The
NYTimes reports, as diaried
here, that the false statements of an Al Qaida-Iraq link made by captured Al Qaida leader Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi, relied upon by the Bush Administration to argue in favor of the Iraq war, came as a result of torture threats:
[Bush Administration] officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
If the illegality of torture and the immorality of torture and extraordinary rendition are not sufficient for the rejection of these inhuman and barbaric practices, perhaps the American People might consider the fact that the use of torture and extraordinary rendition was a direct cause of the United States making the biggest strategic blunder since Vietnam.
It is mindboggling that, knowing this, the Bush Administration has fought tooth and nail against banning torture by the United States.
The worst Administration in history.