CIA says waterboarding was helpful
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| Tue, 04-21-2009 - 5:15pm |
Do we waterboard a terrorist prisoner, or let thousands of innocent people die from terrorism?
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46949
CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles
The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.
Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”
According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the “Second Wave”-- planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”
KSM was the mastermind of the first “hijacked-airliner” attacks on the United States, which struck the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Northern Virginia on Sept. 11, 2001.
After KSM was captured by the United States, he was not initially cooperative with CIA interrogators. Nor was another top al Qaeda leader named Zubaydah. KSM, Zubaydah, and a third terrorist named Nashiri were the only three persons ever subjected to waterboarding by the CIA. (Additional terrorist detainees were subjected to other “enhanced techniques” that included slapping, sleep deprivation, dietary limitations, and temporary confinement to small spaces -- but not to water-boarding.)
This was because the CIA imposed very tight restrictions on the use of waterboarding. “The ‘waterboard,’ which is the most intense of the CIA interrogation techniques, is subject to additional limits,” explained the May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo. “It may be used on a High Value Detainee only if the CIA has ‘credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent’; ‘substantial and credible indicators that the subject has actionable intelligence that can prevent, disrupt or deny this attack’; and ‘ther interrogation methods have failed to elicit this information within the perceived time limit for preventing the attack.’”
The quotations in this part of the Justice memo were taken from an Aug. 2, 2004 letter that CIA Acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo sent to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Before they were subjected to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation that included waterboarding, KSM and Zubaydah were not only uncooperative but also appeared contemptuous of the will of the American people to defend themselves.
“In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques,” says the Justice Department memo. “Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general US population was ‘weak,’ lacked resilience, and would be unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals.’ Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will know.’”
After he was subjected to the “waterboard” technique, KSM became cooperative, providing intelligence that led to the capture of key al Qaeda allies and, eventually, the closing down of an East Asian terrorist cell that had been tasked with carrying out the 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.
The May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that details what happened in this regard was written by then-Principal Deputy Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury to John A. Rizzo, the senior deputy general counsel for the CIA.
“You have informed us that the interrogation of KSM—once enhanced techniques were employed—led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles,” says the memo.
“You have informed us that information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discover of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemaah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave,’” reads the memo. “More specifically, we understand that KSM admitted that he had large sum of money to an al Qaeda associate … Khan subsequently identified the associate (Zubair), who was then captured. Zubair, in turn, provided information that led to the arrest of Hambali. The information acquired from these captures allowed CIA interrogators to pose more specific questions to KSM, which led the CIA to Hambali’s brother, al Hadi. Using information obtained from multiple sources, al-Hadi was captured, and he subsequently identified the Garuba cell. With the aid of this additional information, interrogations of Hambali confirmed much of what was learned from KSM.”
A CIA spokesman confirmed to CNSNews.com today that the CIA stands by the factual assertions made here.
In the memo itself, the Justice Department’s Bradbury told the CIA’s Rossi: “Your office has informed us that the CIA believes that ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qa’ida has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.”

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I think that the Bush Admin did a great job scaring the bejeebers out of everyone so they condoned the torture interrogations .. but there was never any proof or evidence that the majority of those imprisoned were actually terrorists .. so it is usually better to err on the side of caution and just not cave into the peer pressure or scare tactics. Otherwise you have everyone losing their sense of morals, justice and decency.
I think it would be wise for Obama to keep his options open about prosecution.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30325495
Obama: Interrogation prosecution possible
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terrorism-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost "our moral bearings" with use of the tactics.
The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods "is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said.
The president discussed the issue of terrorism-era interrogation tactics with reporters as he finished an Oval Office meeting with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan.
Obama also said he could support a congressional investigation into the Bush-era terrorist detainee program, but only under certain conditions, such as if it were done on a bipartisan basis. He said he worries about the impact that high-intensity, politicized hearings in Congress could have on the government's efforts to cope with terrorism.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs said later that the independent Sept. 11 Commission, which investigated and then reported on the terror attacks of 2001, might be a model.
The president had said earlier that he didn't want to see prosecutions of the CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, so long as they acted within parameters spelled out by government superiors who held that such practices were legal at the time.
The vexing issue of how terrorism-era detainees held by the United States were interrogated has presented Obama with a quandary, both political and pragmatic. He harshly criticized these practices as the campaigning Democratic presidential candidate, and still feels pressure from his party's liberal wing to come down hard on it, even after the fact. But he also is being criticized by Republicans, including people as high-ranking as former Vice President Dick Cheney, who say the Bush administration doesn't get enough credit for protecting the country from a second 9/11-style attack.
Worsening Obama's dilemma: Now that he is president, he has to worry even more about the fallout of a release of government interrogation memoranda since he now oversees the entire national security establishment, including the spy apparatus.
Cheney said in a Fox News Channel interview that the U.S. government gained valuable intelligence from its aggressive interrogations. This came after conservatives roundly criticized Obama for releasing the internal Bush administration memos, saying that action was not in the U.S. national security interests.
