Claim al Qaida 'planted evidence'

[ECH1969]

A senior al Qaida operative deliberately planted evidence to encourage the United States into war against Iraq, it has been claimed.

The extraordinary allegation is made by a man who reportedly spent seven years inside the al Qaida terror network working as a spy for European intelligence agencies.

Omar Nasiri - not his real name - makes the claim, which is bound to re-ignite the controversy over the war, in an interview with the BBC's Newsnight programme.

http://uknews.newsquest.co.uk/index.phtml?id=598276&area=bradford

[Parche]

1. Al-Kida

So the CIA planted evidence to make the US go to war???

[Xipe Totec]

5. LOL!

:rofl:

[NoodleyAppendage]

8. Actually...that might be plausible. US intervention has been a boon for recruiting.

Bin Laden has stated numerous times prior to the war his willingness to engage the US on his turf. Having the US in the Middle East has been a wonderful recruiting tool for the terrorists and has actually served to strengthen Bin Laden's hand. So, in my mind, this report is plausible. Bin Laden is no fool.

J

[ret5hd]

2. THEY TRICKED US!!!!

Them dagnasty tricksters! That's what they are! Tricksters! Tricksters, I tell ya!

[Bucky]

3. I don't see al-Qaeda as being in quite the same mold as, say, Bugs Bunny.

But that said, they do seem to have the same tastes in enemies.

Rumsfeld

Cheney

[oblivious]

10. Aw, dem dawn tewwowists just don't pway faiw.

[StrictlyRockers]

12. Shhhh, be vewwwy qwiet. I'm hunting Senators....err, I mean wabbits. n/t

[frylock]

4. cough*BULLSHIT*cough

give me a fuggin break. There was NO EVIDENCE to go to war. PERIOD.

[Eugene]

6. What evidence was there to be planted?

The article is a teaser and it lacks specifics.

Bush & Co. were dead set on invading Iraq even before 9/11.
In their case for war, they eagerly cited now-discredited
"evidence" that went nowhere near al-Qaeda's operatives.
The only real exception was (dis)information extracted
by torture from a captured al-Qaeda leader.

If nothing was found, what could al-Qaeda have planted?
Al-Qeada doesn't have to be that clever to outsmart Bush.

(edit for grammar)

[ebayfool]

17. So does this mean the dumbarses didn't find the easter egg that OBL

hid in plain sight for them?

Now that's reeealllly plumbing the depths of incompetence!

Nah ... *ush can go lower than that - they need to try again!

[democracyindanger]

7. Niger forgery mebbe? nt

[LynnTheDem]

15. bush was forced to admit the yellowcake bullshit was bullshit BEFORE

he invaded Iraq, so it would seem too stupid even for bush to try saying the Niger forgery discovered as a forgery before he invaded made him invade.

[mhatrw]

9. Sure. Just like the cops did to OJ. n/t

[drb]

11. I think we should run with this: "...and Bush was such an idiot, he FELL FOR IT!"

nt

[AlCzervik]

13. so Ahmed Chalabi is friends with Al-quaeda so that must mean his neocon

friends must be friends with them as well.

[LynnTheDem]

14. 'Tis peculiar then how most the entire world said HELL NO to bush's bullshit.

And how most the entire world's experts -including ours and even bush's own- said NO PROOF.

Peculiar too how even so many REPUBLICANS and US MILITARY brains said DON'T DO IT, there is NO PROOF for anything bush spewed.

And gee. They were right.

bush was lying.

But the "al Qaeda made us do it by tricking us!" is GREAT if ya want the US to be The #1 World Laughingstock for generations.

Otherwise, my gawd how fucking humiliating this bullshit is.

[daleo]

16. It is easy to trick someone into doing what they wanted to do anyway

I don't believe this story, but it doesn't let Bush off the hook. He ignored and twisted his own intelligence, so Al-Qaeda is irrelevant.

[CJCRANE]

18. The BBC is being used by the Blairites

to sow neocon disinfo. It's upsetting how far they've fallen.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Unlikely, since the programme was very critical of the UK security services

That Press Association story has just pulled one small part out of it.

UK 'ignored spy's al-Qaeda fear'

UK intelligence services were warned of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the mid-90s but did not act quickly enough, says a spy who infiltrated the network.

