Editing Abu Zubaydah (section)

== Iraq War (2003) ==
The Bush administration relied on some of Zubaydah's claims in justifying the invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials stated that the allegations that Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked in the training of people on chemical weapons came from Zubaydah.<ref name="Bush says Iraq">[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7430560_ITM "Bush Says He and Congress Will Band Together on Iraq; Capitol Hill Still Sour"], ''Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News'', September 27, 2002 {{registration required}}</ref><ref>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article6168270.ece]{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} [[Andrew Sullivan]]<span>, "One tortured lie: that's all it took for war"</span>, ''The Sunday Times'', April 26, 2009</ref> The officials noted there was no independent verification of his claims.<ref name="Bush says Iraq" />

The U.S. government included statements made by Zubaydah in regards to al Qaeda's ability to obtain a dirty bomb to show a link between Iraq and al Qaeda.<ref>[https://archive.today/20130201162835/http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/04/13/document_dump/ Fritz Umbach, "Bush's bogus document dump"], ''Salon'', April 13, 2006</ref> According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report of 2004, Zubaydah said that "he had heard that an important al Qaeda associate, [[Abu Musab al Zarqawi]], and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060104071811/http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/803czhfn.asp?pg=2 Stephen F. Hayes, "The Rice Stuff?"], ''The Daily Standard'', October 20, 2004</ref> However, the year before, in June 2003, Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were reported as saying there was no link between [[Saddam Hussein]] and [[al Qaeda]].<ref>John Diamond and Bill Nichols [https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-06-08-cia-usat_x.htm "CIA in spotlight over reports leading to war"], June 8, 2003</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/09/world/threats-and-responses-cia-captives-deny-qaeda-worked-with-baghdad.html James Risen, "Threats and Responses: C.I.A.; Captives Deny Qaeda Worked With Baghdad"], ''The New York Times'', June 9, 2003</ref>

In the Senate Armed Services Committee 2008 report on the abuses of detainees, the Bush administration was described as having applied pressure to interrogators to find a link between Iraq and al Qaeda prior to the Iraq War.<ref name="Rich 2009">[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html Frank Rich, "The Banality of Bush White House Evil"], ''The New York Times'', April 25, 2009</ref> Major Paul Burney, a psychiatrist with the United States Army, said to the committee, "while we were [at Guantanamo] a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful."<ref name="Rich 2009" /><ref name="Armed Services Inquiry">[http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf Senate Armed Services Committee, ''Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090429200942/http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf |date=April 29, 2009 }}, Senate Armed Services Committee, November 20, 2008</ref> He said that higher-ups were "frustrated" and applied "more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."<ref name="Rich 2009" /><ref name="Armed Services Inquiry" /><ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/05/the_lies_on_torture_just_keep.php Ed Brayton, "The Lies on Torture Just Keep Coming"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090507071710/http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/05/the_lies_on_torture_just_keep.php |date=May 7, 2009 }}, ''Science'' Blogs, May 4, 2009</ref>

Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for former Secretary of State [[Colin Powell]] said:
<blockquote>Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May 2002—well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion—its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course, later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.<ref name="Armed Services Inquiry" /></blockquote>