Whoops! CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding

[Rinata]

just to set the record straight here...........curious, non-partisan viewers of this thread should note that virtually all of the liberals who frequent this forum ( including Dogbart), who are appalled about waterboarding ALSO consider the CIA playing Barney music during interrogations to be cruel and unacceptable torture!!! They are also the type of people who would sooner throw themselves off a 200 foot cliff before they offended anybody!!!!

Just to set the record straight s0ns...................

Don't count on it.

I believe more harm than good is done by any form of torture. Cops to it when they think they have the right person in custody for murder, even if the suspect keeps denying they are guilty. So cops just torture them for hours by asking them the same things over and over and abusing them verbally. A lot of them just give a confession to make the torture stop. Most shrinks agree that people will say anything to make their tormentor leave them alone. There are people in jail today that are only there because they gave a false confession. I want the right people held accountable and I don't think a lot of cops or Bush and Cheney ever lost sleep over that issue.

Cheney said that torture saved lives and that just impresses some people to no end. If it's true or not doesn't seem to matter.

 

[CMike]

Did harsh interrogation prevent terrorist attacks?

Two of the detainees subjected to those methods:

Abu Zubaida

Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say

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.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

One of the paradox's of torture - you can't be sure that the person you are torturing has the information you need until you torture him.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Officials in the Bush Administration maintain that the intelligence wrung from terror detainee Abu Zubaydah (whom the CIA waterboarded "at least" 83 times, according to an an agency document released by the Obama Administration last week) led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks. His capture, in turn, helped prevent future terror strikes, they maintain; Mohammed himself, the memos revealed, was waterboarded a startling 183 times in March 2003 (a May 2005 memo from a CIA lawyer said waterboarding could be used on a detainee up to 12 times daily for as long as 40 seconds per event). Then-CIA director George Tenet, in his 2007 memoir, says that tough interrogation of al-Qaeda members — and documents found on them, he is careful to add — thwarted more than 20 plots "against U.S. infrastructure targets, including communications nodes, nuclear power plants, dams, bridges, and tunnels." A "future airborne attack on America's West Coast" was likely foiled only because the CIA didn't have "to treat KSM like a white collar criminal."

Critics of such claims argue that what was thwarted were merely al-Qaeda fantasies. "Torture gets people to talk — no question," says a former senior U.S. national security official involved in such matters. "They talk and talk and talk, until you stop hurting them. But in every instance, bar none, you later discover that they've just been lying or exaggerating, or telling you what they think you want to hear." In fact, a 1963 CIA interrogation manual warned that those resisting questioning "are likely to become intractable if made to endure pain" or generate "false, concocted as a means of escaping from distress."
Complicating matters is that even if such foiled plots were more than fantasies it's as hard to prove a negative after September 11 as it was before. Just because there were no attacks after 9/11 doesn't necessarily mean that the interrogations deserve the credit. And of course the intelligence community's failure to discover that Saddam Hussein lacked any weapons of mass destruction before the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003 makes their purported knowledge about thwarting attacks suspect to many observers.

...Even one of the memos itself acknowledges the disagreement within the intelligence community about the effectiveness of the harsh methods. A footnote in the May 30, 2005 memo by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, states that, "According to the [CIA] IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information ... On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques. On that occasion, although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within CIA headquarters still believed he was withholding information ... At the direction of CIA Headquarters, interrogators therefore used the waterboard one more time on Zubaydah. . . . n the Zubaydah example, CIA Headquarters dispatched officials to observe the last waterboard session. These officials reported that enhanced techniques were no longer needed."

Read more: Did Waterboarding Prevent Terrorism Attacks? - TIME

From your link

"In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said."

Basically, anonymous sources again.

That has zero credibility.

Once again, from the radical left wing NYT.

It's kind of like the the so called FBI person who commented about what went on in the CIA interrorgations.

Oncea again, zero credibility.

This just confirms to me how this is only a political issue for the left for the purpose of scoring political points. And I have no doubt that the left wingers would have no qualms about leaking sensitive security information if they felt that they could twist around to score political points.

I think the left wingers know that an FBI person has no knowledge about what happened in a CIA interrorigation when he wasn't there. However, because someone is or was in the FBI that somehow is supposed to be credible to the gulllible.

And naming someone as a CIA official to the left wingers somehow gives it crediblity, even though there is no name attached and it can be simply the opinion of the author.

Notice in the CIA memo, there is actually a name attached. It also went to someone else with a name attached.

That's the difference between credibility and no credibility.

 

[CMike]

When US soldiers are tortured, don't the torturers think they are saving lives? American soldiers have information on tactics, capabilities, strengths and vulnerabilities.....by your logic, our soldiers can be tortured because the information will save lives

Glad you brought that up....lets compare:
waterboarding vs four people holding a bound man while a fifth man saws off his head
firing a gun in the vicininty of a prisoner vs drilling numerous holes into a captives head (until they die)
telling someone a "really bad inscect" has been dropped into a box with them or disembowlment

Okay, time is up, which do you think is more reasonable, humane, preserves life? Come on, I know it is tough, which would you choose if you "happened" to be captured trying to kill your captors?

Wow! very good example there.

You set the bar very high. Anything the United States of America does that is less than beheading is acceptable behavior to some Americans.

Our founding fathers would be repulsed at what has become of this great country

Yes, I agree. They would be repulsed that some people who call themselves americans would rather see thousands of americans murdered in a terrorist attacks than 3 arch terrorists interrogated roughly to stop the terrorist attack from happening.

 

[CMike]

Actually, it's very much about substance - something you seem to ignore in your attempt to portray this as a partisan issue. Is it because you and Ollie are deflecting? It's easier just to point the finger at nasty liberals trying to make America look bad rather than addressing the core issue? I don't think torture is a partisan issue. Nor do I think it's anything to laugh at. I don't think anyone intends to begin to use torture by torturing every annoying person, I'm sure that in the beginning they try to make it highly restricted. But torture is seductive, it takes less time and it takes far less skill then other kinds of interrogation. It's making a bargain with the devil for the illusion of security.

You said over and over that only 3 high-value hardened terrorists were subjected to waterboarding. But that's not really true is it? We've had an ongoing program of extraordinary rendition - exporting prisoners to other countries known to use torture in order to get information from them. And, we really didn't care to terribly much about accuracy did we, since some of them were innocent, like Maher Arar?

Substance.

Again there is no argument that the USA is not 100% Lilly white.We make mistakes, and we may never know the extent of some of these programs or how many innocents might have been affected. But why do you refuse to address the fact that the CIA did prevent another 9-11 type attack? No matter how many examples of screwed up shit you bring up it doesn't change the facts of what happened on 9-11-01 or that we haven't had any further such attacks. In fact the more you show that we do know about CIA activities lends more credence to their report being completely true.

Because it is not clear that any attacks were prevented as a number of articles indicate. Correlation does not equal causality - because there haven't been any attacks on U.S. soil (in the scale of 9/11) does not mean it is due to harsh interrogation methods. We had no attacks like 9/11 prior to then either.

Yes, it is clear. The articles you are talking about have no substance in them, and don't quote anyone who had anything to do with the issue.

Actually, we see a lot for 7 years, Pres. Bush prevented terrorist attacks on american soil.

Obama, came into office, neutered the CIA, and we had 3 in one year.

 

[rightwinger]

Again there is no argument that the USA is not 100% Lilly white.We make mistakes, and we may never know the extent of some of these programs or how many innocents might have been affected. But why do you refuse to address the fact that the CIA did prevent another 9-11 type attack? No matter how many examples of screwed up shit you bring up it doesn't change the facts of what happened on 9-11-01 or that we haven't had any further such attacks. In fact the more you show that we do know about CIA activities lends more credence to their report being completely true.

