Now that phase two of the investigation into the intelligence failures
leading up to the Iraq war is to be completed, we are starting to see some
documents come out that were classified before. One document in particular has
been obtained by the New York Times and will appear in Sunday’s edition.
Thankfully it is available online tonight.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 – A high 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 a Defense Intelligence Agency document.The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was
probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “was intentionally
misleading the debriefers” in making claims about Iraqi support for Al
Qaeda’s work with illicit weapons.The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts
voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility.
Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney,
Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials
repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible” evidence that Iraq was
training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who
said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that “we’ve learned
that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and
gases.”The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by
Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed
Services Committee
Article continues
here
So we used the information from a known liar in order to build up our reasons
for the war. WOW! Who would of ever thought we would sink to such levels.
Oh wait. There was someone else who went by the name of “curveball”, the
Iraqi defector who continually swore that Saddam had reconstituted his WMD
programs.
March 28, 2004 “Los Angeles Times” — WASHINGTON ? The Bush
administration’s prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of
trucks and railroad cars to produce anthrax and other deadly germs were
based chiefly on information from a now-discredited Iraqi defector
code-named “Curveball,” according to current and former intelligence
officials.U.S. officials never had direct access to the defector and didn’t even
know his real name until after the war. Instead, his story was provided by
German agents, and his file was so thick with details that American
officials thought it confirmed long-standing suspicions that the Iraqis had
developed mobile germ factories to evade arms inspections.Curveball’s story has since crumbled under doubts raised by the Germans
and the scrutiny of U.S. weapons hunters, who have come to see his code name
as particularly apt, given the problems that beset much of the prewar
intelligence collection and analysis.U.N. weapons inspectors hypothesized that such trucks might exist,
officials said. They then asked former exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, a bitter
enemy of Hussein, to help search for intelligence supporting their theory.
Full article
here via
Information Clearinghouse.
Another interesting part in this article appears later on where David Kay
made comments on “curveball”:
Kay said in an interview that the defector “was absolutely at the heart
of a matter of intense interest to us.” But Curveball turned out to be an
“out-and-out fabricator,” he added.
Well after hearing the news of the earlier article then rekindling the
news of “curveball”, its not shock that White House staff would lie under oath.
They are in the business of dealing with and trusting known liars. As matter of
fact, they trust them so much that they will use their lies to lead us to war.