Prisoner Who Tied Iraq to Al-Qaeda Found Dead in Libyan Jail
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, whose false tortured confession was used as basis for Bush's war, has reportedly committed suicide...

British journalist and historian Andy Worthington, an expert and author on Guantanamo, reports that the man who had supplied a key false tie between Iraq and al-Qaeda --- after being tortured in Egypt, where he had been rendered by the U.S. --- has died in a Libyan prison. "Dead of suicide in his cell," according to a Libyan newspaper.

Worthington has excellent coverage of the story tonight, which, he says, is "ablaze" in the Arabic media, but so far unreported in all but one English language outlet.

"This news resolves, in the grimmest way possible," Worthington writes, "questions that have long been asked about the whereabouts of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, perhaps the most famous of 'America's Disappeared' - prisoners seized in the 'War on Terror,' who were rendered not to Guantánamo but to secret prisons run by the CIA or to the custody of governments in third countries - often their own - where, it was presumed, they would never be seen or heard from again."

The "emir" of a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, al-Libi "was one of hundreds of prisoners seized by Pakistani forces in December 2001, crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Most of these men ended up in Guantánamo after being handed over (or sold) to US forces by their Pakistani allies, but al-Libi was, notoriously, rendered to Egypt by the CIA to be tortured on behalf of the US government."

Worthington reports:
In Egypt, he (al-Libi) came up with the false allegation about connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that was used by President Bush in a speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, just days before Congress voted on a resolution authorizing the President to go to war against Iraq, in which, referring to the supposed threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime, Bush said, "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases."
Four months later, on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell made the same claim in his notorious speech to the UN Security Council, in an attempt to drum up support for the invasion. "I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these [chemical and biological] weapons to al-Qaeda," Powell said, adding, "Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story." As a Newsweek report in 2007 explained, Powell did not identify al-Libi by name, but CIA officials - and a Senate Intelligence Committee report - later confirmed that he was referring to al-Libi.

Al-Libi recanted his story in February 2004, when he was returned to the CIA's custody, and explained, as Newsweek described it, that he told his debriefers that "he initially told his interrogators that he 'knew nothing' about ties between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden and he 'had difficulty even coming up with a story' about a relationship between the two." The Newsweek report explained that "his answers displeased his interrogators - who then apparently subjected him to the mock burial. As al-Libi recounted, he was stuffed into a box less than 20 inches high. When the box was opened 17 hours later, al-Libi said he was given one final opportunity to 'tell the truth.' He was knocked to the floor and 'punched for 15 minutes.' It was only then that, al-Libi said, he made up the story about Iraqi weapons training."


Worthington concludes: "The most important question that needs asking just now, of course, is whether it was possible for al-Libi to commit suicide in a Libyan jail, or whether he was murdered. I doubt that we will ever find out the truth...Whatever al-Libi’s actual crimes, his use as a tool in a program of 'extraordinary rendition' and torture, exploited shamelessly not to foil future terrorist plots but to yield false information about al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, remains a low point in a 'War on Terror' that has few redeeming features."

Following al-Libi's 'Suicide,' What About the Other 'Ghost Detainees' in Libya, Elsewhere?

Where the U.S. MSM continue to fail
PLUS: What of the Bush Regime's justifications for not only negotiating with, but actually working with the 'international terrorist' regime in Libya?...

Newsweek describes the al-Libi affair today as "one of the biggest intelligence fiascos of the run up to the Iraq War" and "a major embarrassment for the Bush administration."


Worthington asked why the initial "media silence," before noting that while U.S. outlets have finally begun to cover the story, one of the better initial reports, from Peter Finn at Washington Post fails to follow up on the paper's own previous coverage of 'ghost detainees,' which included al-Libi, who had disappeared, at some point, from the Bush Administration's long list of suspected 'terrorists' captured following 9/11.

Given the disturbing fate of al-Libi, it's disappointing that the Washington Post has so far failed to connect dots that could, in this case, help shine a spotlight on recently discovered 'ghost detainees': A spotlight which may help keep them alive, at this point.

Al-Libi was one of those captives previously reported on by WaPo. His re-emergence in Libya --- where he was spotted by Human Rights Watch at the Abu Salim prison in late April, in apparent good health, but refused to be interviewed, reportedly saying only "Where were you when I was being tortured in American prisons?" --- was punctuated, just two weeks later, by the surprising news of his reported 'suicide.'

But where WaPo covered some of the points mentioned in a press release on al-Libi's death from HRW, they failed to mention any of the other 'ghost detainees' mentioned in the very same press release, whose whereabouts had been a mystery up until now. That, even though WaPo had previously reported the 'missing' status of those same detainees!

Given the disturbing fate of al-Libi --- who, HRW's Tom Malinowski charges, "was missing because he was such an embarrassment to the Bush administration. He was Exhibit A in the narrative that tortured confessions contributed to the massive intelligence failure that preceded the Iraq war" --- it's disappointing that the paper has so far failed to connect dots that could, in this case, help shine a spotlight on growing concerns about some of those other detainees: A spotlight which may help keep them alive, at this point.

There is certainly good reason to question both the timing, and reported means, of al-Libi's death, not the least of which is the point made in several media reports, including AP's, where some have "expressed doubts that al-Libi killed himself, saying al-Libi was a 'true Muslim and Islam prohibits committing suicides.'"

