From the article:
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 ***** 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.
---
Published on Sunday, November 6, 2005 by the New York Times
Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts
by Douglas Jehl
WASHINGTON - A top member of Al Qaeda 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.
Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President ***** 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.
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 ***** 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 Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed
Services Committee.
Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi's statements
dramatized what he called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar
intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr.
Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by
calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate intelligence
committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two
years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence.
An administration official declined to comment on the D.I.A. report on Mr.
Libi. But Senate Republicans, put on the defensive when Democrats forced a
closed session of the Senate this week to discuss the issue, have been
arguing that Republicans were not alone in making prewar assertions about
Iraq, illicit weapons and terrorism that have since been discredited.
Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan at the end of 2001, recanted his
claims in January 2004. That prompted the C.I.A., a month later, to recall
all intelligence reports based on his statements, a fact recorded in a
footnote to the report issued by the Sept. 11 commission.
Mr. Libi was not alone among intelligence sources later determined to have
been fabricating accounts. Among others, an Iraqi exile whose code name was
Curveball was the primary source for what proved to be false information
about Iraq and mobile biological weapons labs. And American military
officials cultivated ties with Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National
Congress, an exile group, who has been accused of feeding the Pentagon
misleading information in urging war.
The report issued by the Senate intelligence committee in July 2004
questioned whether some versions of intelligence report prepared by the
C.I.A. in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the
reliability of Mr. Libi's claims.
But neither that report nor another issued by the Sept. 11 commission made
any reference to the existence of the earlier and more skeptical 2002 report
by the D.I.A., which supplies intelligence to military commanders and
national security policy makers. As an official intelligence report, labeled
DITSUM No. 044-02, the document would have circulated widely within the
government, and it would have been available to the C.I.A., the White House,
the Pentagon and other agencies. It remains unclear whether the D.I.A.
document was provided to the Senate panel.
In outlining reasons for its skepticism, the D.I.A. report noted that Mr.
Libi's claims lacked specific details about the Iraqis involved, the illicit
weapons used and the location 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 February 2002
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.''
Mr. Powell relied heavily on accounts provided by Mr. Libi for his speech to
the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, saying that he was
tracing "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided
training in these weapons to Al Qaeda.''
At the time of Mr. Powell's speech, an unclassified statement by the C.I.A.
described the reporting, now known to have been from Mr. Libi, as "credible.''
But Mr. Levin said he had learned that a classified C.I.A. assessment at the
time stated "the source was not in a position to know if any training had
taken place.''
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Levin also called attention to a portion of
the D.I.A. report that expressed skepticism about the idea of close
collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, an idea that was never
substantiated by American intelligence but was a pillar of the
administration's prewar claims.
"Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary
movements,'' the D.I.A. report said in one of two declassified paragraphs.
"Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot
control.''
The request to declassify the two paragraphs was made on Oct. 18 by Mr.
Levin and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat
on the Senate intelligence committee. In an Oct. 26 response, Kathleen P.
Turner, chief of the D.I.A.'s office for Congressional affairs, said the
agency "can find no reason for it to remain classified.''
At the time of his capture, Mr. Libi was the most senior Qaeda official in
American custody. The D.I.A. document gave no indication of where he was
being held, or what interrogation methods were used on him.
Mr. Libi remains in custody, apparently at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he
was sent in 2003, according to government officials.
The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to meet beginning next week
to review draft reports prepared as part of a long-postponed "Phase II'' of
the panel's review of prewar intelligence on Iraq. At separate briefings for
reporters on Friday, Republicans staff members said the writing had long
been under way, while Senate Democrats on the committee claimed credit for
reinvigorating the process, by forcing the closed session. They said that
already nearly complete is a look at whether prewar intelligence accurately
predicted the potential for an anti-American insurgency.
Other areas of focus include the role played by the Iraqi National Congress,
that of the Pentagon in shaping intelligence assessments, and an examination
of whether public statements about Iraq by members of the Bush and Clinton
administrations, as well as members of Congress, were substantiated by
intelligence available at the time.
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/1106-01.htm
--
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the
country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag
the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have
to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
--
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