- New evidence shows Dick Cheney knowingly continued to
assert false intelligence about supposed Al Qaeda-Iraq links even after
the CIAand DIA issued warnings, in February 2002, that the information
obtained from the interrogation of captured Al Qaeda figure, Ibn al Shaykh
Al-Libi (no relation to Scooter Libi aka Libby), was false.
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- When the DIA issued it's warnings that Al-Libi's information
was not believable, the White House already {knew} that the CIA and DIA
had stated that there was no proof of an Al Qaeda/Iraq connection, as reported
by Jeff Steinberg in EIR's daily briefing on Nov. 25. Steinberg reported
that the White House had {already} been informed on Sept. 21, 2001 through
the CIA's "President's Daily Briefing" (PDB) that there was no
Iraq link to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence has requested a copy of that PDB, from
10 days after the 9/11 attack, but the White House is refusing to turn
it over.
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- Today, Lawrence Wilkerson, the long-time aide to Secretary
of State Colin Powell, and his chief of staff from 2001 to 2005, told BBC
in an interview that the case of the misuse of the intelligence from Al
Qaeda's Al Shaykh Al-Libi is beginning to cause him "concerns"
that the White House was not "simply fooled," but had lied.
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- Wilkerson singled out the White House for criticism because
both the "Al-Libi" and "Curveball" information was
put into Colin Powell's Feb. 5, 2003 speech to the UN, even though the
DIA had disowned the "Al-Libi" information a full year earlier.
Because of the disinformation that was given to Powell, Wilkerson says,
his distrust of the White House is growing on several grounds:
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- "One is the questioning of Sheikh al-Libby where
his confessions were obtained through interrogation techniques other than
those authorized by Geneva. It led Colin Powell to say at the UN on 5 February
2003 that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda
and Baghdad. And we now know that al-Libby's forced confession has been
recanted and we know-- we're pretty sure that it was invalid.
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- "But more important than that, we know that there
was a Defense Intelligence Agency dissent on that testimony even before
Colin Powell made his presentation. We never heard about that." Wilkerson
is referring to a DIA memo from February, 2002, which was declassified
on Oct. 26, 2005, at the request of Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA)
and Carl Levin (D-MI), members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
(SSCI). Wilkerson also says that the Al-Libi disinformation, is of
the same type as failing to report the warnings about "Curveball."
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- - Information Withheld From Senators, Too - The information
of the DIA's disowning of Al-Libi's statements had also been withheld from
the U.S. Senate, says Sen. Levin, who also sits on the Senate Armed Services
Committee. That DIA finding "is stunningly different from repeated
Administration claims of a close realtionship between Saddam and al-Qaeda,"
said Levin in a Nov. 6 statement. "Just imagine the impact if that
DIA conclusion had been disclosed at that time. It surely could have made
a difference in the congressional vote authorizing the war."
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- The Senate got the DIA memorandum sometime in 2004, when
the SSCI was conducting its investigation of the false pre-war Iraq intelligence,
but it was not declassified until Oct. 26, 2005. The DIA memo comments
on Al-Libi's claims that Al Qaeda forces went to Iraq, that:
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- "This is the first report from Ibn al-Shaykh in
which he claims Iraq assisted al-Qaida's CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological
or Nuclear] efforts. However, he lacks specific details on the Iraqis involved,
the CBRN materials associated with the assistance, and the location where
training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details;
{it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers}
[emphasis added by Levin].
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- 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." The DIA memo also said, "Saddam's regime
is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover,
Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."
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- Levin also reports that a CIA report on al-Shaykh al-Libi
from the same time period said that he was not in a position to know anything
about such training.
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- In addition to the fact that al-Libi was interrogated
using torture, it was widely reported in January, 2004, that he had recanted
his earlier statements.
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- These new DIA revelations and the statements by Col.
Wilkerson underline the crucial importance of the SSCI's "Phase II"
investigation, and why the "Libby draft" of Powell's speech is
central to getting at the truth.
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