Blogoland

Is the case still closed?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

So the U.S., employing the practice of extraordinary rendition, tortures a prisoner and extracts bogus information on Iraq-al Qaeda ties, all of which he later recants. What is that, like a three-fer? Paging Stephen Hayes...