Although aggressive interrogation techniques on three terrorists produced intel that likely prevented major attacks on American cities, most experts agree that there’s no way to know whether less vigorous methods might have produced the same results.
“In hindsight,” the president said, “it might have been better to gain the trust of men like Khalid Sheik Mohammed by speaking gently with them, and offering small gifts like Pop-Tarts, or Nair.”
“We were shocked when we learned the full extent of the inappropriate techniques approved by the CIA under the previous administration,” White House press secretary Robert L. Gibbs told reporters. “That’s one of the reasons we made the memos public. We want everyone to know what was done, supposedly in our name, and that this administration does not condone such actions.”
The president plans to go even further, Gibbs said.
“It would be unconscionable for this administration to look the other way, just because those tactics achieved results. It was wrong to use them, and we should not benefit from their use,” Gibbs stated. “The president had directed that, since those tactics obtained information that prevented a major attack on Los Angeles, it is only right that we carry out the attack on ourselves.”
According to a former intelligence agent, waterboarding of terrorist Abu Zubaydah got him to talk in less than 35 seconds. The technique, which critics say is torture, probably disrupted “dozens” of planned al-Qaida attacks and saved hundreds and thousands of lives. The CIA also confirmed that waterboarding 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed led to information that prevented a similar attack on Los Angeles.
…The CIA confirmed that waterboarding of 9/11 mastermind Led to Info that aborted 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.
The details on the prevention of that Los Angeles attack are provided by CNS News. (H/T Hot Air)
The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) — including the use of waterboarding — caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned 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.”
…the [CIA] remains tenacious in insisting that waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Abu Zubaydah saved American lives. CNS News reports that the CIA stands by its 2005 memo describing how those interrogations stopped another 9/11-scale attack:
KSM initially resisted all other interrogation procedures, right up to the waterboard. He insisted that Americans did not have the necessary resolve to get information out of him, and that we would only know about the next plot when it killed hundreds, if not thousands again. Only after the waterboard did KSM cough up the information on the “second wave” attacks, and the CIA and other national-security agencies stopped it.
But nevermind the good results of counter-terrorism programs and policies. Obama needs to appease the special interest groups who elected him! How will he do that?
US President Barack Obama has left open the possibility of prosecuting officials who wrote CIA memos allowing harsh interrogation methods.
It would be up to the attorney general whether to prosecute, Mr Obama said.
The memos detailed the range of techniques the CIA could use for questioning terror suspects.
Mr Obama had said he would not use anti-torture laws to prosecute CIA personnel who relied in good faith on legal opinions issued after 9/11.
The BBC’s James Coomarasamy in Washington says the president’s comments marked a change of tone amid growing pressure from the Democratic Party not to rule out potential prosecutions.
Well, prosecuting counter-terrorism experts is one thing, but that may not be enough to appease Michael Moore and the rest of the high school dropouts in Hollywood.
Gateway Pundit reported a few days ago that Dick Cheney, a serious statesman, has asked the Obama regime to declassify the details of the attacks that were stopped by waterboarding, but so far Obama has declined to do so. I guess he doesn’t want the American people to know the realities of national security decision-making in the 21st century.
Should we really have elected an ACORN lawyer who is tougher on counter-terrorists than on actual terrorists? Remember these things when the 2010 elections come around.
UPDATE: More about Obama’s defense spending cuts, including cuts of missile defense programs, is here. This post also talks about his appeasement of aggressors such as North Korea and Iran as they go nuclear.
UPDATE: A total of THREE terrorists were waterboarded during the time the policy was in place.
WINTERY KNIGHT 