Months before the Bush administration talked up an al Qaeda link to Saddam Hussein, top US intel people had already identified the source as a likely fabricator.A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency documents shows that the link came from an al Qaeda prisoner -- Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. The 2002 document suggests Libi was intentionally misleading debriefers.
Libi told interrogators that Iraq was training al Qaeda members to use chemical and biological weapons.
“We’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.’’ -- President Bush, in Cincinnati, October, 2002 (8 months after the claim was considered a fabrication)
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell frequently refered to the information from Libi as "credible" for months after it was placed in doubt by the intel community.
The disinformation suggests that al Qaeda may have tried to push the US toward war with Iraq. And that the administration may have used information that supported their desire for war while rejecting intel that conflicted with that goal. (NYT)
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