The LA Times' Ken Silverstein reports on the Bush administration's secret close relationship with Sudan, an intelligence partner in the war on Al Qaeda:

Last week, the CIA sent an executive jet here to ferry the chief of Sudan's intelligence agency to Washington for secret meetings sealing Khartoum's sensitive and previously veiled partnership with the administration, U.S. government officials confirmed.

A decade ago Bin Laden and his fledgling Al Qaeda network were based in Khartoum. After they left for Afghanistan, the regime of Sudanese strongman Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir retained ties with other groups the U.S. accuses of terrorism.

As recently as September, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell accused Sudan of committing genocide in putting down an armed rebellion in the western province of Darfur. And the administration warned that the African country's conduct posed "an extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States.

Behind the scenes, however, Sudan was emerging as a surprisingly valuable ally of the CIA...

Meantime, the Boston Globe's Farah Stockman reports that John Bolton hyped....the Sudan biological weapons threat in the wake of 9/11. (Thx to RMS and Eric Umansky).

Posted by Laura at April 29, 2005 09:07 AM