in Northern Iraq, wholed up with Ansar al Islam.

Also prior to invasion, ABC's own Don Dahler interviewed a number of al Qaeda AND Baathist detainees at a Kurdish prison who detailed the cooperation between Saddam's IIS and al Qaeda members in Northern Iraq.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of links between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda (www.regimeofterror.com and www.husseinandterror.com are for that purpose) but simply by asking around at his own network Gibson could have realized that there's plenty of reason to think Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda.