I'd seen another story about this, and didn't get around to posting on it. Ken Layne was more diligent over at Fox News today.

Saddam has given a pay raise to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Other than that, there's no known connection between the Iraq regime and terrorism. Well, if you ignore the Prague meeting. And...

But I guess Chris Matthews thinks that it's OK to pay people to murder civilians, as long as they're just Israeli civilians.

So are the Palestinian suicide bombers somehow a threat to the US (or in my case Britain)? Is the Palestinian conflict an example of international (as opposed to domestic) terrorism?

Surely the behaviour of Saddam towards Israel is as much concern to the rest of the world as America's harbouring and funding of Irish terrorists?

While I'd like to see the IRA fundraising shut down over here (it's difficult, since we live in a free society, and this is private activity), this is not an equivalent situation. The US government does not willfully encourage Republican terrorism by handing out benefits to dead IRA members' families. I'm offended by the comparison.

And when you have one government (Iraq) actively supporting terrorism to bring down another (Israel) by funding terrorist, I'd say, yes, that "international terrorism," by definition.

If Saddam is willing to openly fund Palestinian terrorists, why should we think that he's reticent about funding American operatives? Any government that does something like this (particularly post September 11) becomes a potential candidate for replacement.