Introduction by Mike Griffith, Staff Writer
Many liberals are now desperately denying that waterboarding and other harsh methods yielded any valuable information; they're especially desperate to deny that waterboarding prevented attacks and saved thousands of lives. They're also desperate to get us to believe that somehow waterboarding is "torture," even though it does no physical damage, even though we've waterboarded literally thousands of our own pilots and special operations personnel as part of their training, and even though the three terrorists who were waterboarded were assured ahead of time that they would not be waterboarded to the point of actually drowning.
Before we get to the article segments, let's review what we know from the recently released CIA interrogation memos (aka the "torture memos") and what former CIA directors have said on the matter. I'll start by quoting directly from the memos:
* "Before the CIA used enhanced techniques . . . KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will find out.' "
* "Interrogations have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its affiliates."
* [The interrogations] "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" and "information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the 'Second Wave.' "
* "Interrogations of [Abu] Zubaydah -- again, once enhanced techniques were employed -- furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda's 'organizational structure, key operatives, and modus operandi' and identified KSM as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks."
* The memos refer to an "Effectiveness Memo" and an "IG Report" that explain how "the use of enhanced techniques in the interrogations of KSM, Zubaydah and others . . . has yielded critical information." When will Obama release the "Effectiveness Memo"?
* "[A]s Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, 'brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship."
As for former CIA directors, Michael Hayden and George Tenet have weighed in on this matter with some important statements:
* Michael Hayden, Bush's last CIA director, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently wrote, "As late as 2006, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of Al Qaeda came from those interrogations."
* Former CIA Director George Tenet has said, "I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than [what] the FBI, the [CIA], and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."
* Also, former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has said, "We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened."
And now the article segments from blog posts by Marc Thiessen, in which he deals with various liberal arguments about the harsh interrogations and what they produced:
Re: SERE, Ctd.
Ramesh states in his post regarding the difference between waterboarding done in SERE training that our military undergoes, and the waterboarding used in the enhanced interrogations of KSM and other terrorists: “the trainee's greater confidence he will survive the exercise makes a big difference.”
According to the International Red Cross do ents that were recently released, which quote KSM and other detainees describing their interrogations, KSM says he told by his interrogators that he would not die. With the release of the OLC memos [the interrogation memos], we know why: one of the red lines that, if crossed, would have made the techniques torture under US law was whether the detainees thought they were in danger of death. That is why they were told specifically they would not die. So both the trainee and detainee know they will survive.
CIA Inspector General Report Is No Smoking Gun
McClatchy has a story up today with the headline “CIA Official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks.” The story notes that “The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.”
Critics are jumping on this as the smoking gun that proves those who claim the program stopped attacks are wrong. Not so fast.
In fact, the 2004 IG memo concluded as a general matter that the program had produced valuable intelligence, although the IG report prefaced this conclusion by stating that it was difficult precisely to assess or measure the value of the program and that “it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.” The Justice Department memos released by the Obama administration quoted or paraphrased these statements from the IG report.
The IG report was not intended to be a comprehensive inquiry into the value and effectiveness of the program. That is why, the following year, in 2005, the CIA was asked to provide an assessment of the value and effectiveness of the program. They later produced something called the “Effectiveness Memo” which lays out specifically how the program helped stop attacks and saved lives. This is one of the do ents that Vice President Cheney has asked be declassified.
For more balanced reporting, I recommend this piece by Stuart Taylor of National Journal. In it he quotes several former CIA directors and directors of national intelligence who state definitively that the program stopped attacks and saved lives.
The West Coast Plot: An "Inconvenient Truth"
Critics of the CIA program are desperate to convince Americans that no valuable information came from the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and other senior terrorists. They know that if our citizens learn the details of how enhanced interrogations stopped terrorist plots, most would support the CIA program. A recent Pew poll showed that 71% of Americans believe that there are cir stances under which torture (not just enhanced interrogations, but actual torture) is justifiable to get information from captured terrorists.
This is why Timothy Noah of Slate (with Andrew Sullivan cheerleading him on his blog) is at such pains to debunk the story of the West Coast plot.
This was a KSM plot for a “Second Wave” attack using East Asian operatives to use shoe-bombs to hijack an airplane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles. Noah states in a blog post that this plot was never realistic. Here is his rationale:
The first reason to be skeptical that this planned attack could have been carried out successfully is that, as I've noted before, attacking buildings by flying planes into them didn't remain a viable al-Qaida strategy even through Sept. 11, 2001. Thanks to cell phones, passengers on United Flight 93 were able to learn that al-Qaida was using planes as missiles and crashed the plane before it could hit its target. There was no way future passengers on any flight would let a terrorist who killed the pilot and took the controls fly wherever he pleased.
Really? Planes were off the table after 9/11? That would come as a surprise to every passenger in the past three years who had their liquids confiscated in an airport security line. Those security measures were ins uted because in 2006 we foiled an al-Qaeda plot to hijack airplanes leaving London’s Heathrow airport and blow them up over the Atlantic (a plot our intelligence community says was just weeks from execution). Apparently al-Qaeda didn’t get Noah’s memo explaining that hijacking airplanes for terrorist attacks is “no longer viable al Qaeda strategy.”
In his post, Noah calls the West Coast plot “Thiessen’s claim” and Anderw Sullivan calls it “Thiessen’s LA Tower Canard.” What these two fail to appreciate is that the story of how enhanced interrogation broke up the West Coast plot is not my story — it is the official position of the intelligence community.
In my Washington Post piece, I was citing the very do ents which President Obama released, which quote the CIA saying that interrogation with enhanced techniques “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.” The memo released by Obama goes on the explain that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ” (http://corner.nationalreview.com/)
We hung Japanese officers for doing this to our servicemembers in WW2.
Waterboarding myth #2,329
In the long run it benefits our long term interests.
No credibility after only physical damage being torture. Next.
Assholes trying to justify their criminal means by saying the ends were achieved.
I'm sure the CIA/NSA are fabricating now the memos head wants published.
We're gonna see self-indicting truth memos from the CIA?
WTF?? doesn't that defeat the point of waterboarding?? I call bull on thiseven though the three terrorists who were waterboarded were assured ahead of time that they would not be waterboarded to the point of actually drowning
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote