{"id":3128,"date":"2009-05-18T23:44:38","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T04:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3128"},"modified":"2009-05-19T00:00:05","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T05:00:05","slug":"were-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/18\/were-waiting\/","title":{"rendered":"we’re waiting…"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sometimes, articles that say something you already know also add something essential. This Friday article in McClatchie caught the eye of the people at TPM<\/strong><\/font><\/a>: <\/div>\n
\n
Cheney said in 2004 Gitmo detainees revealed Iraq-al Qaida link<\/strong><\/a>
McClatchy Newspapers
By Jonathan S. Landay
May 15, 2009 <\/div>\n

WASHINGTON — Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn’t true. Cheney’s 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic, insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular Iraqi dictatorship.<\/p>\n

The head of the Criminal Investigation Task Force at Guantanamo from 2002-2005 confirmed to McClatchy that in late 2002 and early 2003, intelligence officials were tasked to find, among other things, Iraq-al Qaida ties, which were a central pillar of the Bush administration’s case for its March 2003 invasion of Iraq. "I’m aware of the fact that in late 2002, early 2003, that (the alleged al Qaida-Iraq link) was an interest on the intelligence side," said retired Army Lt. Col. Brittain Mallow, a former military criminal investigator. "That was something they were tasked to look at."<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

He said he was unaware of the origins of the directive, but a former senior U.S. intelligence official has told McClatchy that Cheney’s and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s offices were demanding that information in 2002 and 2003.<\/strong><\/font> The official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter, requested anonymity…<\/p>\n

The Rocky Mountain News asked Cheney in a Jan. 9, 2004<\/strong><\/font>, interview if he stood by his claims that Saddam’s regime had maintained a "relationship" with al Qaida, raising the danger that Iraq might give the group chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to attack the U.S.<\/p>\n

"Absolutely. Absolutely<\/strong><\/font>," Cheney replied… "The [al Qaida-Iraq] links go back," he said. "We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it.<\/strong><\/font>" No evidence of such training or of any operational links between Iraq and al Qaida has ever been found, according to several official inquiries.<\/p>\n

It’s not apparent which Guantanamo detainees Cheney was referring to in the interview. One al Qaida detainee, Ibn al Sheikh al Libi<\/strong><\/font>, claimed that terrorist operatives were sent to Iraq for chemical and biological weapons training, but he was in CIA custody, not at Guantanamo. Moreover, he recanted his assertions, some of them allegedly made under torture while he was being interrogated in Egypt…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
January 6, 2004 was still in the Age of Arrogance<\/strong> for the Bush Administration. We’d been at war for nine months. The 911 Commission was bogged down in a sea of misinformation. Patrick Fitzgerald had only been apponted the week before, and the Plame Affair was still mostly off the radar. They were still claiming al Qaeda\/Iraq ties whenever asked and the WMD’s absence was still a dance-around issue. They were cocky, not yet being terribly careful about bending the truth in public. Here, Cheney says: "We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it.<\/strong><\/font>" <\/div>\n

Well it’s five years later and we are the "anybody who wants to look at it<\/strong><\/font>." We are<\/u> looking at it. We know that they waterboarded Abu Zubaydah<\/strong><\/font> 83 times and Khalid Sheik Mohammed<\/strong><\/font> 183 times during the period when they were trying to establish that link and neither of them confirmed it. And we know that Ibn al Sheikh al Libi<\/strong><\/font> did confirm the link under torture in Egypt, but later recanted. We know from multiple sources that the White House and Defense Department were pressing to get this information. But we know of no prisoner, tortured or not, who confirmed the Iraq\/al Qaeda connection while at Gitmo. So what Cheney said in that interview seems like it was a lie<\/strong><\/font>. He might claim that he was confused and really referring to Ibn al Sheikh al Libi<\/strong><\/font> [but didn’t want us to know they were "outsourcing" torture to Egypt]. But wait, by January 6th, 2004, Ibn al Sheikh al Libi<\/strong><\/font> was clear he had only said that to escape torture, and that it was not true. And the C.I.A. had severe doubts about the original confession.<\/p>\n

So, what’s Cheney talking about?  Independent of his current line that torture wasn’t torture, or that torture was effective, or there are memos that could be released that vindicate him – where is anything that backs up this statement? "Absolutely. Absolutely.<\/strong><\/font>"<\/p>\n

We’re waiting…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, articles that say something you already know also add something essential. This Friday article in McClatchie caught the eye of the people at TPM: Cheney said in 2004 Gitmo detainees revealed Iraq-al Qaida link McClatchy Newspapers By Jonathan S. Landay May 15, 2009 WASHINGTON — Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}