PUTIN

Those who are trying to guess which foreign leaders are supporting Kerry can probably rule out Vladimir Putin. Bettering last week's statement that Democrats had "no moral right" to criticize President Bush, Putin has now said that Saddam Hussein was planning to launch terrorist attacks within the continental US:

"After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said.

After the saturation about the 9-11 commission's finding of "no credible evidence" linking Saddam and Al-Qaida this works in favor of the Bush team (or it would if it gets any media coverage).

Putin doesn't suggest any Al-Qaida link, although he didn't explicitly rule them out either.

Whether or not Saddam was linked to Al-Qaida has little relevance to me personally. He was after all linked to Ansar al-Islam, Hamas, Abu Nidal and other nasty murderers (both Arab nationalist and Islamofascist), so getting rid of the man's regime was a part of the war on terror. And even if there wasn't an Iraq-Qaida link, it's also something Clinton was also wrong about).