Because it is not clear that any attacks were prevented as a number of articles indicate. Correlation does not equal causality - because there haven't been any attacks on U.S. soil (in the scale of 9/11) does not mean it is due to harsh interrogation methods. We had no attacks like 9/11 prior to then either.

I will never understand why some people want the USA to be the bad guy. You go on and believe anything you want, that is your right. I will continue to believe that you are wrong and in denial. Why would these people stop when they had such a huge success? The only logical answer is that something stopped them.

The reason we oppose torture is because we do not want the USA to be the bad guy. Excusing reprehensible behavior does not mean that it did not occur

 

[PatekPhilippe]

Did harsh interrogation prevent terrorist attacks?

Two of the detainees subjected to those methods:

Abu Zubaida

Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say

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.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

One of the paradox's of torture - you can't be sure that the person you are torturing has the information you need until you torture him.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Officials in the Bush Administration maintain that the intelligence wrung from terror detainee Abu Zubaydah (whom the CIA waterboarded "at least" 83 times, according to an an agency document released by the Obama Administration last week) led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks. His capture, in turn, helped prevent future terror strikes, they maintain; Mohammed himself, the memos revealed, was waterboarded a startling 183 times in March 2003 (a May 2005 memo from a CIA lawyer said waterboarding could be used on a detainee up to 12 times daily for as long as 40 seconds per event). Then-CIA director George Tenet, in his 2007 memoir, says that tough interrogation of al-Qaeda members — and documents found on them, he is careful to add — thwarted more than 20 plots "against U.S. infrastructure targets, including communications nodes, nuclear power plants, dams, bridges, and tunnels." A "future airborne attack on America's West Coast" was likely foiled only because the CIA didn't have "to treat KSM like a white collar criminal."

Critics of such claims argue that what was thwarted were merely al-Qaeda fantasies. "Torture gets people to talk — no question," says a former senior U.S. national security official involved in such matters. "They talk and talk and talk, until you stop hurting them. But in every instance, bar none, you later discover that they've just been lying or exaggerating, or telling you what they think you want to hear." In fact, a 1963 CIA interrogation manual warned that those resisting questioning "are likely to become intractable if made to endure pain" or generate "false, concocted as a means of escaping from distress."
Complicating matters is that even if such foiled plots were more than fantasies it's as hard to prove a negative after September 11 as it was before. Just because there were no attacks after 9/11 doesn't necessarily mean that the interrogations deserve the credit. And of course the intelligence community's failure to discover that Saddam Hussein lacked any weapons of mass destruction before the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003 makes their purported knowledge about thwarting attacks suspect to many observers.

...Even one of the memos itself acknowledges the disagreement within the intelligence community about the effectiveness of the harsh methods. A footnote in the May 30, 2005 memo by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, states that, "According to the [CIA] IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information ... On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques. On that occasion, although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within CIA headquarters still believed he was withholding information ... At the direction of CIA Headquarters, interrogators therefore used the waterboard one more time on Zubaydah. . . . n the Zubaydah example, CIA Headquarters dispatched officials to observe the last waterboard session. These officials reported that enhanced techniques were no longer needed."

Read more: Did Waterboarding Prevent Terrorism Attacks? - TIME

I find it quite interesting that you are trying to lead this conversation towards the conclusion that waterboarding provides no credible information. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have a funny way of siding with the Party in power when they want a little fame.

Now let me explain to you why the article you have cited as definitive proof that waterboarding doesn't work is a load of crap.
When an interrogation begins they already know the answers to the majority of the questions they are going to ask and they know the perp knows the answers as well. If a waterboarding interrogation reveals no new information, what were the questions? Were they from previous interrogations of other prisoners and just being vetted through the new guy? If so it's real easy to say "We got no information from this perp." On the other hand if we got actionable intelligence the CIA WILL NOT reveal it to the public.

