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| Home Front: WoT |
| Waterboarding Never Foiled a Plot |
| 2009-03-29 |
| More "Bush Was Bad" on the front page of WaPo. 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. I said 'WaPo', so you know there's much more at the link. But I read enough. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #11 Quite correct OP. Acting upon "single source" intelligence is generally viewed as a disaster waiting to happen. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-29 19:15 |
| #10 One of the creepiest comments came after the start of the WoT. A CIA agent mentioned an overseas facility that had been nicknamed "The Hotel California", because of the twisted parallels that existed between it and its operations, and the Eagles song of the same name. Even he remarked that it totally changed the complexion of that song for him, giving the lyrics horrifying double entendres. It does, too, depending on your imagination. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-03-29 17:53 |
| #9 I've never been on that side of the business, but I know that very rarely is there one point source that leads to success. Most of the time, you have to collate information from a dozen different sources, separate the truth from the half-truths and outright lies, and slowly build a consensus of what's really going on. There are probably tidbits extracted from Abu Zubaida that helped firm up - or eliminate - other points. WAPO doesn't have a clue how intel works. Also, waterboarding isn't used to extract information. It's used to break the will of the person from withholding information. Information is extracted using other techniques. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-03-29 17:02 |
| #8 "sounds like intentional disinformation" That's our MSM! |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-03-29 15:16 |
| #7 Zubayda gave up KSM as code-name "Muktar". From KSM we learned a great deal. This story isn't "news"... it sounds like intentional disinformation. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2009-03-29 14:36 |
| #6 Yet another article amongst WaPo’s rich history of unsourced “The dog didn’t bark” stories. Bravo! |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2009-03-29 12:45 |
| #5 Waterboarding Never Foiled a Plot ...As far as you know. These people never seem to remember the First Rule Of Intelligence Reporting: you always hear about the failures, but you NEVER hear about the successes. I.E.; The WaPo is saying waterboarding never worked because they can find no documented instances that it did. Mike Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2009-03-29 10:26 |
| #4 give them a shot of Rohypnol? lol yeah they sllep good and wake up with a sore ass |
| Posted by: rabid whitetail 2009-03-29 10:18 |
| #3 There are so many layers of disinformation on this subject that it's hard to know where to start. However, it's pretty obvious that waterboarding is just an "easy to visualize" red herring. Heck, it was a technique used during the Philippine Insurrection. Likely what we do today is just give them a shot--and no--not sodium pentothal, which was used during WWII, but psychoactive substances far more advanced than that. Afterward, then we give them a shot of Rohypnol, and they don't remember the interrogation at all. They just wake up in the morning after a good night's sleep. Heck, some of the ordinary "twilight anesthetics" that are used in routine surgery today get people so talkative that operating room staff have to sign confidentiality agreements not to gossip about what patients say. Yeah, waterboarding. Uh-huh. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-03-29 09:49 |
| #2 It foiled many plots during the Algerian war in the sixties. |
| Posted by: JFM 2009-03-29 08:31 |
| #1 I Googled the authors, that was quite enough. "Americans" who hate America, how have they been hatched? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-29 08:31 |