Reply #13: any mention of coerced testimony should also include al-Libi [View All]

[Supersedeas]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007504.php

<According to a newly declassified memo, not only did al-Libi provide us with false information suggesting that Iraq had trained al-Qaeda to use WMD, but U.S. intelligence had a pretty good idea the information was false as early as 2002. Colin Powell nonetheless presented this to the UN as credible evidence of Iraqi WMD programs in February 2003, shortly before we invaded Iraq.

<Via Atrios, it turns out that we had excellent reasons to be skeptical of al-Libi's testimony. As Newsweek reported last year, al-Libi was one of the first test cases for Dick Cheney's campaign to introduce torture as a standard interrogation technique overseas, replacing the FBI's more mainstream methods:

<Al-Libi's capture, some sources say, was an early turning point in the government's internal debates over interrogation methods...."They duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo" for more-fearsome Egyptian interrogations, says the ex-FBI official. "At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, 'You're going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to f--- her.' So we lost that fight."

<No wonder DIA was skeptical of al-Libi's information. Not only did the details of his testimony seem inconsistent with known facts, but DIA knew perfectly well he had given up this information only under torture and was probably just saying anything that came to mind in order to get it to stop.>


No discussion of this issue is complete without mentioning this case. Notice that the President completely overlooked this name in the list of 'terra' suspects who have given useful information using alternative interrogation practices.

Remember the name, note your sources, confront these Neo-Conservative pigs with facts.