High Qaeda Aide Retracted Claim of Link With Iraq

[TheOne]

High Qaeda Aide Retracted Claim of Link With Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL

ASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials.

Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved poisons, gases and other illicit weapons.

Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan in December 2001, is still being held by the Central Intelligence Agency at a secret interrogation center, and American officials say his now-recanted claims raise new questions about the value of the information obtained from such detainees.

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[JIHADTHIS]

So you would have the US wait until they can confirm every single threat down to the last detail before taking any action. (Sounds like Kerry) Intelligence is NEVER perfect, even the casual Tom Clancy reader would know that.

What's your solution "TheOne"? The jihadists would like to kill you too...........

 

[Comrade]

article(subscription required)

ASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials.

Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved poisons, gases and other illicit weapons.

Mr. Libi, who was captured in Pakistan in December 2001, is still being held by the Central Intelligence Agency at a secret interrogation center, and American officials say his now-recanted claims raise new questions about the value of the information obtained from such detainees.

Who s the generic "official"?

A source who is quoted as heresay, from some source who is not exactly a top ranking official, and who was captured a few months after 9/11, is not the final word.

And while a bipartisan commission had full and complete access to all levels of confidential data from every agency arrived at an operational link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq, the NYT's still only contradicts only a small aspect of the main issue.

Based on heresay from an unnamed source.

This new report raises doubts on the apparent reason for Bush to depose Saddam, which is what the NYT's is prone to do.