Whoops! CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding

[CMike]

CIA operatives are waterboarded as part of their training.

"Torture" is very subjective. Having a bitchy way can be considered torture.

Fact is the 3 terrorists were uncooperative before being waterboarded. Because of being waterboarded a massive terrorist attack was foiled.

It was good call, and the CIA operatives that did it should have gotten a medal.

 

[Coyote]

...

 

[Coyote]

CNSNews.com - CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style 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 ‘[o]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.
CNSNews.com - CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles

“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

CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding | Foreign Policy

 

[Coyote]

The Raw Story | Retired FBI agent: Waterboarding produced 'crap' information from detainee

Contradicting the assertions of President Bush and waterboarding advocates at the CIA, federal investigators say a suspected al Qaeda operative who was subjected to the simulated drowning technique produced increasingly unreliable information after his interrogators began treating him harshly.

...."I don't have confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted," retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman told the Washington Post, referring to the harsh measures. "He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn't believe him. The problem is they didn't realize he didn't know all that much."

Zubaida's interrogation and harsh treatment were recorded by the CIA, but the evidence of what, if any, actionable intelligence he delivered under conditions critics liken to torture disappeared in 2005, when the agency destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes depicting similar interrogations.

 

[Coyote]

A CIA memo declassified by Obama confirmed what happened.

The terrorists were uncooperative, when asked about further terrorist attacks, they responded "soon, you will know."

Only after being waterboarded did they reveal information that stopped a planned terrorist attack of a Los Angeles building.

The link below is to the actual CIA declassified memo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/OLCmemo_May30_Part1.pdf?sid=ST2009041602877

What you have a is a CIA memo that could be true or could a "cover my ass" memo. Considering that all the video tapes that should have supported what they said - were destroyed - it's accuracy seems suspect.

 

[CMike]

All the guy in the original story said was that he wasn't there.

I assume that when libs make a claim it's a lie.

They don't seem to dissapoint me.

 

[Coyote]

All the guy in the original story said was that he wasn't there.

I assume that when libs make a claim it's a lie.

They don't seem to dissapoint me.

Thank you.

You effectively close off any potential debate on the subject.

Have a nice day

 

[CMike]

A CIA memo declassified by Obama confirmed what happened.

The terrorists were uncooperative, when asked about further terrorist attacks, they responded "soon, you will know."

Only after being waterboarded did they reveal information that stopped a planned terrorist attack of a Los Angeles building.

The link below is to the actual CIA declassified memo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/OLCmemo_May30_Part1.pdf?sid=ST2009041602877

What you have a is a CIA memo that could be true or could a "cover my ass" memo. Considering that all the video tapes that should have supported what they said - were destroyed - it's accuracy seems suspect.

1) The CIA memo was declassified by Obama. If Pres. Bush wanted to use it PR, he would have declassified it.

2) The destroying of the video tapes were done intentionally, and with the knowledge of the congressional intelligence committee

CIA Destroyed Videos of Interrogations - The Blotter

CIA Director Mike Hayden sent a message to CIA employees today saying "the press has learned" that the CIA videotaped interrogations in 2002 and that the tapes were subsequently destroyed in 2005. The decision to destroy the tapes was made by the CIA, but he says the leaders of the congressional intelligence committees knew about the tapes and the decision to destroy them.

Hayden offers an explanation for why the tapes were destroyed -- "no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries" and offers another defense of the interrogation techniques used by the CIA.


...From Hayden

The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages. At one point, it was thought the tapes could serve as a backstop to guarantee that other methods of documenting the interrogations -- and the crucial information they produced -- were accurate and complete. The Agency soon determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes. Indeed, videotaping stopped in 2002.

As part of the rigorous review that has defined the detention program, the Office of General Counsel examined the tapes and determined that they showed lawful methods of questioning.

...Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their
families to retaliation from al-Qa'ida and its sympathizers.

These decisions were made years ago. But it is my responsibility, as Director today, to explain to you what was done, and why. What matters here is that it was done in line with the law. Over the course of its life, the Agency's interrogation program has been of great value to our country. It has helped disrupt terrorist operations and save lives. It was built on a solid foundation of legal review. It has been conducted with careful supervision. If the story of these tapes is told fairly, it will underscore those facts.

3) The OP story didn't challenge any of the facts. All what he said was that he wasn't actually there. However, of course, the liberal press, makes shit up, and completely twists and distorts what actually happened.

4) Can you provide any evidence to contradict the CIA memo?

