If You Wanna Know The Players, You Gotta Have A Program

Saddam Hussein saw al-Qaida as a threat. It doesn't take a rocket or political scientist to make sense of that. Al-Qaida is a pretty nasty group with some rather distinct and severe philosophies. Their stated objective is the elimination of foreign influence in Muslim countries. They're not always polite about how they go about this, however. Osama bin Laden first took interest in Iraq when the country invaded Kuwait in 1990 (giving rise to concerns the secular, socialist Baathist government of Iraq might next set its sights on Saudi Arabia, homeland of bin Laden and of Islam itself). In a letter sent to King Fahd, he offered to send an army of Mujahideen to defend Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden viewed Iraq as an enemy - in 1990. But since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," one might argue or suspect (there's lots of that going on) that the moods and allegiances would change like the desert wind. Okay, how about this: An October 2005 CIA assessment that before the war, Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates. As recently as an August 21 news conference, President Pinhead said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi." You'll have to imagine it, since it never really happened.
So, maybe an oppressive regime is an oppressive regime. It's not hard to imagine the lunch meetings that al-Zarqawi could have had with Saddam as they discussed the infidels. But eventually they'd have to get down to specifics, and I'm guessing that their common ground turned out to be more limited than one might have suspected. So they went their separate ways, promising to keep in touch - "Death to America," they shouted as they pulled out of the driveway.
But we went ahead and invaded Iraq anyway. It's like we can all agree that having a big, feral cat in your house would be a bad thing, but once you chased it out the rats with rabies showed up because there was no feral cat to keep them away. Oh, and it's not our house, by the way.