bin Laden/Saddam ties uncovered in 1998.

Thanks to Hotbot, I could do a search for "'Osama bin Laden', 'Saddam Hussein'" that returned only results published prior to September 10, 2001.
 
Here's one result: 
 

 

Excerpted from: ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT-ERRI Risk Assessment Services-Tuesday, January 5, 1998-Vol. 5, No. 005

TERRORISM/POLITICAL VIOLENCE

NEW YORK CITY (EmergencyNet News) - Newsweek magazine is reporting in its current edition that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is joining forces with Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden to launch a joint terror counter- strike against the United States and Britain. Saddam is said to be reaching out to the terrorist mastermind hoping to tap into bin Laden's network of terrorists.

An Arab intelligence expert, reported to know Saddam personally, told the magazine that: "very soon, you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity by the Iraqis." The source claims that the joint attacks would be aimed primarily at U.S. and British targets in the Islamic world.

According to U.S. intelligence sources cited by the magazine, the contacts between Saddam and bin Laden have so far been limited to lower-level agents. An alliance would match Saddam's weapons - including easy-to-hide biological agents - and bin Laden's force of terrorists. Bin Laden is known to covet Iraq's alleged biological and chemical weapons.

ERRI analysts said on Tuesday that they believe that Iraq may attempt to justify the aforementioned terrorism campaign by continually provoking U.S. and British warplanes in confrontatations involving the so-called "no-fly" zones. At least one expert says that Mr. Hussein and his propaganda machine have been portraying recent air-defense engagements as "continued aggression" by the U.S. and telling the Iraqi people and potential Arab allies that they have continually been "at war" since Operation Desert Fox.

And this from 2/17/1999:

Saddam plans to use Laden’s network?

KUWAIT, Feb 17 (AFP) — Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein plans to use alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden’s network to carry out his threats against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, an Iraqi Opposition figure charged today.

"If the threats are carried out, they will be implemented by groups of Arab Afghans whom Saddam Hussein is sheltering, in the form of bomb attacks," Mr Bayan Jaber told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam.

Mr Jaber, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said Iraq had "offered to shelter Bin Laden under the precondition that he carry out strikes on targets in the neighbouring countries."

But an exiled Saudi dissident has said the Bin Laden, who has been missing from his base in Afghanistan, would never seek refuge in secular Iraq on ideological grounds.
"I think Bin Laden would keep quiet or fight till death rather than seek asylum in Iraq," the London-based dissident, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

Iraq has since Sunday levelled threats at Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for allowing their air bases to be used by US and British warplanes enforcing a no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

The air patrols have since December triggered several clashes in which US warplanes have targeted Iraq’s air defences and other installations.