There may not be a smoking gun, at least not yet, but there sure is a lot of smoke. Here’s what Douglas Jehl reported in Sunday’s New York Times:
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, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “was intentionally misleading the debriefers” in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda’s work with illicit weapons.
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.
As I wrote in a recent post on impeachment: “I don’t think that building a case for impeachment at the expense of ignoring Bush’s conduct of the war makes much sense. The war happened. What’s done is done. So focus on what went wrong and who may be to blame for what went wrong… Yes, much of the focus should be returned to the gross mismanagement of the war itself. But there is every reason to believe that the Bush Administration lied or otherwise manipulated the intelligence (i.e., the facts) to advance its case for war in the first place. Is that not serious? Is that not something that should be investigated further?”
This latest revelation seems to be quite serious. For reaction from around the blogosphere, including Andrew Sullivan and Kevin Drum, see the full version of this post here.
My view:
A democracy should demand better of its leaders.
America should demand better of its president.
(Besides, lest you question my seemingly holier-than-thou attitude, we in Canada have our own problems with our leaders.)