NYT: Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

[grytpype]

Wow, the NYT has a serious case of the BALLS tomorrow morning.

Those of us who rely on the blogs for news knew about this weeks ago but it's just now hitting the NYT. Seems that some of the bogus intel Bush cited to link Iraq and Al Qaeda was obtained by torture in an Egyptian interrogation session.

The hits just keep on coming for Dub. Prediction: a year from today he will be under serious pressure to resign the Presidency.

http://nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html?hp&ex=1134104400&en=6d17d434a1d2e517&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: December 9, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.

(much more at link, read the whole thing)

[PSPS]

1. Why, of course! It's Friday!

[seafan]

2. Al Franken talked about this on his show this week on AAR.

And the hits just keep on coming for these criminals. And it is only the beginning.

[tocqueville]

3. Al-Libby, alibi sorry couldn't help it.. n/t

[kysrsoze]

4. An absolutely disgusted kick and recommend.

[tmooses]

5. Maybe they should have listened to those in the CIA who kept repeating

how unreliable info from torture is. But, in truth, does anybody think that it made any difference what Libi said anyway? They were determined to invade Iraq no matter what.

[EFerrari]

6. Well, this story restores my faith in the NYT

completely. :sarcasm:

[Tamarin]

7. Why isn't Bush supremely angry about this and why isn't he

demanding an investigation?! Oh, wait, never mind.

[usregimechange]

8. Implications on torture use, i.e. foreign outsourced

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.

[DaveColorado]

9. Kick and rec

[rodeodance]

20. lots of goodies in this story.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. BushCo didn't care whether or not the infomation was valid

or reliable. They just needed an al-libi to make their case for war.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. God dammit.

I want to hear the fucking chimp explain THIS one.

[greenman3610]

13. of course, he'll never be asked to explain

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. Right.

When's the last time he had an honest-to-God press conference?

[ClayZ]

12. In-terror-gate! Plame-gate! bu$h and his GATES to hell! n/t

[rodeodance]

15. the CIA will not comment on this story. Has anyone heard it on the 'news"

While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.

Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.

The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week.

Mr. Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Mr. Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Mr. Libi's case remain classified.

* 1
* 2

[rodeodance]

16. McCain& others said that if torture a person-they will say what you want

to hear. This story is proof of that.

[rodeodance]

17. and the hope the media brights is factor to light.

[rodeodance]

18. Sen. Levin wants more classifies docs.

.....The question of why the administration relied so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi has long been a subject of contention. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last month unclassified passages from the February 2002 document, which said it was probable that Mr. Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."

The document showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified Mr. Libi as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons.

Mr. Levin has since asked the agency to declassify four other intelligence reports, three of them from February 2002, to see if they also expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Levin said he could not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Libi's detention because the matter was classified.

[rodeodance]

19. Recommend.

[sattahipdeep]

21. National Security Strategy

The Bush administration, however, has asserted almost unlimited
powers to make war. In its National Security Strategy of the United
States, issued in 2002, it claimed the right to launch preventive wars
simply on the basis of the belief in a threat of possible future danger.

Condoleezza Rice, then national security advisor, put it this way, "As a
matter of common sense, the United States must be prepared to take
action, when necessary, before threats have fully materialized." :puke:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL08Ak02.html

[Che_Nuevara]

22. That's an easy question to answer:

It was corroboration, not evidence. They were going to carpet-bomb the hell out of the country anyway.


(P.S. recommended)

[happydreams]

23. Now I know why they want to make torture OK.

It's the only way to get somebody to tell you lies that you want to hear. :crazy:

[Up2Late]

24. NPR Interviewed the NYT author today about this, the guy sounds like...

...(or at least has the voice of) a 1950's Hollywood Private eye. Kudos Doug.

Here's the link:

Suspect Fabricated Story of Al Qaeda, Iraq Links

Listen to this story...(at link above)

All Things Considered, December 9, 2005 · New York Times reporter Douglas Jehl discusses the case of Libyan captive Ibn al-Shaykh al Libi, an al Qaeda member who told investigators about ties between al Qaeda and Iraq while he was held in Egyptian custody under the process known as rendition.

Jehl says that Libi later recanted his story -- that al Qaeda members had been sent to Iraq for weapons training -- and told U.S. authorities that he had fabricated his accounts to avoid harsh treatment.

The Bush Administration cited much of Libi's original story in the run-up to the war in Iraq, according to Jehl.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5046828>