{"id":5078,"date":"2010-11-07T15:09:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T20:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=5078"},"modified":"2010-11-12T21:30:48","modified_gmt":"2010-11-13T02:30:48","slug":"when-torture-starts-information-flow-stops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2010\/11\/07\/when-torture-starts-information-flow-stops\/","title":{"rendered":"When Torture Starts, Information Flow Stops"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found this excerpt from the Congressional Record on an anti-war site under the title, Senator Whitehouse on Torture: It’s Worse Than Everybody Thinks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Congressional Record: June 9, 2009 (Senate)]\n[Page S6359-S6361]\n

As recently as May 10, our former Vice President went on a television
\nshow to relate that the interrogation process we had in place produced
\nfrom certain key individuals, such as Abu Zubaida–he named him
\nspecifically–actionable information. Well, we had a hearing inquiring
\ninto that, and we produced the testimony of the FBI agent who actually
\nconducted those interrogations.
\nHere is what happened. Abu Zubaida was injured in a firefight and
\ncaptured in Afghanistan. He was flown to an undisclosed location for
\ninterrogation. The first round of interrogation conducted
\nprofessionally by Soufan and his assistant from the CIA produced such
\nsignificant intelligence information that a jet with doctors on it was
\nscrambled from Langley–from this area–and flown to the undisclosed
\nlocation so that the best medical care could be provided to Abu Zubaida
\nso he could continue to talk. That was the first round of information.<\/p>\n

In the second interrogation, conducted consistent with professional
\ninterrogation techniques, Abu Zubaida disclosed that the mastermind of
\nthe 9\/11 attacks was Khalid Shaik Mohammed. That may be the apex piece of
\nintelligence information we have obtained during the course of the
\nconflict.<\/p>\n

At that point, the private contractors arrived, and for some reason
\nAbu Zubaida was handed over to them so they could apply their enhanced
\ninterrogation techniques. Ali Soufan testified that at that point they
\ngot no further information. What triggered the first round of
\ninformation was that Soufan knew about Zubaida’s pet name that his
\nmother used for him. When he used that nickname, Zubaida fell apart. He
\ndidn’t know how to defend himself, and he began to disclose this very
\nimportant information.<\/p>\n

Knowledge, outwitting people, playing on mental weaknesses, taking
\nadvantage of our skills as Americans–that is what worked and got the
\ninformation about Mohammed. He was<\/p>\n[[Page S6361]]\n

turned over to the private contractors for enhanced techniques and they
\ngot nothing.<\/p>\n

It was then determined that because the interrogation had become
\nunproductive, he should be returned to the FBI agent and CIA agent who
\nhad twice interrogated him. It was in the third round that he disclosed
\ninformation about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber, which was
\nso important that Attorney General Ashcroft held a press conference, I
\nbelieve in Moscow, to celebrate the discovery of this information.
\nAgain, for some reason, he was turned back again to the private
\ncontractors for the application of more abusive techniques, and again
\nthe flow of information stopped.<\/p>\n

For a third time, he was returned to the FBI and CIA agents again for
\nprofessional interrogation, but by now he had been so compromised by
\nthe techniques, even they were unsuccessful in getting further
\ninformation.<\/p>\n

As best as I have been able to determine, for the remaining sessions
\nof 83 waterboardings that have been disclosed as being associated with
\nthis interrogation, no further actionable information was obtained. Yet
\nthe story has been exactly the opposite. The story over and over has
\nbeen that once you got these guys out of the hands of the FBI and the
\nmilitary amateurs and into the hands of the trained CIA professionals,
\nwho can use the tougher techniques, that is when you get the
\ninformation. In this case, at least, the exact opposite was the truth,
\nand this was a case cited by the Vice President by name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You might want to compare this information with Torture debate:<\/strong><\/a> conducted by Christine Amanpour on CNN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found this excerpt from the Congressional Record on an anti-war site under the title, Senator Whitehouse on Torture: It’s Worse Than Everybody Thinks. [Congressional Record: June 9, 2009 (Senate)] [Page S6359-S6361] As recently as May 10, our former Vice President went on a television show to relate that the interrogation process we had in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5078"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5163,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions\/5163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}