Sunday, November 06, 2005
Is It A Smoking Gun Yet?
Remember Scott Ritter? He’s the ex-Marine, ex-UN Arms Inspector in Iraq that kept trying to tell people, via the media, that the WMD threat was phony. What was sad was that the media, from the NY Times to the Washington Post, CNN to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh to any local talk show host, attacked Ritter as being a liar, a psycho, a terrorist sympathizer, and definitely un-American.
Talk about a “prophet without honor.” Ritter was right. The mountain of evidence that the lies were pre-fabricated and cynical keeps piling up. The right wing talking heads are lapsing back into remembering how things were twenty years ago, or using every red herring they can find in the garbage, trying to prop up the facade of American righteousness in invading Iraq. One of these days the pile of evidence will morph itself into one of those famous smoking guns that even CNN won’t be able to overlook.
Editor and Publisher
Smoking Gun on Manipulation of Iraq Intelligence? 'NY Times' Cites New Document
By E&P Staff
Published: November 05, 2005 1:30 PM ET
NEW YORK Ever since the Democrats briefly closed the U.S. Senate from view earlier this week, to protest alleged Republican foot-dragging in probing Bush administration pre-war manipulation of intelligence, the press has been asking: So what new evidence do the Democrats have in this matter?
Tomorrow, in its print edition, The New York Times starts to answer the question, with reporter Douglas Jehl disclosing the contents of a newly declassified memo apparently passed to him by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
It shows that an al-Qaeda official held by the Americans was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the basis for its claims that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to this Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002.
It declared that 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, Jehl reports.
“The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility,” Jehl writes. “Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick 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.’”
A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the D.I.A. report, according to the Times.
“Mr. Libi was not alone among intelligence sources later determined to have been fabricating accounts,” Jehl continues. “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.”
Libi is in custody, apparently at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he was sent in 2003.
According to Jehl, Secretary of State Colin Powell relied heavily on Libi for his speech to the United Nations 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."
E&P Staff
Links referenced within this article
letters@editorandpublisher.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/mailto:letters@editorandpublisher.com
Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001434737
© 2005 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved.
Talk about a “prophet without honor.” Ritter was right. The mountain of evidence that the lies were pre-fabricated and cynical keeps piling up. The right wing talking heads are lapsing back into remembering how things were twenty years ago, or using every red herring they can find in the garbage, trying to prop up the facade of American righteousness in invading Iraq. One of these days the pile of evidence will morph itself into one of those famous smoking guns that even CNN won’t be able to overlook.
Editor and Publisher
Smoking Gun on Manipulation of Iraq Intelligence? 'NY Times' Cites New Document
By E&P Staff
Published: November 05, 2005 1:30 PM ET
NEW YORK Ever since the Democrats briefly closed the U.S. Senate from view earlier this week, to protest alleged Republican foot-dragging in probing Bush administration pre-war manipulation of intelligence, the press has been asking: So what new evidence do the Democrats have in this matter?
Tomorrow, in its print edition, The New York Times starts to answer the question, with reporter Douglas Jehl disclosing the contents of a newly declassified memo apparently passed to him by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
It shows that an al-Qaeda official held by the Americans was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the basis for its claims that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to this Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002.
It declared that 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, Jehl reports.
“The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility,” Jehl writes. “Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick 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.’”
A White House spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the D.I.A. report, according to the Times.
“Mr. Libi was not alone among intelligence sources later determined to have been fabricating accounts,” Jehl continues. “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.”
Libi is in custody, apparently at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he was sent in 2003.
According to Jehl, Secretary of State Colin Powell relied heavily on Libi for his speech to the United Nations 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."
E&P Staff
Links referenced within this article
letters@editorandpublisher.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/mailto:letters@editorandpublisher.com
Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001434737
© 2005 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved.
