Al Qaeda-Iraq Link Recanted

• Captured Libyan whose statements were the basis  of Bush Aministration claim that Al Qaeda and Iraq were linked- later told CIA his statements were not true

An al Qaeda commander who initially told interrogators that Iraq had provided chemical and biological weapons training to the terrorist organization later told CIA officers his statement was not true, according to intelligence officials. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan captured in Pakistan on Nov. 11, 2001, later "changed his story, and we're still in the process of trying to determine what's right and what's not right" from his information, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "He told us one thing at one time and another at another time." Al-Libi's statement formed the basis for the Bush administration's prewar claim that Osama bin Laden collaborated with Iraq, according to several U.S. officials. In an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, for example, President Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases." Other senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in a speech to the United Nations, made similar assertions. Al-Libi's statements were the foundation of all of them. [more]