McClatchy has another important contribution to the torture/Cheney/Iraq story, revisiting Cheney's justifications for the invasion and reinforcing the idea that the Bush administration proposed and implemented torture to find Iraq/Al Qaeda ties.
WASHINGTON — Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn't true.
Cheney's 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic, insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular Iraqi dictatorship....
The Rocky Mountain News asked Cheney in a Jan. 9, 2004, interview if he stood by his claims that Saddam's regime had maintained a "relationship" with al Qaida, raising the danger that Iraq might give the group chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to attack the U.S.
"Absolutely. Absolutely," Cheney replied....
"The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back," he said. "We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it."
No evidence of such training or of any operational links between Iraq and al Qaida has ever been found, according to several official inquiries.
The McClatchy story includes some of their previous reporting on the story about the pressure interrogators received from Rumsfeld and Cheney's office to keep going back to Zubaydah and KSM for confessions of the alleged ties. To help set context for the story, remember
the allegations made by Paul O'Neill, former Bush administration Treasury Secretary, in Ron Suskind's 2004 The Price of Loyalty
[W]hat happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."
As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.
"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" says O’Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."
And that came up at this first meeting, says O’Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.
He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. "There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.
So, will any of this show up on the Sunday shows tomorrow? We can bet David Gregory won't go anywhere near it. But what about the rest of the media? Are thy going to let the shiny distraction that is Pelosi keep them from the real story? Judging by their overall performace this week, as chronicled by Media Matters, (Fox even trotted out--get this--Judy Miller to bash Pelosi) it doesn't seem likely.
(H/T Trix and reader PP for article tips.)