The London Sunday Telegraph ran a potentially monumental story on December 14: "Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam," by Con Coughlin

* The London Sunday Telegraph ran a potentially monumental story on December 14: "Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam," by Con Coughlin. Coughlin reports that Iraq's provisional government has obtained a memo to Saddam from Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, his former head of intelligence, dated July 1, 2001, on Mohamed Atta's activities during a three-day stay in Baghdad.

Habbush said that Atta was understudying with one of Saddam's many guests, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, and displaying "extraordinary effort": He would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy." Two months later, Atta destroyed the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Some time before the American invasion of Iraq, Nidal was murdered in Baghdad, perhaps to cover Saddam's tracks. The images of Saddam as hobo would naturally have driven this story below the fold of page one, but shouldn't it have gotten some significant coverage? (Kudos to bloggers and to columnist William Safire for tugging it across the Atlantic.)