Pre-war intelligence or Pre-war stupidity?
The New York Times got a big scoop on Sunday and curiously buried it on page 14. It got trumped by their page one story about this obscure little company they discovered called Google which has, evidently, been doing pretty well recently. With Senate hearings into the handling of pre-war evidence FINALLY beginning this week, this could be a big story:
A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document…
The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible” evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.
Read it all a here.
Duh.