WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The reliability of a top al Qaeda operative in US custody had been questioned by a US intelligence agency months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the basis for its claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, US media reported on Sunday.

    Referring to the first interrogation report on al Qaeda senior military trainer Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) took note that the Libyan terrorist could not name any Iraqis involved, any chemical or biological material used or where the training occurred, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

    As a result, "it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers," the DIA intelligence report from February 2002 concluded. The conclusion has proved to be correct as al-Libi recanted his claims in January 2004, and a month later the Central Intelligence Agency withdrew all intelligence reports based on his information.

    According to separate news reports by The Washington Post and The New York Times, the newly declassified portions of the DIA document were made available by Sen. Carl Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    "The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility," The New York Times said.

    "Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice PresidentDick Cheney, Colin Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as credible evidence that Iraq was training al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons," the Times added.

    The new evidence of early doubts about Libi's statements dramatized the Bush administration's misuse of pre-war intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq, the Times cited Levin as saying. Enditem