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http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rob_kall_051106_republicans_still_ke.htm

Republicans Still Keeping Secret Evidence Administration Used Reports They Knew Were False to Bring US to War

by Rob Kall

The US has been staying in a war for more than a year since senate Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee bottled up information that showed the administration knew that evidence they cited as reasons to go to war was provided by a source who was known to "fabricate" bogus information.

The NY Times reports Bush, Cheney, Powell, and other administration officials repeatedly cited known dissembler's information as “credible’’ evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Before the 2004 elections, a Republican majority in the Senate Armed Services Committee forced key documents and information to be kept secret, preventing the American public from knowing that the arguments for war were built upon known lies and fabrications.

The NY Times article reports,

"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.

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."

And there were numerous other known informants whose bad information, although known to be bad, was used by the administration to lie to the American public and the UN to sell the war, including one who told about mobile bio-weapon labs, and Ahmad Chalabi.

The key document, proving the Bush administration's early knowledge that their claims were false, is called DITSUM No. 044-02. The Times reports

"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."

The report was clear in stating the weak, unlikely veracity of the informant's statements,

“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.’’

The Times article says the DIA report states

“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.’’

In late October, Harry Reid demanded in a closed session of the senate that a report be released to the American people disclosing these and other facts. Senate Republicans said they'd been planning to release it anyway.

Rob Kall is editor of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology.

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002606885_intel06.html

A high al-Qaida 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-Qaida 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-Qaida's work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney; Colin L. Powell, who was then secretary of state; and other administration officials repeatedly cited Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training al-Qaida members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Bush said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gases."

Democrats' challenge

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Sen. Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about 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 Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize in recent days, 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, that was to have focused on the use of prewar intelligence.

A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the DIA report on Libi. But Senate Republicans have been arguing that Republicans were not alone in making prewar assertions about Iraq, illicit weapons and terrorism that have since been discredited.

Libi, who was captured in Pakistan at the end of 2001, recanted his claims in January 2004. That prompted the CIA 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 later in 2004.

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.

Earlier report

The report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee in July 2004 questioned whether some versions of an intelligence report prepared by the CIA in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the reliability of 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 DIA, which supplies intelligence to military commanders and national security policymakers. As an official intelligence report, the document would have been available to the CIA, the White House, the Pentagon and other agencies. It remains unclear whether the DIA document was provided to the Senate panel.

Sketchy details

In outlining reasons for its skepticism, the DIA report noted that 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."

Powell relied heavily on accounts provided by Libi as the foundation for his speech to the U.N. 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-Qaida."

At the time of Powell's speech, an unclassified statement by the CIA described the reporting, now known to have been from Libi, as "credible." But Levin said he had learned that a classified CIA assessment at the time went on to state that "the source was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."