Today another “revelation” from Saddam Hussein’s files is spreading like kudzu all over the Right Blogosphere. Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard reports here that “Saddam Hussein’s regime provided financial support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s.”

Yes, it’s bogus. Judd at Think Progress explains why.

For anyone who came in late — the Mahablog Junk Intelligence Archives thus far:

March 16 — “Jeez, Righties Are So Gullible”

March 17 — “Blarney”

“Junk Intelligence”

March 18 — “Good Jokes”

“I Wish I’d Seen This Sooner”

Update: See Cernig.

Juan Cole:

The Bush administration repeatedly made the presence in Iraq of Abu Musab Zarqawi a pretext for invading the country and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. They implied that he was a client of Saddam and that Saddam had arranged for hospital care for him.

Newly released documents from the captured Iraqi archives show that Saddam had put out an APB for Zarqawi and was trying to have him arrested as a danger to the Baath regime!

And, as I said, we already knew Zarqawi was in Iraq. But he was in a part of Iraq protected from Saddam Hussein’s control.