Friday, December 09, 2005 US PreWar Decisions based on Coerced Info NYTimes: "The Bush admin based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by prisoner Shaykh al-Libi while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment. The fact that Libi recanted after the US invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was w/drawn by the CIA in March 04 has been public for more than a yr. But US officials had not previously acknowledged either that Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Libi contended that his statements had been coerced. The new disclosure provides the 1st public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq resulted from the administration's heavy reliance on 3rd countries to carry out interrogations of detainees. The Bush administration used Libi's accounts as the basis for its now discredited prewar claims that ties existed between Iraq & al Qaeda." Wow... yet another ringing endorsement of rendition and its results, no? So as a result to being tortured, he cooks up clearly unverifiable stories about al-Qaeda and Iraq. Maybe because his interregators were under explicit orders to do whatever it takes to establish a link between Saddam and 9/11? Throw in our old pal Curveball... and you can see a sinister pattern forming. Our military runs w/this... and our troops, our economy, and all of Iraq are now paying for it. Nice... nothing illegal about this war what-so-ever. |