[Mb-civic] LYING WITH INTELLIGENCE - ROBERT SCHEER

[Michael Butler]

latimes.com
advertisement
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer8nov08,0,7802313.column?coll
=la-util-op-ed
ROBERT SCHEER
Lying with intelligence
Robert Scheer

November 8, 2005

WHO IN THE White House knew about DITSUM No. 044-02 and when did they know
it?

That's the newly declassified smoking-gun document, originally prepared by
the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002 but ignored by President
Bush. Its declassification this weekend blows another huge hole in Bush's
claim that he was acting on the best intelligence available when he pitched
the invasion of Iraq as a way to prevent an Al Qaeda terror attack using
weapons of mass destruction.

The report demolished the credibility of the key Al Qaeda informant the
administration relied on to make its claim that a working alliance existed
between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It was circulated widely within
the U.S. government a full eight months before Bush used the prisoner's lies
to argue for an invasion of Iraq because "we've learned that Iraq has
trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases."

Al Qaeda senior military trainer Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi ‹ a Libyan captured
in Pakistan in 2001 ‹ was probably "intentionally misleading the
debriefers," the DIA report concluded in one of two paragraphs finally
declassified at the request of Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and released by his
office over the weekend. The report also 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."

He got that right. Folks in the highest places were very interested in
claims along the lines Libi was peddling, even though they went against both
logic and the preponderance of intelligence gathered to that point about
possible collaboration between two enemies of the U.S. that were
fundamentally at odds with each other. Al Qaeda was able to create a base in
Iraq only after the U.S. overthrow of Hussein, not before. "Saddam's regime
is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements,"
accurately noted the DIA.

Yet Bush used the informant's already discredited tall tale in his key Oct.
7, 2002, speech just before the Senate voted on whether to authorize the use
of force in Iraq and again in two speeches in February, just ahead of the
invasion.

Leading up to the war, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to sell it to
the United Nations, while Vice President Dick Cheney, national security
advisor Condoleezza Rice, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith repeated it breathlessly for
homeland audiences. The con worked, and Americans came to believe the lie
that Hussein was associated with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Even CIA Director George Tenet publicly fell into line, ignoring his own
agency's dissent that Libi would not have been in a position to know what he
said he knew. In fact, Libi, according to the DIA, could not name any Iraqis
involved, any chemical or biological material used or where the training
allegedly occurred. In January 2004, the prisoner recanted his story, and
the next month the CIA withdrew all intelligence reports based on his false
information.

One by one, the exotic intelligence factoids Bush's researchers culled from
raw intelligence data files to publicly bolster their claim of imminent
threat ‹ the yellowcake uranium from Niger, the aluminum tubes for
processing uranium, the Prague meeting with Mohamed Atta, the discredited
Iraqi informants "Curveball" and Ahmad Chalabi ‹ have been exposed as
previously known frauds.

When it came to selling an invasion of Iraq it had wanted to launch before
9/11, the Bush White House systematically ignored the best available
intelligence from U.S. agencies or any other reliable source.

It should be remembered that while Bush and his gang were successfully
scaring the wits out of us about the alleged Iraq-Al Qaeda alliance, U.N.
weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq. Weapons inspectors Hans Blix
and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei promised they could
finish scouring the country if given a few more months. But instead, they
were abruptly chased out by an invasion necessitated by what the president
told us was a "unique and urgent threat."

Bush exploited the worldwide horror felt over the 9/11 attacks to justify
the Iraq invasion. His outrageous claim, repeated over and over before and
after he dragged the nation into an unnecessary war, was never supported by
a single piece of credible evidence. The Bush defense of what is arguably
the biggest lie ever put over on the American people is that everyone had
gotten the intelligence wrong. Not so at the highest level of U.S.
intelligence, as DITSUM No. 044-02 so clearly shows. How could the president
not have known?



If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives.
TMS Reprints
Article licensing and reprint options


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Home Delivery | Advertise | Archives | Contact | Site Map | Help

partners: KTLA   Hoy