by Damozel | No, really? Did any sane, thinking person who actually listened to what the experts in the intelligence field had to say about the uselessness of torture ever expect otherwise?
The problem is that Bush & Co., and that craven segment of the American public known as "the Republican base" thought then and no doubt think now that false leads are better than no lead..... At least if you apply "harsh interrogation methods" you can tell yourself that you're doing something terrorism," even if the something in question is illegal, inhumane, unproductive, and a violation of moral principle America has stood for. Then too there was the matter of revenge --- ever the resort of the bully, the coward, the morally immature, and the Dwight Shrutes of the world, who are satisfied to wreak vengeance on a ringer if they can't get hold of the ringleader -- which is the reason I imagine "the base" is really all about defending torture.
The Washington Post reports what you already know:
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
Abu Zubaida's revelations triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms. The interrogations led directly to the arrest of Jose Padilla, the man Abu Zubaida identified as heading an effort to explode a radiological "dirty bomb" in an American city. Padilla was held in a naval brig for 3 1/2 years on the allegation but was never charged in any such plot. Every other lead ultimately dissolved into smoke and shadow, according to high-ranking former U.S. officials with access to classified reports.
"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.(WaPo).
In other words, torturing him didn't work and wasted time and money. Who can wonder why the administration destroyed the torture tapes? Oh, by the way....
When the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, Abu Zubaida was in Kabul, the Afghan capital. In anticipation of an American attack, he allied himself with al-Qaeda, he said at a 2007 hearing, but he soon fled into hiding in Pakistan....On the night of March 28, 2002, Pakistani and American intelligence officers raided the Faisalabad safe house where Abu Zubaida had been staying. A firefight ensued, and Abu Zubaida was captured after jumping from the building's second floor. He had been shot three times....
"He was the above-ground support," said one former Justice Department official closely involved in the early investigation of Abu Zubaida. "He was the guy keeping the safe house, and that's not someone who gets to know the details of the plans. To make him the mastermind of anything is ridiculous." (WaPo).
Whatever he was or is, the Bush administration's past actions haven't made us safer and may in fact make us less secure.
[His] treatment at the hands of the CIA has raised questions among human rights groups about whether Abu Zubaida is capable of standing trial and how the taint of torture would affect any prosecution.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a confidential report that the treatment of Abu Zubaida and other, subsequent high-value detainees while in CIA custody constituted torture. And Abu Zubaida refused to cooperate with FBI "clean teams" who attempted to re-interview high-value detainees to build cases uncontaminated by allegations of torture, according to military sources.... (WaPo)..
Cheney, of course, is still insisting that the information gained from Abu Zabaida stopped "a great many" attacks, but he can't say exactly when or how because all that information is "classified." Interesting that the people who actually pursued those leads don't agree.
"I've seen a report that was written, based upon the intelligence that we collected then, that itemizes the specific attacks that were stopped by virtue of what we learned through those programs," Cheney asserted, adding that the report is "still classified," and, "I can't give you the details of it without violating classification."
Since 2006, Senate intelligence committee members have pressed the CIA, in classified briefings, to provide examples of specific leads that were obtained from Abu Zubaida through the use of waterboarding and other methods, according to officials familiar with the requests.
The agency provided none, the officials said. (WaPo).
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Good point, Damz.
Posted by: Deb | March 29, 2009 at 02:18 PM