What the left fails to understand is the difference between actionable intelligence and politics of waterboarding so they make a big deal out of it, shout, toot their horns, scream "bloody torturers" to score political points for their party. That's what this whole mess is about....politics. It certainly isn't about criminal charges or what is or is not torture....because if it was considered torture legally, the arrests would have already happened.

and you can thank Bill Clinton for the rendition/secret prison system. One of the few things he got right in his Presidency.

 

[Coyote]

]

From your link

"In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said."

Basically, anonymous sources again.

That has zero credibility.

What were the names of the CIA interrogators who were there during the interrogations?

That's right. Anonymous.

Once again, from the radical left wing NYT.

It's kind of like the the so called FBI person who commented about what went on in the CIA interrorgations.

Oncea again, zero credibility.

One of the sources was Time.

Your only source was a CIA memo.

This just confirms to me how this is only a political issue for the left for the purpose of scoring political points. And I have no doubt that the left wingers would have no qualms about leaking sensitive security information if they felt that they could twist around to score political points.

I think the left wingers know that an FBI person has no knowledge about what happened in a CIA interrorigation when he wasn't there. However, because someone is or was in the FBI that somehow is supposed to be credible to the gulllible.

How do you know the FBI wasn't also involved?

And naming someone as a CIA official to the left wingers somehow gives it crediblity, even though there is no name attached and it can be simply the opinion of the author.

Notice in the CIA memo, there is actually a name attached. It also went to someone else with a name attached.

That's the difference between credibility and no credibility.

No credibility:

CIA - trust me.

CIA - we destroyed any evidence, but trust us.

Rightwing Patisans - it's all the wacky leftwingers who are trying to make political hay.

Trust us.

Because we say so.


Torture should never be excepted so easiily or readily, based on "trust us" and it's a poor apology coming from your side, that's it's just a partisan issue.

And what about Maher Arar? How many of them did the CIA screw up on?

Trust us. Ya right.

 

[Coyote]

I find it quite interesting that you are trying to lead this conversation towards the conclusion that waterboarding provides no credible information. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have a funny way of siding with the Party in power when they want a little fame.

Here is what you do not understand Patek - I don't care what party is in power. I don't see torture as a partisan issue no matter how you try to twist it. Is that so difficult to understand?

Now let me explain to you why the article you have cited as definitive proof that waterboarding doesn't work is a load of crap.
When an interrogation begins they already know the answers to the majority of the questions they are going to ask and they know the perp knows the answers as well. If a waterboarding interrogation reveals no new information, what were the questions? Were they from previous interrogations of other prisoners and just being vetted through the new guy? If so it's real easy to say "We got no information from this perp." On the other hand if we got actionable intelligence the CIA WILL NOT reveal it to the public.

Multiple people have said they got no useful or actionable intelligence from the harsh interrogations despite waterboarding one person - what, 83 times? What you are saying - again - is, there is no way to verify it, but trust us.

They destroyed the tapes - for that is one big black mark against "trust us".

I am not making the claim that the article I cited is "definate proof" - but it is, at the very least - a counter to the unverifiable CIA claims that it does work. In fact - torture does sometimes work. But that assumes the person has the information you want and often that is not known only assumed and more often then not - they have no useful information. As was pointed out by people experienced in interrogation, they'll say anything to escape torture.

What the left fails to understand is the difference between actionable intelligence and politics of waterboarding so they make a big deal out of it, shout, toot their horns, scream "bloody torturers" to score political points for their party. That's what this whole mess is about....politics. It certainly isn't about criminal charges or what is or is not torture....because if it was considered torture legally, the arrests would have already happened.

The right is the one claiming that countless attacks were averted. Perhaps the right doesn't understand the difference between babbling to avoid torture and actionable intelligence? So they make a big deal out of it, shout, toot their horns, scream "terrorist threats averted" to score political points for their party? You seriously think that only the left is out there to score political points?

