Flip flop: Was Saddam working with Al Qaeda or not? - Isikoff

[question everything]

Not sure if anyone posted this from this week's Newsweek:

A captured Qaeda commander who was a principal source for Bush administration claims that Osama bin Laden collaborated with Saddam Hussein's regime has changed his story, setting back White House efforts to shore up the credibility of its original case for the invasion of Iraq. The apparent recantation of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a onetime member of bin Laden's inner circle, has never been publicly acknowledged. But U.S. intelligence officials tell NEWSWEEK that al-Libi was a crucial source for one of the more dramatic assertions made by President George W. Bush and his top aides: that Iraq had provided training in "poisons and deadly gases" for Al Qaeda. Al-Libi, who once ran one of bin Laden's biggest training camps, was captured in Pakistan in November 2001 and soon began talking to CIA interrogators. Although he never mentioned his name, Secretary of State Colin Powell prominently referred to al-Libi's claims in his February 2003 speech to the United Nations; he recounted how a "senior terrorist operative" said Qaeda leaders were frustrated by their inability to make chemical or biological agents in Afghanistan and turned for help to Iraq.

(snip)

But more recently, sources said, U.S. interrogators went back to al-Libi with new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims. Al-Libi "subsequently recounted a different story," said one U.S. official. "It's not clear which version is correct. We are still sorting this out." Some officials now suspect that al-Libi, facing aggressive interrogation techniques, had previously said what U.S. officials wanted to hear.

(snip)

The debate, however, is far from over. Vice President Dick Cheney has sought to more vigorously defend the Iraq- Qaeda link, even reading to one TV interviewer from a U.S. intelligence report recounting a meeting between an Iraqi intel official and bin Laden on a farm in Sudan in the summer of 1996. (One possible problem: bin Laden had left Sudan for Afghanistan in May of that year.) Meanwhile, NEWSWEEK has learned, Pentagon officials are culling through captured Iraqi documents they say will provide hard evidence of multiple contacts between Iraqi officials and Qaeda members over a decade. Current plans call for a massive "document dump" before the election. But officials acknowledge ultimate proof may prove elusive. "It all depends on what your definition of a relationship is," said one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5305085/site/newsweek/

[shockingelk]

1. yeah, it's been posted here

but worth the repost. Important article.

As well as Rumnsfeld's press conference where he said al-Zarqawi, who Bush cited as the "best evidence" of an Iraq-al Qaeda link, was arguably not al Qaeda:

The other thing I would say is that it appears -- I guess I don't know if I should say this or not, but I -- I suppose I can -- it appears that Zarqawi -- who is, everyone in the intelligence community seems to agree, is engaged as a significant leader of a network in Iraq and has in his past been identified by at least some intelligence as being a leader with respect to terrorist activities in other countries, not just Iraq -- may very well not have sworn allegiance to UBL.  But he -- maybe, because he disagrees with him on something, maybe because he wants to be “The Man” himself, and maybe for a reason that's not known to me.

Now, therefore you probably -- someone could legitimately say he's not al Qaeda.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040617-secdef0881.html

[salib]

2. Amazing all of the "intelligence" one gets through torture

When are we going to realize that it does not work the way it is shown on the cop shows on TV? The only real use for torture is to coerce false confessions. It does not provide real "intelligence" or truth. It is immoral, wrong, stupid and gratuitously cruel. It should not be a part of any society that wishes to be considered "civilized" and "humane."

[yellowcanine]

3. Chickens...home....roosting.....torture yields what interrogators want to

hear.

"Some officials now suspect that al-Libi, facing aggressive interrogation techniques, had previously said what U.S. officials wanted to hear."

Imagine that.

[sbreen]

5. your right

Torture is for corrupt countries...just look to Stalin and Soviet RUssia....the purges never failed to yeild a confession....

[yellowcanine]

4. "It all depends on what your definition of a relationship is,"

Heh.