Cheney told paper in 2004 that Guantanamo detainees admitted Al Qaeda-Iraq link
May 17th, 2009
McClatchy Newspapers has more on the evolving story that a major factor in the development of the Bush administration torture program was the desire to demonstrate an Al Qaeda-Irq link. McClatchy now reports that Vice President Cheney told a newspaper in 2004 that Guantanamo detainees had admitted that Al Qaeda had sent members to Iraq for training in Chemical and Biological Warfare.
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 head of the Criminal Investigation Task Force at Guantanamo from 2002-2005 confirmed to McClatchy that in late 2002 and early 2003, intelligence officials were tasked to find, among other things, Iraq-al Qaida ties, which were a central pillar of the Bush administration’s case for its March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“I’m aware of the fact that in late 2002, early 2003, that (the alleged al Qaida-Iraq link) was an interest on the intelligence side,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Brittain Mallow, a former military criminal investigator. “That was something they were tasked to look at.”
Was Cheney lying or simply anticipating the “evidence” the torturers were being encouraged to produce?
Entry Filed under: Bush administration, Guantanamo, Iraq, Terrorism, Torture