Maybe you do because you see this as nothing more than a partisan issue. I don't.

and you can thank Bill Clinton for the rendition/secret prison system. One of the few things he got right in his Presidency.

Is that supposed to make it somehow more "acceptable"?

Tell that to Maher Arar.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

Sorry....no actionable intelligence derived from these waterboarding sessions will be revealed. You do understand what a security clearance is and the classification of such interrogations right?

 

[Coyote]

Yes, it is clear. The articles you are talking about have no substance in them, and don't quote anyone who had anything to do with the issue.

Wrong.

Actually, we see a lot for 7 years, Pres. Bush prevented terrorist attacks on american soil.

Wrong. This has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads.

Obama, came into office, neutered the CIA, and we had 3 in one year.

Three in one year hmm? If you are going to call it that way, you had better improve your mathamatical skills for terrorist attacks during Bush's term in office. They were multiple.

Obama reined in the CIA.

No agency should be held unaccountable or above the law.

 

[Coyote]

Sorry....no actionable intelligence derived from these waterboarding sessions will be revealed. You do understand what a security clearance is and the classification of such interrogations right?

Of course.

And it makes for a convenient excuse doesn't it?

 

[CMike]

]

From your link

"In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said."

Basically, anonymous sources again.

That has zero credibility.

What were the names of the CIA interrogators who were there during the interrogations?

That's right. Anonymous.

The CIA offical who summed up what happened in the interrogations was not anonymous. His name was there. He had accountability.

Once again, from the radical left wing NYT.

It's kind of like the the so called FBI person who commented about what went on in the CIA interrorgations.

Oncea again, zero credibility.

One of the sources was Time.

Your only source was a CIA memo.

Time is not a source. It's a publication.

A source is from where the publication gets the information from.

When you see "officials," "anonymous officials" "CIA officials" it means nothing as far as substance.

It can be someone with an agenda or no one at all. There is no accountability.

And yes, my source is from the organization that was actually involved in the interrogations, rather than people who weren't there spewing things which they have no clue about. They weren't there.

This just confirms to me how this is only a political issue for the left for the purpose of scoring political points. And I have no doubt that the left wingers would have no qualms about leaking sensitive security information if they felt that they could twist around to score political points.

I think the left wingers know that an FBI person has no knowledge about what happened in a CIA interrorigation when he wasn't there. However, because someone is or was in the FBI that somehow is supposed to be credible to the gulllible.

How do you know the FBI wasn't also involved?

Because it was a CIA memo, not a CIA/FBI memo. There is no reason to believe that they were involved.

And naming someone as a CIA official to the left wingers somehow gives it crediblity, even though there is no name attached and it can be simply the opinion of the author.

Notice in the CIA memo, there is actually a name attached. It also went to someone else with a name attached.

That's the difference between credibility and no credibility.

No credibility:

CIA - trust me.

CIA - we destroyed any evidence, but trust us.

Rightwing Patisans - it's all the wacky leftwingers who are trying to make political hay.

Trust us.

Because we say so.

The CIA didn't destroy evidence. They weren't on trial.

The CIA operatives were the people in the foxholes trying to stop terrorist attacks. The information they got is extremely sensitive, and the worst thing to happen, is for people with political agendas to get a hold of those tapes.

Why? Because it has very sensitive and classified information on them, that would endanger this country if it fell into enemy hands.

Who was involved? The CIA, the DOJ, and Nancy Pelosi was told about the waterboarding as well. The only way Pelosi would know about it was was because the CIA told her. If they thought they were doing something wrong they wouldn't have told Nancy Pelosi, who raised no objection.

Torture should never be excepted so easiily or readily, based on "trust us" and it's a poor apology coming from your side, that's it's just a partisan issue.

And what about Maher Arar? How many of them did the CIA screw up on?

Trust us. Ya right.

Once again, "torture" is subjective.

