Ex-Saddam aide: Iraqi leader didn't partner with bin Laden

WASHINGTON - Tariq Aziz, a prominent member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, told the FBI that the dictator "delighted" in the 1998 terrorist bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, but had no interest in partnering with Osama bin Laden, declassified documents show.

"Saddam did not trust Islamists," the former Iraqi foreign minister said, according to handwritten notes of a June 27, 2004, interrogation, although he viewed al-Qaida as an "effective" organization.

The FBI notes are among hundreds of pages of interrogation records of top Iraqi officials, including Hussein, provided to the AP this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

While most of the Hussein records had been previously released, the National Security Archive, an independent research institute at George Washington University, said the FBI had previously refused to declassify Aziz's records.

The records are from an FBI operation code-named Desert Spider, which sought to compile evidence of the Hussein regime's war crimes and to test the theory that Hussein and his intelligence services had some form of cooperation with al-Qaida before the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The FBI had previously released summaries of its 20 sessions with Hussein, in which he denied any relationship with bin Laden but appeared to acknowledge that some Iraqi officials had met him.

More than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, suspicions Hussein might have secretly collaborated with al-Qaida or other terror groups remain central to the continuing debate over the wisdom of launching the war, which has cost more than 4,400 U.S. lives.

The administration of former President George W. Bush based its case for war in part on fears that Iraq might provide nuclear arms to al-Qaida for use against the United States.

No nuclear weapons - or any sign of an active nuclear program - have been found in postwar Iraq, and the Aziz interrogation records support arguments that while Hussein viewed the United States as his enemy, he was also hostile to al-Qaida and its radical religious ideology.

Aziz, 74, remains in Iraqi custody after being sentenced to 22 years in prison for crimes linked to his role in the former regime.

An Iraqi court tried Hussein on war crimes charges and sentenced him to death. He was hanged in December 2006.