NEW YORK-LONDON-AMMAN: Since the aftermath of Sept 11, it has been the Holy Grail of Bush administration hardliners: to link Iraq with Al Qaeda — and join up its war on terrorism with its policy of regime change in Baghdad.

Last week it was promised again, first by President George Bush in his State of the Union address and later by Tony Blair, who said he “knew” of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. US Secretary of State Colin Powell says those links will be revealed this week. But with only weeks before the expected outbreak of war, skeptics are asking how real — and how new — the evidence of that link will be.

But the question that remains unresolved is whether there is any evidence that Saddam is involved with Al Qaeda. The answer is likely to devolve to two lines of investigation — both of which, Bush administration officials will say, lead directly from Saddam to Al Qaeda.

The first connection, Powell is certain to allege, is a one-legged Jordanian wounded in the allied bombing of Afghanistan, who the Bush administration will argue is that missing link.

He is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Stories about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have been carefully fed to the media, suggesting his key role as the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam. Most of them have been unsourced. And all have been dismissed by those who have followed the career of this veteran of the global jihad, who was fighting for Islam long before the world had heard of Osama bin Laden and whose Al Qaeda credentials have, in part, been created to fulfil the agendas of those who want him for other reasons. So it is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who is credited with being Al Qaeda’s chemist-in-chief — an expert in weapons of mass destruction. It is Abu, too, who is credited with being the mastermind behind a plot to use ricin to poison food at a British military base and other Allied military sites across Europe.

So what is known about his career? According to Jordanian intelligence Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan in late 2001, first to Iran, from where he was expelled, and finally found refuge in Baghdad, where he received treatment for his wounds and had his leg amputated. It was while he was in Baghdad that his phone calls home were intercepted by the Jordanians and passed to US colleagues.

Jordan’s interest in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is twofold. Jordan has named him as being behind the killing of US aid official Lawrence Foley, 60, last October, on the basis of the confessions of two involved in the killing who say al-Zarqavi supplied them with weapons and money for attacks.

There is a second version of the al-Zarqawi story, supplied by German intelligence. Here his real name is Ahmed al-Kalaylah. They say he is Al Qaeda’s combat commander, appointed to orchestrate attacks on Europe, and place him among the top 25 in the Al Qaeda hierarchy.

Each version could have elements of truth but both are at odds with the facts known about his career. According to jihadists who knew him in Afghanistan, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s CV is less interesting than some make out.

They say that, despite fighting in the CIA-backed war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, he does not adhere to the ideology of Al Qaeda, a view shared by the CIA. Indeed, his name does not figure on its list of the 22 most-wanted “Muslim terrorists” and he has never been mentioned in the list of senior Al Qaeda men in Osama’s bin Laden’s entourage in Afghanistan.

So why has Abu Musab al-Zarqawi suddenly been elevated to the position of a senior Osama lieutenant? The answer, say some, is that the Jordanians need a figure like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to clamp down on their own extremists. One London-based Muslim said: ”If you want the key to the Abu story, then look at the source of the information. The Jordanians have wanted their own Osama bin Laden figure for some time and he fits the profile.”

If the link to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is at best circumstantial, the second connection that the Bush administration apparently plans to develop is equally tendentious. That connection is to the Al Ansar group, which like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is also sheltering in Kurdish northern Iraq. The leader of this group, also expected to be name checked by Powell this week, is Mullah Krekar, who remains at large, living unmolested by the authorities in Norway.

Unlike Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Krekar can speak for himself. “I can say to you that this is not true that I am a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda,” Krekar, 47, said in an interview in Saturday’s Los Angeles Times. “I will wait until Wednesday, and if Powell says anything against me, I can use documents to prove it is not true. Everything: that we have chemical bombs, [ties to] Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, all of those things.”

Despite claims by US officials that he is a terrorist specifically linked to Al Qaeda, they also admit they do not have the evidence to charge him, despite two interviews with the FBI.

“I told the FBI, “I can come to America and prove it’s not true in your court”,” said Krekar. Krekar also purports to puncture another alleged US link between his group and Saddam — via fellow al-Ansar leader, Abu Wael, who is accused of being an Iraqi intelligence liaison to the group. Krekar scoffs at the claim alleging, to the contrary, that Iraqi agents tried to poison Wael in 1992 and would kill him if they could. Krekar adds what many in the intelligence community claim: “Our aim has always been the toppling of the Iraqi Baath regime.”

Which leaves us with what?

Veteran CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, who heads the National Security Project and maintains contacts with former colleagues, summarizes what many in the intelligence community on both sides of the Atlantic believe.

“I’ve talked to my sources at the CIA,” he said last week, ”and all of them are saying the evidence (of a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam] is simply not there.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.