Some Interesting bin Laden Stories I Found Today

LadyJazzer wrote: Yeah, just because Rumsfeld said they didn't get the info from KSM using torture, who are we to dispute some underling....

The "underling" was the person directly in charge, and in this case is the person who would know the most.

After watching Rumsfeld being interviewed last night, it's clear he has no specific knowledge of how the courier's name was obtained. Why should he? At the time, it would of ment nothing to him. It took years of additional work and information to develop a full name and location of the compound. The one thing Rumsfeld was sure of was that no water boarding was done at Gitmo. Hannity even told Rumsfeld that Panetta has said that KSM gave the name under water boarding (which I don't think is true) and Rumsfeld said "are you sure Panetta said that?" (paraphasing). At that point Rumsfeld then agreed enhanced interrogation helped get the name. Again, it was clear to me that Rumsfeld has no specific knowledge about it.

The same goes with Cheney and Rove who have also made comments suggesting enhanced techniques got the name. They too have no specific knowledge of it and are just speaking in generalities.

Well, let's say I believe that torture gave them the useful intel about as much as the wingnuts here believe in Obama's birth certificate.

We know they waterboarded KSM...They've admitted it... Two of the guys who were on that team were interviewed today on the radio and BOTH of them said the intel that they got that was useful came from interviews BEFORE the waterboarding and that the torture had no part in it...

So, PROVE IT....

Well, as the story says, even if useful info was not obtained with water boarding, it did make KSM talk much more freely afterwards at Gitmo. But I'll agree it took a lot of info to solve this puzzle and not all of it came from water boarding (the article mentions one specific case, although that person received other forms of "enhanced" interrogation). We'll probably never know the full answer to this question.

Now I see that Leon Panetta did an interview with CBS (I watched him on NBC) where he said "Obviously there was some valuable information that was derived from those kinds of [enhanced] interrogations". He then goes on to temper it by saying we'll never know if conventional interrogations could of gotten the same result (and we'll never know if we could of gotten the information from space aliens either). It's at the 4:07 mark...

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7364807n&tag=embedFD

His predecesor, George Tenet, said...

“Here’s what I would say to you, to the Congress, to the American people, to the President of the United States: I know that this programme has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots.

“I know this programme alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1707342.ece

And there is this...

But after Zubaydah recovered from his wounds at a secret CIA prison in Thailand, he was uncooperative.

"I told him I had heard he was being a jerk," Kiriakou recalled. "I said, 'These guys can make it easy on you or they can make it hard.' It was after that he became defiant."

The CIA wanted to use more aggressive -- and physical -- methods to get information.

The agency briefed high-level officials in the National Security Council's Principals Committee, led by then-National Security Advisor Rice and including then-Attorney General Ashcroft, which then signed off on the plan, sources said. It is unclear whether anyone on the committee objected to the CIA's plans for Zubaydah.

The CIA has confirmed Zubaydah was one of three al Qaeda suspects subjected to waterboarding.

After he was waterboarded, officials say Zubaydah gave up valuable information that led to the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and fellow 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4583256&page=2

All of this is about the general information obtained by "enhanced" interrogations and is not specific regarding the finding of bin Laden's courier name. But it's interesting that the guy who produced the lead for finding KSM did so after waterboarding.