The CIA’s top priority in Libya: Seizing the rendition and torture files and the anti-corruption dossiers

(WMR)—The corporate media has, once again, been caught acting as stenographers for the CIA-backed Libyan Interim National Transitional Council by echoing the rebel reports that Seif al Islam and Muhammad Qaddafi, two of Muammar Qaddafi’s sons, were captured. Seif and Muhammad were not captured and Seif has taken reporters around parts of Tripoli still held by Qaddafi forces. Tripoli has not fallen to the rebels.

The corporate media’s coverage of the Libyan rebels has, for the entirety of the NATO campaign against Libya, been noted for its one-sided coverage of the war. In the case of Libya, Al Jazeera, owned by Qatar, a NATO coalition partner in the war against Libya, has joined the BBC, France 24, Deustche Welle, and the US news networks in acting as virtual propaganda arms for the Libyan rebels, who have made the types of false claims that are reminiscent of “Baghdad Bob,” Saddam’s spokesman in Iraq, and Ahmad Chalabi, the con-artist who spoke to the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague also reported the sons’ capture, which makes practically every decision the ICC has made on trials of former leaders of Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, and Liberia subject to extreme suspicion.

Even after the rebels were caught lying, CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed a young woman who claimed she was in Tripoli and was yearning for Qaddafi’s death and her freedom. Of course, the woman could have been as “real” as the young Kuwaiti woman who masqueraded as a nurse who escaped from Iraqi-occupied Kuwait and claimed she saw Iraqi troops throwing babies grabbed from incubators on the floor. The “nurse” was actually the daughter of Kuwait’s ambassador to Washington and her nurse credentials were as phony as her story about the incubators. CNN has gone for the same propaganda by interviewing a woman who claims she is held up in a house in Tripoli when most international communications with the Libyan capital having been cut off for months.

With Muammar Qaddafi’s rule at an end in Libya, the CIA’s top priority will be, just as in post-Mubarak Egypt, post-Ben Ali Tunisia; and soon, possibly, in post-Assad Syria, to seize the intelligence and military files illustrating the CIA’s close relationship with local intelligence torturers in jailing and subjecting to brutal questioning techniques dozens of Muslims from around the world believed to be linked to “Al Qaeda.” The top Libyan official in charge of the Libyan involvement in Mussa Kusa, the one-time Libyan intelligence chief and foreign minister who previously defected to the rebel Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC). Dozens of CIA planes landed at Tripoli’s Mitiga International Airport during the rendition program and deposited Muslims and Arabs picked up in worldwide locations for local torture.

WMR previously reported that a CIA rendition Boeing 737 operated by CIA front company Keeler and Tate Management of Reno, Nevada, arrived at RAF Northolt, UK on November 14, 2003, from Mitiga, Libya. The plane also arrived in Libya on January 12; March 12; October 28; October 12; October 19, 2003 and February 21; March 7, 9, 16,; April 21, 23; September 7, 2004; and January 7, 16, 18, 19, 2005. The CIA Boeing torture plane flew missions between Mitiga airport in Tripoli and Valletta, Malta; Oxford, UK; Dulles International Airport, Washington; Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Frankfurt, Germany; Morocco; and Glasgow, Scotland.

Another CIA rendition aircraft, a Gulfstream IV, leased to the CIA by Phillip H. Morse, a minority partner of the Boston Red Sox, departed Tripoli on May 5, 2004 en route to Tenerife, Canary Islands.

Also a high priority for the CIA is the seizure of the files of the Libyan anti-corruption agency, which document the siphoning of Libyan oil revenues by top officials of the ITNC and were under investigation for fraud by Qaddafi’s government before they defected to tbe rebel movement. The anti-corruption agency was one of the first targets of NATO aircraft, a move WMR previously reported was directed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to prevent Libyan donations to his 2007 presidential campaign from being made public. The sensitive torture and fraud documents held by Qaddafi’s government will also be seized to prevent Qaddafi’s son and one-time heir apparent Seif al Islam al Qaddafi and his older brother Muhammad Qaddafi and another brother, Al-Saadi al Qaddafi, from using them in their defense at their planned trial before the International Criminal Court.

Intelligence files held by Qaddafi’s government on the 1988 downing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and the files on negotiations on the release of accused bomber, former Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al Megrahi, will also be a high priority for seizure by the CIA. The files, if released to the public, will show that it was Iran, not Libya, that was responsible for the 1988 downing of PanAm 103 and that it was President George H. W. Bush who ordered Libya be blamed to clear the way for a showdown with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by absolving Iran of any blame and ensuring Tehran’s neutrality in the Operation Desert Storm showdown with Iraq.

There are now calls for Megrahi to be renditioned to the United States to stand trial for the PanAm 103 bombing. Megrahi was freed by the Scottish government in close consultation with Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, because he was suffering from cancer and was believed to be terminally ill. However, it is believed that the deal was cut to give British Petroleum expanded access to Libyan oil fields and guarantee Libyan bailout funds for failed British banks. Libyan documents on the British-Libyan deals are also highly sought by the CIA and Britain’s MI-6 intelligence service.

A secret report that alleges that Megrahi was innocent of carrying out the PanAm 103 bombing is due to be released soon by the Commission (SCCRC). New Jersey senators  Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, both recipients of large amounts of Israeli campaign cash through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have called for Megrahi to be extradited by the Libyan rebel government to stand trial in the United States for Lockerbie. However, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond stands by his decision to free Megrahi and any move by the United States to second-guess Scotland may result in frayed relations between the Scottish government and the United States, especially seen as important with Scotland’s government striving for independence from Britain and the U.S. submarine base at Holy Loch a potential casualty of a fracture in relations between Washington and Edinburgh.

In the record of the CIA’s sordid operations in the Middle East, Operation Desert Storm led to Operation Iraqi Freedom and finally, Operation Mermaid Dawn, the capture of Tripoli by Libyan rebel forces. One of the casualties of Mermaid Dawn will be the continued secrecy of the power politics that led to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and now NATO’s proxies’ invasion and occupation of Libya.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).