We Waterboarded Only Three People—Then Based One-Fourth of Our Intelligence on What They Said

[laststeamtrain]

CIA Director Says We Waterboarded Only Three People—Then Based One-Fourth of Our Intelligence on What They Said

The Senate Intelligence Committee picked a hell of a day to hold a hearing on national security. With every news source in the country vying for the most up-to-date primary information and the chattering classes glued to the exit polls, nobody really noticed when CIA director Michael Hayden admitted to Congress on Tuesday that the U.S. has, in fact, waterboarded three terrorism suspects: 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The waterboarding took place from late 2001 through early 2003, he said, and has since stopped.

Hayden's testimony confirmed what we already knew, though his statement marked the first time that a senior intelligence official has publicly acknowledged using the technique. And he didn't just acknowledge it; he quantified its importance. According to Hayden, the confessions of two of the suspects—Mohammed and Zubaydah—made up a full one-fourth of our human intelligence on Al Qaeda for the next five years...http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/02/7121_cia_director_sa.html

[hobbit709]

1. I don't think there was "intelligence" involved

[Warpy]

2. Well, that explains a lot of the bizarre stuff that's come out

of the White House. It's probably also where that fiction of bin Laden hiding in a cave on a dialysis machine came from.

Torture, no matter what language you use to try to deodorize it, simply does not work. The information is never reliable and it degrades the torturer at least as much as his victim.

There was a reason we outlawed it for a century. It might take another century of outlawing it before the world ever trusts us again.

I will never forgive the GOP for enabling this.

[NNN0LHI]

3. CIA had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's small children in custody too

I am sure he said whatever they wanted to hear. I know I would if some thugs had my kids.

Don

[shraby]

4. To use the family as hostages like that is also

against the Geneva Convention rules. Everything this administration has done in the treatment of prisoners has been absolutely illegal and against the Geneva Convention and by extension because its a part of our constitution, their actions have been illegal according to our constitution. Not only that, but it also goes against the cruel punishment clause.

[tekisui]

5. ...ANd of that one-fourth, 999 thousandths were complete fear induced shit.