Take that Dick!

Commentary By Ron Beasley

FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan, takes on Dick Cheney, his attack dog Liz and the rest of the torture defenders in What Torture Never Told Us.

PUBLIC bravado aside, the defenders of the so-called enhanced
interrogation techniques are fast running out of classified documents
to hide behind. The three that were released recently by the C.I.A. �
the 2004 report by the inspector general and two memos from 2004 and 2005 on intelligence gained from detainees � fail to show that the techniques stopped even a single imminent threat of terrorism.

The inspector general�s report distinguishes between intelligence
gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which
culminate in waterboarding. While the former produces useful
intelligence, according to the report, the latter �is a more subjective
process and not without concern.� And the information in the two memos
reinforces this differentiation.

They show that substantial
intelligence was gained from pocket litter (materials found on
detainees when they were captured), from playing detainees against one
another and from detainees freely giving up information that they
assumed their questioners already knew. A computer seized in March 2003
from a Qaeda operative for example, listed names of Qaeda members and
money they were to receive.

Not only did torture fail to produce any good intelligence it may have interfered when talented interrogators were forced out in favor of torturers.

Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda�s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.

As I had said here before when I attended the DIA interrogation school in the late 60s the first thing they told us was that torture produced false intelligence and that it was used exclusively to get false confessions. 

Supporters of the enhanced interrogation techniques have jumped from
claim to claim about their usefulness. They have asserted, for example,
that harsh treatment led Mr. Mohammed to reveal the plot to attack the
Library Tower in Los Angeles. But that plot was thwarted in 2002, and
Mr. Mohammed was not arrested until 2003. Recently, interviews with
unnamed sources led The Washington Post to report that harsh techniques
turned Mr. Mohammed into an intelligence �asset.�

This latest
claim will come as news to Mr. Mohammed�s prosecutors, to his fellow
detainees (whom he instructed, at his arraignment, not to cooperate
with the United States) and indeed to Mr. Mohammed himself. He told the
International Committee of the Red Cross that �I gave a lot of false
information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators
wished to hear.�

And he closes with this:

The inspector general�s report was written precisely because many of
the C.I.A. operatives complained about what they were being ordered to
do. The inspector general then conducted an internal audit of the
entire program. In his report, he questions the effectiveness of the
harsh techniques that were authorized. And he slams the use of
�unauthorized, improvised, inhumane and undocumented detention and
interrogation techniques.� This is probably why the enhanced
interrogation program was shelved in 2005.

Meanwhile, the
professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective,
unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program � one that may have
given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country�s reputation � is
finished.