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SENATOR CARL LEVIN recently declassified a DIA document from February 2002 that appears to cast doubt on the claims of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda camp commander and a member of bin Laden's inner circle, had maintained, until early 2004, that Iraq had assisted al Qaeda in its chemical and biological weapons efforts. As a result of the document Levin released (and other information circulating) the conventional view which has developed is that the administration knew that al-Libi was lying about Iraq, al Qaeda, and WMD but chose to set aside this knowledge because it conflicted with their preferred narrative concerning pre-war intelligence on Iraq. As to why al-Libi said what he did, conventional wisdom has settled on the storyline that al-Libi told interrogators what they wanted to hear because he was tortured.
Such a narrative is both convenient and attractive. But it only tells half the truth.
To begin with, the portions of the DIA document from February 2002 that Senator Levin had declassified reads as follows:
This is the first report from Ibn al-Shaykh in which he claims Iraq assisted al-Qaida's CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear] efforts. However, he lacks specific details on the Iraqis involved, the CBRN materials associated with the assistance, and the location where training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. 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.
So the document that Levin regards as having definitively established al-Libi as a liar also states that he may in fact have known that Iraq assisted al Qaeda in its unconventional weapons experts, but little else. But there are other bits of information to consider, which paint a fuller picture.
For instance, according to the June 21, 2004 issue of Newsweek:
With al-Libi, too, the initial approach was to read him his rights like any arrestee, one former member of the FBI team told NEWSWEEK . . . Al-Libi's capture, some sources say, was an early turning point in the government's internal debates over interrogation methods. FBI officials brought their plea to retain control over al-Libi's interrogation up to FBI Director Robert Mueller. The CIA station chief in Afghanistan, meanwhile, appealed to the agency's hawkish counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black. He in turn called CIA Director George Tenet, who went to the White House. Al-Libi was handed over to the CIA. "They duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo" for more-fearsome Egyptian interrogations, says the ex-FBI official.
And according to Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council, at some point al-Libi's statements became far more specific. More than vaguely claiming that Iraq had assisted al Qaeda on unconventional weapons, al-Libi recounted that:
. . . Bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan, deceased Al Qaida leader Muhammad Atef, did not believe that Al Qaida labs in Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq.
