Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi - Information Provided

Information Provided

According to the Washington Post,

Under questioning, al-Libi provided the CIA with intelligence about an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Yemen with a truck bomb and pointed officials in the direction of Abu Zubaydah, a top al Qaeda leader known to have been involved in the Sept. 11 plot.

On September 15, 2002, Time published an article that detailed the CIA interrogations of Omar al-Faruq. In the article it states "On Sept. 9, according to a secret CIA summary of the interview, al-Faruq confessed that he was, in fact, al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. Then came an even more shocking confession: according to the CIA document, al-Faruq said two senior al-Qaeda officials, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had ordered him to 'plan large-scale attacks against U.S. interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, (the) Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia.'"

Al-Libi has been identified as the primary source of faulty prewar intelligence regarding chemical weapons training between Iraq and al Qaeda that was used by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq. Specifically, he told interrogators that Iraq provided training to al-Qaeda in the area of weapons of mass destruction. In Cincinnati in October 2002, Bush informed the public: "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

This claim was repeated several times in the run-up to the war, including in then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N Security Council on February 5, 2003, which concluded with a long recitation of the information provided by al-Libi. Powell's speech came less than a month after a then-classified CIA report concluding that the information provided by al-Libi was unreliable and about a year after a Defense Intelligence Agency report concluded the same thing.

Al-Libi recanted these claims in January 2004 after U.S. interrogators presented to him "new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims", according to Newsweek.

The DIA concluded in February 2002 that al-Libi deliberately misled interrogators. Some speculate that his reason for giving disinformation was in order to draw the U.S. into an attack on Iraq, which al Qaeda believes will lead to a global jihad. Others suggest that al-Libi gave false information because of the use of excessively harsh interrogation methods.

An article published in the November 5, 2005 New York Times quoted two paragraphs of a Defense Intelligence Agency report, declassified upon request by Senator Carl Levin, that expressed doubts about the results of al-Libi's interrogation in February 2002. The declassified paragraphs are:

This is the first report from Ibn al-Shaykh in which he claims Iraq assisted al-Qaida's CBRN efforts. However, he lacks specific details on the Iraqi's involved, the CBRN materials associated with the assistance, and the location where training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.

The January 2003 CIA paper Iraqi Support for Terrorism states that al-Libi told a foreign intelligence service that "Iraq — acting on the request of al-Qa'ida militant Abu Abdullah, who was Muhammad Atif's emissary — agreed to provide unspecified chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qa'ida associates beginning in December 2000. The two individuals departed for Iraq but did not return, so al-Libi was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." The September 2002 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism stated that al-Libi said Iraq had "provided" chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates in 2000, but also stated that al-Libi "did not know the results of the training."

The 2006 Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq stated that "Although DIA coordinated on CIA's Iraqi Support for Terrorism paper, DIA analysis preceding that assessment was more skeptical of the al-Libi reporting." In July 2002, DIA assessed "It is plausible al-Qa'ida attempted to obtain CB assistance from Iraq and Ibn al-Shaykh is sufficiently senior to have access to such sensitive information. However, Ibn al-Shaykh's information lacks details concerning the individual Iraqis involved, the specific CB materials associated with the assistance and the location where the alleged training occurred. The information is also second hand, and not derived from Ibn al-Shaykh's personal experience."

The Senate report also states "According to al-Libi, after his decision to fabricate information for debriefers, he 'lied about being a member of al-Qa'ida. Although he considered himself close to, but not a member of, al-Qa'ida, he knew enough about the senior members, organization and operations to claim to be a member.'"