CIA says waterboarding was helpful

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
CIA says waterboarding was helpful
47
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.”

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Tue, 04-21-2009 - 11:24pm

Moral compass doesn't point to true north anymore when tactics like torture are accepted under the aegis of POSSIBLE prevention (and I really really really want to know how there could be any certainty given the ineptitude and duplicity of BushCo) of attacks. Maybe you don't remember the innuendo and fear-mongering of Bush's October 2002 speech in Cincinnati but I sure do! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Only gullible fools and willing dupes would blithely swallow the bilge which Cheney, Yoo, Tenet, Goss and others of their ilk are now belatedly spreading in another bungled effort at self exoneration. IF there had been such a concrete and valid justification for "enhanced interrogation techniques", why oh why, didn't BushCheney declassify any documents while their regime was still in power? Huh?

And more to the point, if the "Second Wave" attack had actually existed, why did we hear NOTHING about it at the time? BTW, I won't accept the usual "national security" bromide because it would demonstrate the same circuitous "logic" which typified so many of BushCo's gawdawful decisions and actions.

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-11-2009
Tue, 04-21-2009 - 11:51pm

Thank you for getting that off my chest.

 

Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 6:27am

Well said.






iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 8:35am

"I think it would be wise for Obama to keep his options open about prosecution."


That's why we're seeing/hearing all this spin about how "helpful" torture was. Never mind the ethical damage.


>"In 2006, a group of scientists and retired intelligence officers set out to settle the matter. They sought to find the most effective interrogation tactics and advise the U.S. government on their use. Their conclusions, laid out in a 372-page report for the director of national intelligence, argued against harsh interrogation.


"The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information," former military interrogation instructor and retired Air Force Col. Steven M. Kleinman wrote in the Intelligence Science Board report. "In essence, there seems to be an unsubstantiated assumption that 'compliance' carries the same connotation as 'meaningful cooperation.'"


In short: Slam someone up against the wall, keep him awake for days, lock him naked in a cell and slap his face enough, and he will probably say something. That doesn't necessarily make it true."<


Segment from. Article offers other instances of torture's ineffectiveness.


 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 8:59am

Another 'shining' reaction under the Bush & Co's

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 9:21am

One's sense of justice is offended by the idea that the soldiers at Abu Ghraib, the low people on the totem pole, were punished for attitudes and policies promulgated at the highest levels of our government. While Lindy England was being court martialed, CIA agents were being equally, if not more, abusive of human rights at Bagram. Those agents won't be held to account by us (though apparently some European countries aren't quite so willing to countenance those "enhanced techniques"--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042103742.html?hpid=topnews); and neither will Rumsfeld, Yoo, Cheney or Bush.

So much for democracy and its vaunted egalitarianism. If you're powerful enough, you can get away with murder or something damn close to it. Revolting.

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 9:26am

Bert and Ernie?! Right at Dumbya's level! I'm sure that bananas in our moral ears (all the better to drown out the voice of conscience maybe?) are all the rage in Texas.....or maybe it's Tennessee! http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/v/bushfoolme.htm

Those who believe unequivocally in their leaders, without question or critical comment, would bring us to the same sorry state as that of the people in North Korea. NOT what I'm willing to live with!

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 9:54am

Harsh Tactics Readied Before Their Approval
Senate Report Describes Secret Memos

Intelligence and military officials under the Bush administration began preparing to conduct harsh interrogations long before they were granted legal approval to use such methods -- and weeks before the CIA captured its first high-ranking terrorism suspect, Senate investigators have concluded.

Previously secret memos and interviews show CIA and Pentagon officials exploring ways to break Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees in early 2002, up to eight months before Justice Department lawyers approved the use of waterboarding and nine other harsh methods, investigators found.

The findings are contained in a Senate Armed Services Committee report scheduled for release today that also documents multiple warnings -- from legal and trained interrogation experts -- that the techniques could backfire and might violate U.S. and international law. More.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042104055.html?nav=hcmodule

bird-1.jpg New picture by 1944misty

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 10:10am
If thousands die as the result of a terrorist attack and we didn't use aggressive interrogation techniques I guess that will be fine?
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Wed, 04-22-2009 - 10:13am

Abu Ghraib was run by a Clinton appointed general who mismanaged a horrible situation. Most of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were perpetrated by NCO's and enlisted who were more or less left without leadership. Appointing weak leaders to achieve a political agenda was unfortunately the legacy of the Clinton era.

Most of the crimes at Abu Ghraib were not administration policy and many were prosecuted and sent to prison for violating policy.