Posted on 07/30/2004 7:31:33 PM PDT by neverdem
PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
WASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials.
Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved poisons, gases and other illicit weapons.
Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan in December 2001, is still being held by the Central Intelligence Agency at a secret interrogation center, and American officials say his now-recanted claims raise new questions about the value of the information obtained from such detainees.
A report in Newsweek magazine several weeks ago first identified Mr. Libi's role in the episode. And the fact that "an Al Qaeda operative" who had provided the most detailed information alleging such ties had backed away from many of his claims was mentioned by the Sept. 11 commission in a brief footnote to the report it issued this month.
The American officials now say still-secret parts of the separate report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was released in early July, discuss the information provided by Mr. Libi in much greater detail. The Senate report questions whether some versions of intelligence reports prepared by the C.I.A. in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the reliability of Mr. Libi's claims.
Separate from the question of Mr. Libi's account, an internal C.I.A. review of its prewar intelligence on Iraq is still under way, continuing a push to evaluate the information used as a rationale for war. The strongest White House assertions of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved illicit weapons were made beginning in October 2002, when Mr. Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."
In the prelude to the American invasion in March 2003, those claims were echoed often by Mr. Bush and his top advisers, but they have not repeated that allegation for at least six months.
Intelligence officials declined to say precisely when Mr. Libi changed his account, and they cautioned that they still did not know for sure which account was correct. They said they would not speculate as to whether he might have been seeking to deceive his interrogators or to please them by telling them what he thought they wanted to hear.
But the intelligence officials said Mr. Libi had backed away from many of his earlier claims after American interrogators presented him with conflicting information. Both Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, two other high-ranking Qaeda operatives now in American custody, have told interrogators that Al Qaeda had no substantive relationship with the Iraqi government, according to the Senate report.
Neither the Senate committee nor the Sept. 11 commission have found evidence of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda on any matter, much less illicit weapons, which have not been found in Iraq despite more than a year of intensive searching.
Mr. Libi's reversal was reported to senior administration officials in an intelligence document that was circulated on Feb. 14, 2004, the intelligence officials said.
The Senate report says that a highly classified report prepared by the C.I.A. in September 2002 on "Iraqi Ties to Terrorism" described the claims that Iraq had provided "training in poisons and gases" to Qaeda members, but that it cautioned that the information had come from "sources of varying reliability."
By contrast, it noted that unclassified testimony to Congress in February 2003 from George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, had not included any caveats and thus "could have led the recipients of that testimony to interpret that the C.I.A. believed the training had definitely occurred."
Most public statements by Mr. Bush and other administration officials on the matter described the assertions as matters of fact.
At the time of his capture, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. He had worked closely with Abu Zubaydah at the group's Khalden terrorist camp in Afghanistan, and was believed to have detailed knowledge of the terrorist network's plans.
In an address to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, Mr. Powell referred at length to Mr. Libi's account of an Iraqi role in illicit weapons training, though he did not identify him. He attributed the account to a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist" who "was responsible for one of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan."
The support by Iraq included "offering chemical or biological weapons training for two Al Qaeda associates beginning in December 2000," Mr. Powell said in his speech, adding that a militant known as Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi had described as "successful" a relationship in which he was sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 "for help in acquiring poisons and gases."
In recent months, Mr. Powell has spoken publicly of his frustration that some of the central assertions he made in that speech, particularly claims that Iraq possessed illicit weapons, have not been borne out by the facts, despite assurances from Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. that they were based on solid intelligence.
People close to Mr. Powell say he is less troubled about the episode involving Mr. Libi, believing that the C.I.A. reported his claims in good faith. Similarly, Congressional officials said, the Senate Intelligence Committee did not criticize the C.I.A., even in the classified section of its report, over the Libi matter.
Intelligence officials said Friday that John E. McLaughlin, the acting intelligence chief, was reviewing a 20-page report by Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, that constitutes the agency's most extensive internal review of its handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq. The report by Mr. Kerr, which was submitted to Mr. McLaughlin on Thursday, is not expected to be made public, a senior intelligence official said.
