I do, but they didn't get that across to the president and we went to war. And that cost us lives and money, hurting the country.
An article published in the November 5, 2005 New York Times quoted two paragraphs of a Defense Intelligence Agency report, declassified upon request by Senator Carl Levin, that expressed doubts about the results of al-Libi's interrogation in
February 2002. The declassified paragraphs are:
This is the first report from Ibn al-Shaykh in which he claims Iraq assisted al-Qaida's CBRN efforts. However,
he lacks specific details on the Iraqi's [sic] 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 describing [sic] scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.[cite this quote]
The January 2003 CIA paper Iraqi Support for Terrorism states that al-Libi told a foreign intelligence service that "Iraq — acting on the request of al-Qa'ida militant Abu Abdullah, who was Muhammad Atif's emissary — agreed to provide unspecified chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qa'ida associates beginning in December 2000. The two individuals departed for Iraq but did not return, so al-Libi was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."[cite this quote] The September 2002 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism stated that al-Libi said Iraq had "provided" chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates in 2000, but also stated that al-Libi "did not know the results of the training."[cite this quote]
The 2006 Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq stated that "Although DIA coordinated on CIA's Iraqi Support for Terrorism paper,
DIA analysis preceding that assessment was more skeptical of the al-Libi reporting." In July 2002, DIA assessed "It is plausible al-Qa'ida attempted to obtain CB assistance from Iraq and Ibn al-Shaykh is sufficiently senior to have access to such sensitive information. However, Ibn al-Shaykh's information lacks details concerning the individual Iraqis involved, the specific CB materials associated with the assistance and the location where the alleged training occurred. The information is also second hand, and not derived from Ibn al-Shaykh's personal experience."[12]
(snip)
On June 11, 2008 Newsweek published an account of material from a "A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002".
The article reported that on August 7, 2002 CIA analysts had drafted a high-level report that expressed serious doubts about the information flowing from al-Libi's interrogation. The information that al-Libi acknowledged being a member al-Qaeda' executive committee was not supported by information from other sources. According to al-Libi, in Egypt he was locked in a tiny box less than 20 inches high and held for 17 hours and after being let out he was thrown to the floor and punched for 15 minutes. According to CIA operational cables, only then did he tell his "fabricated" story about Al Qaeda members being dispatched to Iraq.
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia