posted on November 6, 2005 07:22:07 AM new
If you can't trust a terrorist who can you trust?
By Douglas Jehl
New York Times News Service
Published November 6, 2005
WASHINGTON -- A high Al Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of an intelligence document.
The Defense Intelligence Agency report from February 2002 said it was probable that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."
The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by U.S. intelligence agencies about al-Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials repeatedly cited al-Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.
The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said the evidence of early doubts about al-Libi's statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence.
A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the report.
The intelligence document would have circulated widely within the government and would have been available to the CIA, the White House, the Pentagon and other agencies.
In outlining reasons for its skepticism, the DIA report noted that al-Libi's claims lacked details about the Iraqis involved, the illicit weapons used and where the training was to have taken place.
"It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers," the report said. "Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest."
Powell relied heavily on accounts provided by al-Libi in his speech to the UN Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, saying he was tracing "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda."
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 6, 2005 09:29:11 AM new
The New York Times..LOL...theres a newspaper that has creditability<gigantic eyeroll>-sounds like the whole article was just an alibi.
posted on November 6, 2005 09:43:15 AM new
Yep, the NYT sure has lost a TON of credibility in recent months. Must have changed their previously well-thought of standards....because they're being caught more and more with FALSE stories.
No surprise this may be continuing.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