I believe lawyers call this "assuming facts not in evidence."
Someone, CIA, State, in heavy "nuance" mode.
The strongest White House assertions of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved illicit weapons were made beginning in October 2002, when Mr. Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."
Again, like with the Niger Uranium, pick a singular statement in a speech, usually the weakest claim, and attack it.
Wilson failed in his Niger story, now this is floating as "Bush Lied" du jour.
What is Zarqawi? Al-Qaeda trained, living in Iraq, trained in the use of chemical weapons.
#22 for you, too. (missing "t")
There would have been no reason this Al-Qaeda operative would have implicated Iraq in the first place unless there was some truth to it. Some evidence would not be substantiated but in a case like this the premise would be the more important issue considering this individual was not in Iraq himself. This could be disinformation purposely put out there by the CIA to the NY Times for the way the treated Tenet then exposing the NY Times as the liars they are.
"Both Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, two other high-ranking Qaeda operatives now in American custody, have told interrogators that Al Qaeda had no substantive relationship with the Iraqi government, according to the Senate report."
Could it possibly be this guy is lying to take away legitimacy from a claim that would support the effort in Iraq? Why should would he lie then? He had no motive. He has all the motive in the world now to discredit the liberation of Iraq to help his fellow Al qaeda brothers fighting there now. But the media who didn't find this guy's claims credible enough to report when he was making charges of Iraq's collaboration with Al Qaeda will suddenly find this guy a fountain of truth now that he supports their anti-liberation of Iraq biases.
The Bush Administration has been taking knocks for not having made al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden the priority Mr. Berger said it was during the Clinton years.
Yet neither Attorney General Ashcroft nor National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice even saw this Clarke report until after the 9/11 terrorists had struck.
Perhaps if they had, America would have been on a more aggressive footing earlier on. At the least, releasing the Clarke after-action report now would provide better context for weighing such ongoing political accusations as the charge that the Bush Administration's concern about Iraq was simply a fantasy of a "neoconservative" cabal.
Toward that end we can't help but note page 134 of the Commission report, which documents a proposal early in 1999 to send a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to gather intelligence on where bin Laden was hiding out.
Clarke objected on the grounds that Pakistani intelligence would tip bin Laden off that the U.S. was planning a bombing mission.
Armed with this knowledge," the Commission quotes Mr. Clarke as saying, "old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad."
Is that the same secular Baghdad that we are told would never cooperate with Islamist al Qaeda?
Right around the time he became one of the first "foreign leaders" to endorse John Kerry?
I reported ties with Iraq, before I reported against it.
Who is this guy Kahlid John Kerry?
So do I - don't trust the NYT any further than I can throw them.
Didn't the 9/11 report indicate there was contact between the two and that Saddam had offered Bin Laden sanctuary in Iraq? What about the airframe discovered in the desert where they were training airline hijackers?
The NYSlimes is a cheap syphilitic whore with saggy tits.
Explains why only Michael Moore is in bed with her.
garbage out... garbage out
All the news that fits.......
the RAT-genda.
Why should we believe this guy, Al Jazzera, the New York Times, or any other anti-American propagandists?
So all those AQ guys running around Salman Pak were just having a "paintball" day of fun?
Was the source Joe Wilson, Plame, Berger or Lannie Davis.
Iraq was paying the family of HAMAS, nobody discounts this fact. Bush said the war was on terrorism he made no distinction. Iraq was also seeking nuclear capabilities proven to be true, and Bush said before going in they were a threat. Iraq had defied the UN and had been at war already shooting at American planes for 12 years, this was not a preemptive war. Iraq was a clear violator of human rights with its brutal dictatorship regime .Iraq and the terrorists were posed to control the worlds oil economy, there were no other threats of any dictators becoming so powerful using billions of stolen money more dangerouse in any part of the world We were successful in disposing the regime. Yea there still are problems but far less then had we let it continue on, nobody said victory was utopia . Yawn.....
Highly reliable source...like Joe wilson that they trotted around for a year.
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