Claudia Rosett notes another Saddam-Al Qaeda connection. Lileks explains why the story won't make it as big as it should.

I’m waiting for the oil-for-food / oil-for-palaces / oil-for-TotalFinaElf /oil-for-terror story to go mainstream. And I don’t think it will. The big papers may do a round-up; the smaller papers may use a few grafs in their international coverage; USA Today might do something, but in the end it’ll be chalked up to bureaucratic fumbling and inefficiency. If context is required, the reporter will bring up Tyco and Enron: a lesson about Bigness and Accountability, etc.

Let’s say Saddam’s bribes ended up in a bank in the Caymans, and Dick Cheney had been on that bank’s board in 1999. Would the allegation of such a transfer be a story? Damn straight. As it should be. So if Claudia’s story doesn’t hit your hometown paper this week, you might ask why. And I can answer the question.

If it’s not on the AP or NYT wire, it didn’t happen.