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JUDGE FINDS OSAMA-SADDAM LINK

By BRIAN BLOMQUIST
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July 12, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - A federal judge helping to rebuild Iraq's judicial system says he's come up with
an intriguing document linking Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden.

Federal appellate Judge Gilbert Merritt, who is currently in Iraq, said an Iraqi lawyer brought him documents
that included the name of an Iraqi officer in that country's embassy in Pakistan who was described as
"responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group."

"It seems to me to be strong proof that the two were in contact and conspiring to perform terrorist acts,"
Merritt, a Democrat and longtime family friend of Al Gore, wrote in a dispatch for The Tennesseean newspaper -
charges similar to those previously reported by The Weekly Standard.

"Until this time, I have been skeptical about these claims," wrote the Cincinnati-based judge. "Now I have
changed my mind."

Merritt, who was sent to Iraq by the Justice Department to help rebuild the country's judiciary, recounted the
strange history of how the intriguing document came to light.

He said an Iraqi lawyer recently brought him a Nov. 14, 2002, edition of a newspaper controlled by Saddam's
sadistic son Uday that included photos of Saddam, bin Laden, and a "List of Honor" - 600 names of "regime
persons," including all 55 of the wanted deck-of-card Iraqis.

The lawyer told Merritt that Uday had published the list to make the men more loyal, but Saddam hit the roof
when he saw it and sent his henchmen to confiscate the newspapers, even going door to door to force people to
turn them over. The lawyer had kept his copy.

On the list was the name of an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswood, who was based in
Pakistan and "responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group."

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