The facts still are:

1) The CIA had 3 arch terrorists

2) They refused to cooperate after lesser methods were used

3) They simply gave ominous responses of "soon, you will know" when asked about further terrorist attacks

4) In light of 911 just occurring the CIA agents had no idea what kind of terrorist attack to expect. It could have been nuclear, biological, or WMD

5) A major terrorist attack was thwarted because of the waterboarding, and it would not have been thwarted if the waterboarding didn't occur

I don't care if you trust the CIA or not. I have complete confidence that they did the right thing.

I have complete confidence that the democrats have used this to score political points

I have complete confidence that if this occurred under Obama he would be hailed as a hero by the left.

 

[CMike]

I find it quite interesting that you are trying to lead this conversation towards the conclusion that waterboarding provides no credible information. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have a funny way of siding with the Party in power when they want a little fame.


Here is what you do not understand Patek - I don't care what party is in power. I don't see torture as a partisan issue no matter how you try to twist it. Is that so difficult to understand?

Now let me explain to you why the article you have cited as definitive proof that waterboarding doesn't work is a load of crap.
When an interrogation begins they already know the answers to the majority of the questions they are going to ask and they know the perp knows the answers as well. If a waterboarding interrogation reveals no new information, what were the questions? Were they from previous interrogations of other prisoners and just being vetted through the new guy? If so it's real easy to say "We got no information from this perp." On the other hand if we got actionable intelligence the CIA WILL NOT reveal it to the public.

Multiple people have said they got no useful or actionable intelligence from the harsh interrogations despite waterboarding one person - what, 83 times? What you are saying - again - is, there is no way to verify it, but trust us.

Multiple people may have said it, but none of those people were there, and therefore, what they said or didn't say is utterly irrelevant.

They destroyed the tapes - for that is one big black mark against "trust us".

I don't think the CIA cared about whether the left wingers trust them or not. The CIA did it's job and it did it well. It got the information it needed to stop a major terrorist attack, and kept the information from being leaked from those with political agendas.

I am not making the claim that the article I cited is "definate proof" - but it is, at the very least - a counter to the unverifiable CIA claims that it does work. In fact - torture does sometimes work. But that assumes the person has the information you want and often that is not known only assumed and more often then not - they have no useful information. As was pointed out by people experienced in interrogation, they'll say anything to escape torture.

You provided nothing to counter what the CIA said, because none of these so called sources had anything to do with the interrogations.

Also, the Bush Administration didn't release this memo, the Obama Administration did. Therefore, the CIA had nothing to gain from writing this memo. It's only Obama who made this memo public.

What the left fails to understand is the difference between actionable intelligence and politics of waterboarding so they make a big deal out of it, shout, toot their horns, scream "bloody torturers" to score political points for their party. That's what this whole mess is about....politics. It certainly isn't about criminal charges or what is or is not torture....because if it was considered torture legally, the arrests would have already happened.

The right is the one claiming that countless attacks were averted. Perhaps the right doesn't understand the difference between babbling to avoid torture and actionable intelligence? So they make a big deal out of it, shout, toot their horns, scream "terrorist threats averted" to score political points for their party? You seriously think that only the left is out there to score political points?

The information the CIA got was actionable intelligence because it thwarted a major terrorist attack. That's about as actionable as it gets.

 

[Coyote]

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.


CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding - someone lied...

CIA has lied numerous times from secret prison camps to torture. But now we are supposed to believe them.

 

[CMike]

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.


CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding - someone lied...

CIA has lied numerous times from secret prison camps to torture. But now we are supposed to believe them.

That's funny . From your own link

"As the IG Report notes, it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks. And because the CIA has used enhanced techniques sparingly, 'there is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness'," Bradbury wrote, quoting the IG report.

Nevertheless, Bradbury concluded in his May 2005 memos that the program had been effective; that conclusion relied largely on memos written after the still secrert report by Inspector General John Helgerson.

Thank you for supporting my case.

