People Who Believe In Coincidences Will Believe In This

This story must launch some conspiracy theories:

Detainee Who Gave False Iraq Data Dies In Prison in Libya

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A former CIA high-value detainee, who provided bogus information that was cited by the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war, has died in a Libyan prison, an apparent suicide, according to a Libyan newspaper.

A researcher for Human Rights Watch, who met Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi at the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli late last month, said a contact in Libya had confirmed the death.

...In their book "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," Michael Isikoff and David Corn said Libi made up the story about Iraqi training after he was beaten and subjected to a "mock burial" by his Egyptian interrogators, who put him in a cramped box for 17 hours. Libi recanted the story after being returned to CIA custody in 2004.

When President George W. Bush ordered the 2006 transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of high-value detainees previously held in CIA custody, Libi was pointedly missing. Human rights groups had long suspected that Libi was instead transferred to Libya, but the CIA had never confirmed where he was sent.

"I would speculate that he was missing because he was such an embarrassment to the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski, the head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch. "He was Exhibit A in the narrative that tortured confessions contributed to the massive intelligence failure that preceded the Iraq war."

The first independent confirmation of Libi's whereabouts came two weeks ago. Heba Morayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said she and a colleague met him briefly in a courtyard at the Abu Salim prison on April 27. The two were there to examine the treatment of prisoners in Libya, including other detainees once held by the United States.

Libi angrily rejected speaking to the researchers, saying, "Where were you when I was being tortured in American prisons?" according to Morayef, who described the encounter in a phone interview.

The Libyan newspaper Oed reported Sunday that Libi was found dead in his cell after killing himself, but added that friends of the 46-year-old former preacher, who ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, questioned the alleged cause of death.

Here is the Memorandum link.  Sully has not yet checked in, but presumably he will as soon as he has exhausted any possible connections to Trig Palin.

As to "the truth"?  Who knows?  One might imagine that a man such as Libi has made many enemies over the years, some of whom may be within the terrorist world, so perhaps being in the news was not so healthy for him.  For that matter, maybe he was kept out of Gitmo for similar reasons.

Or, Dick Cheney strangled him.

The only thing of which I am certain is that the emerging conspiracists won't spend three seconds on the possibility that a man who spent a lifetime with terrorists made enemies among the terrorists.

MORE:  Wikipedia is helpful, as is this 2005 Times article.

Comments

[narciso]

No one cares, unless it happens in Bagram, Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, he must have figured that out, at some point, He's dead, a toast.

[PeterUK]

"Or, Dick Cheney strangled him."

Not Cheney's modus operandi.

[Danube of Thought]

Good time to remember this one from Jefferson, September 20, 1810:

"To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

Screw those people.

[clarice]

Gosh..and just as Pelosi signalled she was calling him as her character witness.

[Danube of Thought]

I see Pelosi has yet another version of events. The mind reels.

[al-Manhatta]

The 2005 Times article claims he was sent to Guantanamo.

[Mark Eichenlaub]

So this guy said Zarqawi, Shihata and Abu al Masri would be in Baghdad and then later we found out from their OWN documents that that was true and that means this guy is lying about Saddam/Iraq links to al Qaeda?

Does this writer or those flaunting this know or care about the facts?

I may post about this at my site on Saddam, terror...www.regimeofterror.com.

[Pofarmer]

Does this writer or those flaunting this know or care about the facts?

Uhm, no.

[JM Hanes]

"I would speculate that he was missing because he was such an embarrassment to the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski, the head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch. "He was Exhibit A in the narrative that tortured confessions contributed to the massive intelligence failure that preceded the Iraq war."

This is the first time I've heard that narrative. The pre-Iraq intel narrative was all Cheney all the time. Human Rights Watch may have convinced themselves that torture was the root of all Bush evil, but public recriminations didn't rev up till well after the Mission Accomplished moment. In fact, when the flight suit photos first came out, the left went into a serious tizzy, because they thought Bush would be able to use them to a huge PR advantage in the next election. The worms only really started turning when no WMD turned up and the media-political complex could pretend that the only reason they acquiesced to the BushCo invasion was the threat of an imminent mushroom cloud. The torture narrative took off after Abu Ghraib.

[gus]

Liberals are weeping over his untimely demise. Pelosi is sending flowers.

[bad]

Speaking of suicide by hanging, has anyone heard anymore about the FM guy who hung himself in his basement?

[narciso]

Well he was tortured by the Egyptians, and abandoned to the Libyans, I'm sure something
more than waterboarding, was involved; However, because there were Americans involved, how did he know who Abu Mohammed was. from the Wiki.

[clarice]

That timeline is exactly right JMH..As for Soros funded Human Rights Watch it is entitled to the same credence we give UN human rights committees. Nothing.

[AJB]

As for Soros funded Human Rights Watch it is entitled to the same credence we give UN human rights committees. Nothing.

So, I guess we should just ignore that whole situation in Darfur then?

[matt]

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has scheduled a public hearing to investigate the waterboarding scandal for Wednesday.

When asked if he, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who had been briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques had ever protested their use he said "it never crossed my mind that it would have made the least bit of difference".

He was briefed. he knew about the waterboarding. And he never said a word. The lack of ethics by these people is stunning on a Soviet of African scale.

[matt]

Soviet or African

[Pofarmer]

The lack of ethics by these people is stunning on a Soviet or African scale.

That's their model, what did you expect?

[Cecil Turner]

So, I guess we should just ignore that whole situation in Darfur then?

HRW is the only source for that? Who knew?

[Mark Eichenlaub]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hs2s19m5dp45pSQfDLfars6Z_qiAD984SCI02

Now the AP has hopped on the "lied about links to Iraq" meme. These people are so ignorant, partisan and/or dishonest it sickens me.

[Sue]

So, I guess we should just ignore that whole situation in Darfur then?

Posted by: AJB | May 12, 2009 at 03:23 PM

Might as well. The only alternative is to send in the troops and we all know that isn't an option.

[Mikey NTH]

"I would speculate that he was missing because he was such an embarrassment to the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski, the head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch. "He was Exhibit A in the narrative that tortured confessions contributed to the massive intelligence failure that preceded the Iraq war."

Or he was to Libya the Libyans wanted to talk to him about a few things and as part of a deal with them we did so.

I could speculate about that until the cows come home, or just use it to support my own particular hobby-horse without any proof offered, just like Mr. Malinowski did.