CIA Learned in '02 That Bin Laden Had No Iraq Ties, Report Says

[Electric Mayhem]

Text

"The CIA learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, according to a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report."

It's hard to believe the White House wasn't informed....maybe they chose not to listen.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Well, knock me down with a feather! How shocking! You mean the Washington administration is either lying or incompetent? Wow!

 

[Strk]

They'd rather take the word of a crook like Chalabi.

 

[Aisengard]

Just more evidence in a mounting pile that should lead to near-impeachable charges of possibly willful incompetency.

 

[Pens1566]

It didn't fit in with what they'd already decided the facts were. Faith based government FTL.

 

[M00T]

Bush doesn't read the news anyway.
http://www.counterbias.com/blog/2004/06/bush-explains-why-he-doesnt-read.html

 

[ayabe]

He believes what he wants to, he looks into the "soul" of the issue, asks God to help him and goes from there. He makes decisions from his gut and guiding your decisions by emotion only is never a good way to go. He is totally wrong about Putin, and totally wrong about Iraq.

Besides any information that doesn't fit with his gut is just propaganda anyways, right?

 

[ebaycj]

I believe this is the Bush Administration's "selective use of intelligence reports" that we heard about a year or two ago...

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Pens1566
It didn't fit in with what they'd already decided the facts were. Faith based government FTL.

:music: Who's Watching Over Who's Watching Over You? :music:

Verse 2:

All the forces of war were compelling,
And blacker than coal in the night (Colin, the Knight),
And the lies that they're telling, they sell in the name of their savior.

They silence the voices arising,
From those who would show us the light.
With their guys with their spies in the skies watching you and your neighbor.

 

[conjur]

Let's take a look at the key section (note this article appears on page A14, nicely buried):

Former senior CIA officials said it was unclear what happened to the Hussein-bin Laden information, although two former aides to then-CIA Director George J. Tenet said they could not remember if they received the original information. "Nothing was withheld from the White House," one former aide said, although there was "a lot of debate inside the agency about the Saddam-al-Qaeda relationship" because it was the focus of repeated questions from administration officials, including Vice President Cheney and his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The high-level Iraqi official, who was not identified in the Senate report, was Naji Sabri, then foreign minister. A senior CIA officer, after months of trying, was able to question him through a trusted agency intermediary when Sabri was in New York City around Sept. 19, 2002.

According to former intelligence officials, the CIA case officer filed two separate reports describing his questioning of Sabri. One, involving the Iraq weapons program, would go to analysts interested in that subject, the officer believed; the second, about Hussein and bin Laden, would go to the CIA counterterrorism center. The officer, however, passed his material on to senior agency officials in New York and was not aware of how it was eventually distributed.

And, from March 2006 we see how this ties to possible motivation to out Plame:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/20/14939/6889

Mr. Libby has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice related to a coordinated White House operation that revealed Ms. Plame's identity to reporters. The 39-page filing submitted by defense lawyers indicates that Robert Grenier, a recently-retired former head of CIA counter-terrorism, may have been the source for some details of Libby's knowledge about Plame, an undercover CIA counterproliferation expert. Appointed head of counterrorism in 2004, Grenier was Chief of Station in Islamabad, and had been working in Pakistan for many years, a position that would make him familiar with A.Q. Khan's activities. According to a February Washington Post report printed at the time of Grenier's departure from the Agency in February, Grenier had been recalled from Pakistan to headquarters and been tasked to head the Iraq Issues Group in anticipation of the U.S. invasion. According to The Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co...rticle/2006/02/07/AR2006020700016.html

"Robert Grenier, who spent most of his career undercover overseas, took charge of the Counterterrorism Center about a year ago after a series of senior jobs at the center of the Bush administration's national security agenda.

"When al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Grenier was station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan. Among the agency's most experienced officers in southwest Asia, Grenier helped plan the covert campaign that preceded the U.S. military ouster of al Qaeda and its Taliban allies from Afghanistan.

"By the summer of 2002, with President Bush heading toward war in Iraq, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet recalled Grenier to headquarters and promoted him to chief of a newly created Iraq Issues Group. His staff ballooned as the administration planned and launched the invasion in March 2003."

(I wrote)It is unknown whether Grenier became acquainted with Plame during his stint at CIA headquarters, or whether they had previously worked on matters in South Asia. But, both would likely have extensive knowledge of matters related to Pakistan's commerce in nuclear technology with Iran. From the mid-1980s until 1997, the A.Q. Khan network was Iran's primary supplier of nuclear know-how.

The A.Q. Khan network was of interest to both the CIA counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation divisions

The court filing revealing Mr. Grenier's knowledge of Ms. Plame sheds new light on how the CIA's nuclear counterproliferation activities were connected to counter-terrorism operations in South Asia, and some new clues to Plame's role at CIA.

It has been reported that Plame's primary assignment at the time of her outing in the summer of 2003 was Iran's nuclear program. If Grenier's knowledge of Plame's role was gained during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, it might indicate that Grenier simply worked down the hall from Plame. On the other hand, the two may have had a closer acquaintance. If Grenier had been working with Plame earlier, this would have much broader implications for Plame's role within the Agency and might suggest possible additional motives for the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to ruin her career.