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Justifying Iraq with Torture
by Jacob G. Hornberger

An increasing number of articles (see here and here and here and here) are pointing to evidence that U.S. officials tortured detainees to force them to disclose a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. The evidence includes an allegation by Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for then Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has alleged that the enhanced interrogation program’s “principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda.”

Meanwhile, a man named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi has recently died in a Libyan prison. In his famous speech to the UN Security Council to build support for the planned invasion of Iraq, Powell relied on assertions made by al-Libi that turned out to be false. In his UN speech, Powell said he could “trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these chemical and biological weapons to al-Qaeda.”

According to Wilkerson, U.S. officials pressured the Egyptian officials to torture al-Libi to get information out of him relating to the alleged Saddam-al-Qaeda link.

How did al-Libi get to Egypt? He was renditioned there by the CIA.

How did al-Libi get to Libya? He was renditioned there by the CIA, after Egypt returned him to the CIA.

If all that isn’t enough to warrant subpoenas and investigations, what is?

Yet, incredibly there are still people in this country who cry, “Leave it alone. Leave it buried. Let’s move on. The past is the past.”

Let’s keep in mind, after all, who runs Libya. It’s Mohammar Qaddafi. Remember him? He’s the man in charge of the regime that U.S. officials considered a state sponsor of terrorism, a regime that formally admitted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

So, how does it come to be that U.S. officials entered into a torture partnership with Qaddafi’s regime? Who strikes such a deal? Who are the negotiators? Is the agreement put into writing or is it done through a handshake? Are U.S. officials present during the torture?

Wouldn’t you think that the members of Congress would want to know such things? Wouldn’t you think a federal grand jury would want answers? Wouldn’t you think an independent press would demand answers? Would you expect at least a bit of outrage over all this?

Alas, not in an age in which morality has become passé. Making torture deals with evil brutes, while coming up with bogus justifications for waging a war of aggression that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, is now just an accepted part of life in an empire.

By the way, the situation is the same with respect to Syria. Do you recall that President Bush would repeatedly say, “We don’t talk to Syria because Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism”?

Well, it was a lie. It had to be because at the same time that Bush was making his pronouncements, there were U.S. officials striking a deal with Syria to torture a Canadian named Maher Arar, who U.S. officials had kidnapped here in the United States and renditioned to Syria for the purpose of having him tortured.

Which U.S. officials actually spoke to Syria to make the torture deal? What were the terms of the agreement? Who were the Syrian officials who negotiated the deal? Was the torture deal struck without Bush’s knowledge and consent? Did he later ratify it?

Alas, not one of those questions was ever asked by any member of the press at any of Bush’s press conferences. They just blithely accepted Bush’s repeated bromide about not talking to Syria despite the conclusive evidence that Syria was torturing Arar pursant to a torture deal with Syria that had been struck by Bush’s subordinates.

The claim by Libyan officials that al-Libi committed suicide, of course, has to be taken with a grain of salt. If they murdered the guy to keep him silent, they would allege he committed suicide. Are the Libyan torturers capable of murdering their torture victims? Just ask the surviving victims of Pan Am Flight 103. While it’s possible that Qaddafi and his henchmen have been converted into saints, isn’t it much more likely that it’s just one more case in which the U.S. government has entered into a partnership with evil, brutal people as part of its pro-empire, interventionist foreign policy?

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were scrambling to find a legal justification for their war of aggression against Iraq. People have a right to know whether they employed torture in the hopes of finding that justification. People also have a right to know how the U.S. government came to enter into torture agreements with the brutal regimes in Egypt, Libya, and Syria and what the consequences of those torture agreements have been.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, publisher of Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax by Sheldon Richman. Send him email.