 

[QUENTIN]

Torture has specific definitions in codified U.S. Law. Waterboarding DID NOT fall under any of those laws. If it did, Obama wouldn't have had to ban it now would he? You can argue all you want over semantics but clearly the law will have to be adhered to. In this case prior to Obama specifically outlawing the interrogation method, it was legal. SERE school started in the 1950's. Students were waterboarded there for 60 years. It wasn't illegal. Time to move on...this won't win any more elections for the progressives.

Special Forces are waterboarded precisely because it is torture used to force false confessions by certain deplorable enemy nations, so that they can attempt to withstand the torture. Using SERE as justification for it not being torture is completely ass-backwards.

Waterboarding clearly meets the definition of torture outlined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. ratified (making it according to Article VI of the Constitution, "the supreme law of the land") and Ronald Reagan proudly endorsed.

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Not only is waterboarding torture, but so is multi-day bouts of sleep deprivation, threats that detainee's families will be raped or killed, placing them in coffins with insects, punching and kicking them, sicking dogs on them, sexually humiliating them, and lets not forget the forced sodomy by foreign objects. Not only is waterboarding torture, but it's far from the only torture method Yoo's memos authorized and the CIA, JSOC, and military interrogators used.

The State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices explicitly recognized that certain techniques the CIA was currently using in "coercive interrogations" were the same techniques the U.S. had for years been condemning as torture when employed by other countries. This includes not only waterboarding, but extended forced nudity, cold water dousing to induce hypothermia, extended forced sleep deprivation, extended stress positions, punching, kicking, etc.

These techniques are and always have been torture. The authorization of their use didn't change any of that. The Administration wanted to torture detainees and tried to get their lawyers to find a way to get around the laws preventing it. No one they asked gave them the answer they wanted until they made their way down to a low-level functionary named John Yoo who gave them the "legal opinion" they asked for. An attorney telling you he thinks maybe the law can be interpreted to allow you to do something doesn't make it legal. The use of waterboarding, like the denial of habeas corpus and many other Bush-era practices, were justified by legal opinions they requested but when those justifications finally saw the light of day and made it to the Supreme Court, they were stricken down as absurd, pseudo-legal nonsense.

The basis of your argument is that if a crime is not prosecuted, it is not a crime. That's entirely specious, by your rationale anyone who gets away with murder must not have done anything wrong.

Waterboarding is torture and torture is a crime, whether the government has the balls to uphold the law and prosecute those responsible for it or not. Crimes just don't cease to be because of prosecutorial inaction.

Again, your belief that the law is on your side because no one has been prosecuted really just demonstrates that you're not bright and don't understand that the legal system is not an automated process wherein any crime committed is automatically tried. Because of the high-ranking, politically connected and powerful people who committed these felonies, and the scandal that would result when say the former Vice President, Secretary of Defense, OLC lawyers, and the current Speaker of the House were found guilty of authorizing torture and sentenced to decades in prison, the DOJ lacks the will to investigate and charge them.

 

[CMike]

All the guy in the original story said was that he wasn't there.

I assume that when libs make a claim it's a lie.

They don't seem to dissapoint me.

Thank you.

You effectively close off any potential debate on the subject.

Have a nice day

All that I do is present the facts.

They almost always contadict what liberals claim.

Have a nice day as well.

 

[Coyote]

All the guy in the original story said was that he wasn't there.

I assume that when libs make a claim it's a lie.

They don't seem to dissapoint me.

Thank you.

You effectively close off any potential debate on the subject.

Have a nice day

All that I do is present the facts.

They almost always contadict what liberals claim.

Have a nice day as well.

Strange. I presented facts as well. But, you'd rather ignore that wouldn't you?

Carry on.

 

[CMike]

Torture has specific definitions in codified U.S. Law. Waterboarding DID NOT fall under any of those laws. If it did, Obama wouldn't have had to ban it now would he? You can argue all you want over semantics but clearly the law will have to be adhered to. In this case prior to Obama specifically outlawing the interrogation method, it was legal. SERE school started in the 1950's. Students were waterboarded there for 60 years. It wasn't illegal. Time to move on...this won't win any more elections for the progressives.

Special Forces are waterboarded precisely because it is torture used to force false confessions by certain deplorable enemy nations, so that they can attempt to withstand the torture. Using SERE as justification for it not being torture is completely ass-backwards.

Waterboarding clearly meets the definition of torture outlined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. ratified (making it according to Article VI of the Constitution, "the supreme law of the land") and Ronald Reagan proudly endorsed.

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Not only is waterboarding torture, but so is multi-day bouts of sleep deprivation, threats that detainee's families will be raped or killed, placing them in coffins with insects, punching and kicking them, sicking dogs on them, sexually humiliating them, and lets not forget the forced sodomy by foreign objects. Not only is waterboarding torture, but it's far from the only torture method Yoo's memos authorized and the CIA, JSOC, and military interrogators used.

The State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices explicitly recognized that certain techniques the CIA was currently using in "coercive interrogations" were the same techniques the U.S. had for years been condemning as torture when employed by other countries. This includes not only waterboarding, but extended forced nudity, cold water dousing to induce hypothermia, extended forced sleep deprivation, extended stress positions, punching, kicking, etc.

These techniques are and always have been torture. The authorization of their use didn't change any of that. The Administration wanted to torture detainees and tried to get their lawyers to find a way to get around the laws preventing it. No one they asked gave them the answer they wanted until they made their way down to a low-level functionary named John Yoo who gave them the "legal opinion" they asked for. An attorney telling you he thinks maybe the law can be interpreted to allow you to do something doesn't make it legal. The use of waterboarding, like the denial of habeas corpus and many other Bush-era practices, were justified by legal opinions they requested but when those justifications finally saw the light of day and made it to the Supreme Court, they were stricken down as absurd, pseudo-legal nonsense.

The basis of your argument is that if a crime is not prosecuted, it is not a crime. That's entirely specious, by your rationale anyone who gets away with murder must not have done anything wrong.

Waterboarding is torture and torture is a crime, whether the government has the balls to uphold the law and prosecute those responsible for it or not. Crimes just don't cease to be because of prosecutorial inaction.

Again, your belief that the law is on your side because no one has been prosecuted really just demonstrates that you're not bright and don't understand that the legal system is not an automated process wherein any crime committed is automatically tried. Because of the high-ranking, politically connected and powerful people who committed these felonies, and the scandal that would result when say the former Vice President, Secretary of Defense, OLC lawyers, and the current Speaker of the House were found guilty of authorizing torture and sentenced to decades in prison, the DOJ lacks the will to investigate and charge them.

Blah blah blah.

The fact is that it was used 3 times. When it was used was under strict criteria.

It stopped a massive terrorist attack of terrorists flying a plane into a LA building.

If it wasn't used, the terrorist attack would have occurred.

I am grateful that it was used, and those CIA people deserve a medal for saving countless american lives.

 

[CMike]

Thank you.

You effectively close off any potential debate on the subject.

Have a nice day

All that I do is present the facts.

They almost always contadict what liberals claim.

Have a nice day as well.

Strange. I presented facts as well. But, you'd rather ignore that wouldn't you?

Carry on.

Yeah, but your "facts" didn't support your arguements.

Carry on.

 

[Coyote]

All that I do is present the facts.

They almost always contadict what liberals claim.

Have a nice day as well.

Strange. I presented facts as well. But, you'd rather ignore that wouldn't you?

Carry on.

Yeah, but your "facts" didn't support your arguements.

Carry on.

The FBI one does. So do the 500 missing videotapes.

 

[CMike]

Strange. I presented facts as well. But, you'd rather ignore that wouldn't you?

Carry on.

Yeah, but your "facts" didn't support your arguements.

Carry on.

The FBI one does. So do the 500 missing videotapes.

Not at all:

1) The FBI dude had nothing to do with it. The CIA did the interrogations. He only voiced his opinion about it. Opinions are like assholes everyone has one.

2) I explained the tapes. They were destroyed intentionally and with the full knowledge of the congressional intelligence committee.

They were destroyed because:

a) In 2005 they no longer had any value

and

b) If they were leaked they could compromise national security.


Once again, do you have anything credible evidence to contradict the CIA memo?

 

[rightwinger]

Blah blah blah.

The fact is that it was used 3 times. When it was used was under strict criteria.

It stopped a massive terrorist attack of terrorists flying a plane into a LA building.

If it wasn't used, the terrorist attack would have occurred.

I am grateful that it was used, and those CIA people deserve a medal for saving countless american lives.

You can always tell when someone is going to make some valid points when they start out Blah....Blah....Blah

Waterboarding was used on one suspect 86 times not three.....if it is so effective, why does it take 86 times? Have proof that it actually provided useful intellegence? More "end justifies the means" rhetoric?

The fact that the US openly engaged in TORTURE will be a discrace for the next 100 years. Even our childrens children will be embarassed

 

[Coyote]

Yeah, but your "facts" didn't support your arguements.

Carry on.

The FBI one does. So do the 500 missing videotapes.

Not at all:

1) The FBI dude had nothing to do with it. The CIA did the interrogations. He only voiced his opinion about it. Opinions are like assholes everyone has one.

2) I explained the tapes. They were destroyed intentionally and with the full knowledge of the congressional intelligence committee.

They were destroyed because:

a) In 2005 they no longer had any value

and

b) If they were leaked they could compromise national security.


Once again, do you have anything credible evidence to contradict the CIA memo?

In reference to the above - you mentioned that opinions were "like assholes" and I agree. With the tapes destroyed this nothing but hearsay to contradict the CIA's "official" version is there? I find it very difficult to buy that they "had no value" anymore since they were specifically told not to destroy them. The only evidence *you* have is the CIA itself and they have their own asses (or assholes) to protect don't they?

Here's another interesting article. Though I do not agree with the author's conclusions he makes some good points:

One of the most specific CIA claims that the brutalizing of detainees averted a planned attack...

...Did tough interrogations prevent terrorists from crashing a hijacked airliner into the tallest building in Los Angeles?

This chain of events, the CIA insists, unraveled the dangerous "Second Wave" plot, planned by KSM and Hambali, that called for the Southeast Asian terrorists to crash a hijacked airliner into the tallest building in Los Angeles, the Library Tower.

There is also evidence cutting against the CIA's claims. A.B. Krongard, who was the agency's executive director when the coercive interrogations began, told author Ron Suskind that KSM and other Qaeda captives "went through hell and gave up very, very little." Former FBI agents have claimed that their conventional, non-coercive interrogation got better information out of Zubaydah than the CIA did with its tough stuff.

Many experienced military and FBI interrogators say they've never used coercion, contending that it doesn't work because prisoners will say anything to stop the pain. (But how would they know it doesn't work, not having tried it? And if you were a terrorist desperate to stop the pain, would you fabricate a story that your interrogators would likely consider suspect -- or tell them where to find other terrorists?) (my comment - that is assuming they even know where to find them - otherwise don't you think they'd make up anything they think you might want to hear to stop the pain?)

There are also reports of disagreement within the intelligence community as to the seriousness of the Second Wave plot. Maybe it would have fizzled even without coercive interrogations.

...The bottom line about the effectiveness of brutal interrogations, Blair has asserted, is that "these techniques have hurt our image around the world" so much that "the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us, and they are not essential to our national security."

According to this article, the critical intelligence information had been gained before harsh interrogation methods were used and those methods produced little of value.

 

[Coyote]

Blah blah blah.

The fact is that it was used 3 times. When it was used was under strict criteria.

It stopped a massive terrorist attack of terrorists flying a plane into a LA building.

If it wasn't used, the terrorist attack would have occurred.

I am grateful that it was used, and those CIA people deserve a medal for saving countless american lives.

You can always tell when someone is going to make some valid points when they start out Blah....Blah....Blah

Waterboarding was used on one suspect 86 times not three.....if it is so effective, why does it take 86 times? Have proof that it actually provided useful intellegence? More "end justifies the means" rhetoric?

The fact that the US openly engaged in TORTURE will be a discrace for the next 100 years. Even our childrens children will be embarassed

I believe that is the same suspect that the FBI said they had gotten all the useful information from before they even started using harsh techniques and that those techniques produced nothing of value?

 

[rightwinger]

I never thought I would live to see the day when Americans openly embrace the use of TORTURE

 

[CMike]

Blah blah blah.

The fact is that it was used 3 times. When it was used was under strict criteria.

It stopped a massive terrorist attack of terrorists flying a plane into a LA building.

If it wasn't used, the terrorist attack would have occurred.

I am grateful that it was used, and those CIA people deserve a medal for saving countless american lives.

You can always tell when someone is going to make some valid points when they start out Blah....Blah....Blah

Waterboarding was used on one suspect 86 times not three.....if it is so effective, why does it take 86 times? Have proof that it actually provided useful intellegence? More "end justifies the means" rhetoric?

The fact that the US openly engaged in TORTURE will be a discrace for the next 100 years. Even our childrens children will be embarassed

I believe that is the same suspect that the FBI said they had gotten all the useful information from before they even started using harsh techniques and that those techniques produced nothing of value?

How do you know it was used 86 times?

Also it was used on 3 terrorists, read the memo.