Lying for the cause

But which side? The dems like to scream "Bush Lied" but now a western double agent named Omar Nasiri says not so fast--al Qaeda lied:

A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.

Nasiri is currently the focus of attention in Britain and hawking a new book. Maybe this will change the "Bush lied" meme to, "Bush lied, and was gullable, too".

The Guardian story focuses on Nasiri's account about Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who was captured in 2001. The al-Libi story is old news, but Nasiri's twist is the contention he deliberately lied to Egyptian investigators about their relationship with Saddam to draw us into Iraq.

Al-Libi become the epicenter of the rendition debate after it was suggested his information on Iraq, later presented by Colin Powell in support of the invasion, was obtained under duress. He later recanted, something celebrated by the MSM (and of which we were expected to believe absolutely) but now Nasiri is saying he deliberately lied under duress to trick the west.

So which is it? Did torture cause him to just give up some BS to stop the beatings--something he thought they wanted to hear--or did he plant the info as part of a grand scheme? If it's the latter why didn't he simply tell the CIA or FBI agents who debriefed him in Afghanistan before he was sent to Egypt? Maybe he wanted to show off his proficiency of the detention chapter of the AQ Training Manual.

Whatever the case none of it explains away some of the captured regime documents that support the notion that Saddam trained terrorists, unless they themselves are fake. The DOCEX port was shut down recently but some are maintained in cyber posterity in places like this. Also check out Bill Roggio's excellent post on the al-Libi confession.

Nasiri is either passing disinformation or trying to hype his book, probably both, but don't dismiss the possibility the Brit press is running a deflection campaign to bury other damaging facets of his testimonial, such as the timeline. He claims western intelligence didn't appreciate (HT eye of the world) his information when he provided it back in the 90s. The last thing we need is Clinton back on Fox News Sunday to wave his finger.

I can't help but wonder what Zawahiri and bin Laden think about all of this? Maybe we'll soon get that promised tape.

But let's assume al Libi's comments:

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."

are dead-on true. That suggests AQ was going to wage a large jihad somewhere, and also proves such a sentiment was in the air BEFORE 9/11--and before Bush divided the world and created more terrorists with the Iraq war. Besides, the notion that Saddam and Islamists couldn't play well together has long been shattered by reality.