The agent told the BBC he warned his handlers that al-Qaeda was better organised than was previously thought.
...
But the details given by the agent, who worked for both the French and British intelligence services, showed that "people were not necessarily looking at those global interconnections".
...
The spy also said that to maintain his cover the French and UK services reluctantly gave him money to pass to al-Qaeda, and he did not know how the money was spent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6155902.stm?ls

And note the unreliablity of the al-Libi claims was suspected by the DIA in early 2002:

Postwar findings support the DIA February 2002 assessment that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was likely intentionally misleading his debriefers when he said that Iraq provided two al-Qa'ida associates with chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training in 2000...Postwar findings do not support the CIA's assessment that his reporting was credible...No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war...CIA's January 2003 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism described al-Libi's reporting for CBW training "credible", but noted that the individuals who traveled to Iraq for CBW training had not returned, so al-Libi was not in position to know if the training had taken place...In January 2004, al-Libi recanted his allegations about CBW training and many of his other claims about Iraq's links to al Qa'ida. He told debriefers that, to the best of his knowledge, al-Qa'ida never sent any individuals into Iraq for any kind of support in chemical or biological weapons. Al-libi told debriefers that he fabricated information while in U.S. custody to receive better treatment and in response to threats of being transferred to a foreign intelligence service which he believed would torture him...He said that later, while he was being debriefed by a (REDACTED) foreign intelligence service, he fabricated more information in response to physical abuse and threats of torture. The foreign government service denies using any pressure during al-Libi's interrogation. In February 2004, the CIA reissued the debriefing reports from al-Libi to note that he had recanted information. A CIA officer explained that while CIA believes al-Libi fabricated information, the CIA cannot determine whether, or what portions of, the original statements or the later recants are true of false.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Shaykh_al-Libi

[CJCRANE]

21. Smacks of Condi's "no one could have imagined..." excuse.

To be honest I know much more about US awareness during the Clinton era. It seems that towards the late 90's the Clinton administration became fully aware that al-Qaeda was a major threat (and passed this info onto the Bush admin).

Whether the British were as clued up as the US at this time I don't know (less FOIA, whistleblowers etc in UK so harder to tell) but I for one don't trust the timing of this programme or the possible agenda behind it.

[Behind the Aegis]

19. Very plausible.

I could see this being the case. They knew that the Bush administration was looking for an excuse, Hell, Bush all but gave what the excuse was. So, the idea that they planted evidence, knowing that the un-curious Bush administration would never take the time to verify it, makes sense to me. Basically this "news" lets the world what many of us already knew, if you want to play a violin, know how to use a bow!

[krkaufman]

22. Guardian: Al-Qaida 'planted information to encourage US invasion'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1949927,00.html

Al-Qaida 'planted information to encourage US invasion'
Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian

A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.

...

Libi was captured in November 2001 and taken to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured. Asked on BBC2's Newsnight whether Libi or other jihadists would have told the truth if they were tortured, Nasiri replies: "Never".

...

It is known that under interrogation, Libi misled Washington. His claims were seized on by George Bush, vice-president, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell, secretary of state, in his address to the security council in February, 2003, which argued the case for a pre-emptive war against Iraq.

Though he did not name Libi, Mr Powell said "a senior terrorist operative" who "was responsible for one of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan" had told US agencies that Saddam Hussein had offered to train al-Qaida in the use of "chemical or biological weapons".

So, not only might al Qaeda have planted the information, we have 2 examples of where torture produced bad intelligence, as predicted, and has now lead to over half a million deaths.

I would think that deliberate use of information extracted through torture, to lead the country to war, would fall within the "high crimes or misdemeanors" classification.

[aquart]

23. With George, the list is so very, very, very long.

And it ain't stopped growing.

[truthisfreedom]

24. this is rich.

it's just what we expected from this maladministration.

[SutaUvaca]

25. So, Monkeyboy and his team,

who thought they were smarter than their intel agencies,
were played for chumps.
No longer will I call * the Chimperator.
From now on he shall be known as the Chumpster.

[krkaufman]

26. This angle is not discussed enough... and not NEARLY enough ...

... prior to passage of the "torture bill", the Military (War Crime) Commissions Act.

The Bush Administration tortured prisoners, and used this ill-gotten misinformation, along with cherry-picking from the intelligence tree, to mislead the country into invading Iraq.

[RaleighNCDUer]

28. And how does this fit in with * planning to overthrow Saddam

long before 9/11 ever happened? Before we were picking up and torturing terror suspects?

[let us vote]

29. kick

[genieroze]

27. "snort"

:spray: