Friday, November 17, 2006

Does this mean Bush is in league with the terrorists?

This is stunning. Y'all recall how, about a month ago, it was revealed that one of the administration's sources for an Iraq-al Qaeda tie revealed that misinformation after being tortured? Well, a European intelligence agent who infiltrated al Qaeda has claimed that he said this on purpose in order to get the U.S. to invade Iraq:
A senior al-Qaeda operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies said.

The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence agencies, including British intelligence (MI5). He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaeda had been training Iraqis.

...

Asked whether he thought Libi had deliberately planted information to get the US to fight Iraq, Nasiri said: "Exactly".

Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim country.

...

What is new, if Nasiri is to be believed, is that the leading al-Qaeda operative wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. Nasiri also says that part of al-Qaeda training was to withstand interrogation and provide false information.

If true, this would mean that basically the entire war was according to al Qaeda's plans. (Would that make the Bush administration guilty of giving aid and comfort to the enemy?) I'm skeptical about whether it's true or not, though. Surely this war was a godsend for al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations--it created a haven for terrorists and undoubtedly a huge boost in recruitment--but it was premeditated by them? I find that a little hard to swallow.

No comments: