Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

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Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (ابن الشیخ اللبّی) was a Libyan paramilitary trainer for Al-Qaeda. After being captured and interrogated by American forces, the information he gave under interrogation was cited by the Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.

Al-Libi led the Al Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan, the facility where Zacarias Moussaoui and Ahmed Ressam trained. An associate of Abu Zubaydah, al-Libi was on the September 26, 2002 list of terrorists released by the U.S. government following the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack. The list detailed individuals and organizations whose assets were to be immediately frozen. He was captured by Pakistani officials at the end of 2001 or beginning of 2002 as he attempted to flee Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban ensuing the 2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan.

He was then turned over to U.S. officials and held at a detention center at the Kandahar airport. In the second week of January 2002, he was flown to the USS Bataan in the northern Arabian Sea, the ship which is being used to hold eight other important prisoners, including John Walker Lindh. His capture was first reported by NBC News in the evening of January 4, 2002.

Al-Libi has been identified as the source of misinformation regarding the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda that the Bush Administration used 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 Colin Powell's speech to the U.N Security Council on 5 February 2003, which concluded with a long recitation of the information provided 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 DIA report concluded the same thing.

Libi recanted these claims in January 2004, and his recantation is backed up by evidence from the interrogation of other top al Qaeda officials. The DIA concluded in February 2002 that 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. Al-Libi is believed to have been one of the high value detainees who prompted the Bush administration to initiate interrogation methods of questionable morality and legality. These critics suggest it wasn't hard for al-Libi to figure out what his interrogators were sure he knew, and that they wouldn't stop, until he told them what they wanted to hear.

An article published in the November 5, 2005 New York Times quoted two paragraphs of a DIA 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 [stet] 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 [stet] scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.
Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.

This report was followed in January 2003 by a CIA report coming to the same conclusion, noting that al-Libi was "not in a position to know if any training had taken place."

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External links and references

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