Also, I am skeptical of postings from obscure web sites. mcclatchydc.com? These left wing blogs oughta learn the wonders of spell check.

Maybe you can sent them this link http://www.merriam-webster.com/

 

[CMike]

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.


CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding - someone lied...

CIA has lied numerous times from secret prison camps to torture. But now we are supposed to believe them.

As far as your second link. The headline is incorrect. He didn't retract his claim. He said that he didn't see it first hand and relied on what he heard in the CIA.

From your link ""I wasn't there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time."

Always happy to decipher the truth from the left wing rags that lie in their headlines.

 

[CMike]

Obama's and his hippy minion's assault against the CIA.

HAYDEN: Time for CIA to move ahead, not back - Washington Times

 

[CMike]

Obama's and his hippy minion's assault against the CIA.

HAYDEN: Time for CIA to move ahead, not back - Washington Times

I am going to start a new thread on this topic.

 

[Coyote]

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.


CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding - someone lied...

You rather miss the point but, that seems to be the case with you rightwingnuts (since you insist on making this a partisan issue).

He retracted his claim, meaning his initial claim was a lie since he wasn't there. According to your logic that is - if they weren't there they couldn't know.

The CIA lied when it initially told Congress waterboarding was not being used.
The CIA has a reputation for lying and misleading.
Why exactly should they be believed this time, when they deliberately destroyed the evidence that should have supported their claims?

That's funny . From your own link

Yes, it is funny, but more from what you choose to ignore. "'There is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness" - you do realize, don't you, that that cuts both ways?

"As the IG Report notes, it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks. And because the CIA has used enh[anced techniques sparingly, 'there is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness'," Bradbury wrote, quoting the IG report.

and, you ignore "conclusion relied largely on memos ..."

Nevertheless, Bradbury concluded in his May 2005 memos that the program had been effective; that conclusion relied largely on memos written after the still secrert report by Inspector General John Helgerson.

Thank you for supporting my case.

It wasn't supported, but I wouldn't expect you to know the difference.

Also, I am skeptical of postings from obscure web sites. mcclatchydc.com? These left wing blogs oughta learn the wonders of spell check.

Maybe you can sent them this link Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online

Spelling Nazi behavior is usually a sign that the person is incapable of mustering an argument.

No surprise.

 

[Coyote]

Circular arguments and partisan fallacies and a breakdown in logic.

We believe the CIA (most likely because their worldview matches our own) therefore the CIA can't be lying.

That's kind of like the God argument - well the Bible says so so it's true only it's "it's in the CIA memos so it's true" with absolutely no other verification and a convenient and assertion that the only verification available had to be destroyed for "national security reasons".

Followed by: it must be true because they've prevented further terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Well...that one's so full of fallacies it's like fleas on a dog.

Correlation doesn't equal causation - there is nothing to show that the CIA's choice of using ...(cough)...."enhanced interrogation techniques" has anything to do with fewer terrorist attacks...which of course brings us full circle back to the circular argument: torture works because we've had fewer attacks and we've had fewer attacks because torture works. That's the argument being made. There is a apparently a whole plethora of prevented attacks due to torture (except we can't tell you what they were, even though they are in the past, because it's secret - just trust us). And, while your at it - it was all "actionable". Just trust us. We're the CIA

Then, like a flourish of tasteless whipped icing to top it off - we have the ultimate in hubris. Well...because the previous administration left the CIA unfettered (never mind that Congress is supposed to have oversight) we had no terrorist attacks under Bush's administration but we've had all kinds under Obama because he "crippled" the CIA.

And they really believe that. They really believe that the Shoe Bomber, the Anthrax Mailer, the Beltway Snipers....didn't really happen....?

I wonder if I can use the "just trust us" argument next time President Obama proposes a bailout package? Surely - you can't argue with that. Just trust us.....after all, the economy is slowly improving, the bailouts must have worked therefore....errr....just trust us