Yet, as Worthington notes, the Post failed to even mention the current status of the other detainees HRW discovered in the Libyan prison, even as they had similarly been sent there by the CIA following claims of abuse and torture at the hands of the U.S....

Human Rights Watch also revealed that, although its researchers had been unable to talk to al-Libi, they did interview four other Libyan prisoners, sent to Libya by the CIA between 2004 to 2006, who stated that they had been tortured by US forces in detention centers in Afghanistan, and that US forces had also supervised their torture in Pakistan and Thailand.

One of the men, Mohamed Ahmad Mohamed al-Shoroeiya, also known as Hassan Rabi'i, told Human Rights Watch that "in mid-2003, in a place he believed was Bagram prison in Afghanistan," he had been subjected to the following abuse: "The interpreters who directed the questions to us did it with beatings and insults. They used cold water, ice water. They put us in a tub with cold water. We were forced to go for months without clothes. They brought a doctor at the beginning. He put my leg in plaster. One of the methods of interrogation was to take the plaster off and stand on my leg." …

The Post failed to follow up on the stories of the other prisoners mentioned in the Human Rights Watch press release, even though, in October 2007, Craig Whitlock had written a front-page article for the Post, "From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity," which included details of the four prisoners.
...
Just as the story of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi should shine the most uncomfortable light on former Vice President Dick Cheney's claims that the CIA's web of secret prisons and proxy prisons protected America from further deadly attacks (and not, as it transpired, provided false information obtained through torture to justify an illegal war), so the stories of these four men deserve to be heard, to focus much-needed attention on a policy which, with no oversight from either Congress or the judiciary, allowed the Executive branch to indulge its dictatorial fantasies by "disappearing" prisoners anywhere around the world, and, in some cases, returning them to countries like Libya, with its notoriously poor human rights record, even when, as Craig Whitlock noted, at least two of these men "had nothing to do with al-Qaeda."

Worthington, a journalist, blogger, historian, and the author of The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison goes on to conclude by pointing out the hypocrisy with which the U.S., under the Bush Regime, decided to begin not only negotiating with, but actually working as partners with the terrorist regime in Libya...

Oh, and mesa, it's OK if you don't agree with everything k and x stand for. I "know" you're more responsible than that, so please don't feel you have to back such obviously sincere but profoundly naive and silly claptrap.

Of course the torturers will say anything to justify themselves just as the tortured will say anything to make the pain stop.

Your antics of "if you don't tell on me I won't tell on you

The Obama administration does not dispute this.
Obams statement is that information came out of the AIT's but that he feels it could have been acquired differently.

Also Leon Panetta (Democrat Bigwig) during his appointment hearings stated that AIT's were still on the table in the new Obama CIA.
Why because they can save lives!

Friday, February 6, 2009
The Obama administration has banned the usage of torture (which was already banned) and has ordered the CIA to close its longterm prisons.

Obama CIA pick backtracks on "torture" charge
06 Feb 2009 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) -
Panetta has long written of his opposition to abusive interrogations and torture. On the first day of his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on Thursday, he was asked whether the CIA would continue "extraordinary renditions," where prisoners are sent outside the United States for questioning.

He replied that Obama had banned the use of secret "black sites" for questioning last month. "That kind of extraordinary rendition, where we send someone for the purposes of torture or for actions by another country that violate our human values, that has been forbidden by the executive order," he said.

Last year, Panetta accused Bush of supporting torture on the grounds that it would prevent another Sept. 11 attack.

"Torture is illegal, immoral, dangerous and counterproductive. And yet, the president is using fear to trump the law," he wrote in an opinion article. He said on Thursday he viewed "waterboarding," a form of simulated drowning the CIA acknowledged using on three suspects, as a form of torture.

Panetta also told the committee he supported restricting the CIA's use of outside contractors to conduct interrogations, which it has done in the past.

Oh, and mesa, it's OK if you don't agree with everything k and x stand for. I "know" you're more responsible than that, so please don't feel you have to back such obviously sincere but profoundly naive and silly claptrap.

Under insistent questioning from a Senate panel, Mr. Panetta said that in extreme cases, if interrogators were unable to extract critical information from a terrorism suspect, he would seek White House approval for the C.I.A. to use methods that would go beyond those permitted under the new rules.

“If we had a ticking bomb situation, and obviously, whatever was being used I felt was not sufficient, I would not hesitate to go to the president of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need,” Mr. Panetta said in his nomination hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

If waterboarding (et al) is so successful...why outsource so much of it? Why keep it so secret?

OK, Cotter, in your own words, if we’re going to stick precisely with the question that started this thread and nothing more—no judgment on torture or questions of moral superiority.

We have conflicting arguments—one side that says EIT (enhanced interrogation techniques/TORTURE) uncovered post-9-11 terror plots; the other that says they didn’t.

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whether or not the Democrats knew about the torture is immaterial

If all we were looking for were "post 911 terror plots", then why did we torture prisoners (that were SOLD to us, not actually captured off the battlefield) trying to get them to admit some sort of tie-in with Al Qaeda and Saddam? What did that have to do with so-called "post 911 terror plots"?