In the interview, Cheney said, "I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions."
The Cheney transition office says that the former vice president made the request to the National Archives to declassify the CIA documents on March 31st - and the Archives confirmed on April 8th that they had forwarded the request to the relevant agencies. The Archives are the agency that former vice presidents contact for such matters.
Tuesday afternoon senior intelligence officials told NBC News they have not yet received any request.
I googled Ron Suskind and came up with the following review of his book (from the Amazon website) -
"This is a disappointing book on many levels. I read the book during research for my Ph.D. dissertation but concluded it lacks the academic rigor to be a credible source. The author's documentation of sources consisted of a short paragraph in the back, stating his book was based on substantial interviews and documents, but fails to reveal them. Hence, readers cannot scrutinize his evidence or the basis for his conclusions. One might conclude that the book is based on one percent research.
I was surprised to learn from the book that the United States supplies Israel with tanks, tanks which kill women and children. Had the author bothered to check, he would have discovered that the Merkava tank is Israeli-manufactured. The emotive reference to inadvertent deaths of noncombatants is callow at best. The error may be minor, but if the author is wrong on basic knowledge, how dependable is the rest of the book? One might conclude that the book is based on one percent facts.
The book purports one assertion after another using weak evidence and weaker logic. The author claims that the failure of al Qaeda to launch subsequent attacks on the United States is not due to American vigilance or counter-actions, but because al Qaeda chose not to. The author suggests that Vice President Cheney is running the war effort, not President Bush, and that all national security decisions are based on the slight possibility of a threat materializing, hence the One Percent Doctrine. One might conclude the book is based on one percent logic.
Many of the author's accounts regarding the run up to the Iraq War are simply a regurgitation of Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command, but not as detailed. Perhaps Mr. Hersh was one of the author's sources. One might conclude the book is one percent personal effort.
The reader must endure numerous platitudes of the President not being a reader or the Director of the CIA being a back-slapper, and other attempts by the author to appear clever. Rather than attempt to analyze why certain national security decisions were made or the constraints placed on the Administration regarding the prosecution of the War on Terror, the author chose to sensationalize events using one percent hindsight.
In short, this book was one hundred percent a waste of my valuable research time.
Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen (Ret)."
Our former VP will make his case tonight on Fox News.
He may have difficulty making his case if the current regime refuses to declassify supporting documents. Apparently only documents harmful to the prior administration can be declassified.
Hmm criminal prosecutions of the prior administration for having different policies. What an interesting concept.
He could have made his case years ago (if he had one), and categorically failed to do so.
Hmm criminal prosecutions of the prior administration for having different policies. What an interesting concept.
Wrong.
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And precisely what does his book have to do with the article in question and the
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Does the review of Suskind's book which you posted negate the validity of the article? The claim that waterboarding achieved measurable success in garnering valuable and actionable intel isn't supported by the CNS article you initially cited. As my article stated, the claim of such valuable intel extracted via torture was a claim disputed when the claim was made a few years ago. A book review says little about the actual evidence of the efficacy of torture which those who advocate torture continue to promote. Not all reviewers of the cited Suskind book had the same opinion anyway. From the same Amazon site as many reviewers thought the book was worthwhile as not - a sampling:
http://www.amazon.com/One-Percent-Doctrine-Americas-Pursuit/dp/0743271092
One Percent Doctrine, 99 Percent Wrong. The Book 100 Percent Worth Reading, September 20, 2006
By !Edwin C. Pauzer (New York City) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
The more you read about this administration, the more you piece together the inner workings and mechanizations of a dysfunctional leadership that spends more time on propaganda and plausible deniability than on governance.
Suskind paints a picture that is becoming all too familiar. Everything for Mr. Bush was funneled through the narrow straw of Dick Cheney who filtered all the information the president would see. This not only slowed the information process, it effectively buried it. (It seems Richard Clarke who wrote "Against All Enemies" was right).>>>extensive evaluation at the link above
Impeaches Cheney, Demeans Bush, Crucifies Rumsfeld and Rice, June 26, 2006
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)
In the context of non-fiction literature, I consider this book to be the co-equal of Graham Allison's classic, "Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis." It joins Bob Woodward's "Bush at War" and the more detailed James Risen's "State of War" as core references.>>>extensive evaluation at the link above
Riveting Read From Ron Suskind!, June 20, 2006
By Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This latest offering from renowned journalist Ron Suskind, "The One Percent Doctrine", proves the wisdom of the old adage regarding truth being stranger than fiction. At the same time it also serves up a number of egregious examples of just how far reaching the terrible recklessness and near total disregard for truth and law in the fateful decisions made by the Bush administration in the three year wake of the events of 911 has been for the nation and the world at large. At heart, Suskind contends, is an absurd Cheny perception that even a "one percent' probability of a terrorist attack requires immediate pre-emptive action. Given such a fascistic and dangerous interpretation of America's presumptive place in the contemporary world, it is no wonder we have gone so recklessly far astray.>>>>extensive evaluation at the link above
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