Prisoners 'Tortured Until They Came Up With False Confessions About Links Between Saddam & al-Qaeda"

[kpete]

Even For Cheney, The Al Qaeda-Iraq Torture Story Is A New Low
Andy Worthington

Journalist and author of "The Guantanamo Files"
Posted April 29, 2009 | 03:51 PM (EST)

Torturing Abu Zubaydah "to achieve a political objective"

Al-Libi's story is, of course, disturbing enough as evidence of the utter contempt with which the Bush administration's warmongers treated both the truth and the American public, but as David Rose explained in an article in Vanity Fair last December, al-Libi was not the only prisoner tortured until he came up with false confessions about links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

.......................

All this leaves me with the uncomfortable suspicion that what the excessive waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah actually achieved -- beyond the "30 percent of the FBI's time, maybe 50 percent," that was "spent chasing leads that were bullshit," as an FBI operative explained to David Rose -- were a few more blatant lies to fuel the monstrous deception that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

A single Iraqi anecdote, and a bitter conclusion

It remains to be seen if further details emerge to back up Maj. Burney's story. From my extensive research into the stories of the Guantánamo prisoners, I recall only that one particular prisoner, an Iraqi named Arkan al-Karim, mentioned being questioned about Iraq. Released in January this year, al-Karim had been imprisoned by the Taliban before being handed over to U.S. forces by Northern Alliance troops, and had been forced to endure the most outrageous barrage of false allegations in Guantánamo, but when he spoke to the review board that finally cleared him for release, he made a point of explaining, "The reason they (the U.S.) brought me to Cuba is not because I did something. They brought me from Taliban prison to get information from me about the Iraqi army before the United States went to Iraq."

However, even without further proof of specific confessions extracted by the administration in an attempt to justify its actions, the examples provided in the cases of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi and Abu Zubaydah should be raised every time that Dick Cheney opens his mouth to mention the valuable intelligence that was extracted through torture, and to remind him that, instead of saving Americans from another terror attack, he and his supporters succeeding only in using lies extracted through torture to send more Americans to their deaths than died on September 11, 2001.


more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-worthington/even-for-cheney-the-al-qa_b_192865.html

[spanone]

1. knr

[derby378]

2. Time to "move forward" - forward to a court house in DC

Prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. That's all I can say right now.

[EFerrari]

3. Kick

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[moggie]

5. It's just another way of creating reality

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

(Unnamed Bush aide speaking to Ron Suskind, 2004)

Is it any wonder that they used torture to extract the false confessions that they wanted? They were in the business of creating their own reality. Objective truth? That's for losers.

[predfan]

6. Herein lies the bottom line to the whole enhanced interrogation fiasco.

It's not about info, it's about the "right kind" of info........like connecting 9-11 to Saddam, which, of course, there wasn't any sort of direct relationship.

[The Magistrate]

12. Exactly, Sir

The torture was not to obtain information, but to hear said things it was desired to hear.

[Mnemosyne]

7. War criminals. knr n/t

[Amonester]

8. K&R (and)

please send a copy of the link to:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

By Chance, Someone Will Read It...

[kpete]

11. done

and thanks, kp

[Amonester]

15. Thanks for all the extraordinary work you do, kp..

Change will only happen by keeping the pressure on for the Truth to win.

Plus one k for the evening DUers. :thumbsup:

[glitch]

9. K & R nt

[inchhigh]

10. "We could get the information in other ways...."

So last night, why does Obama say we could have gotten information without torturing? If the "information" was false, wouldn't it have been better to have not "gotten" it at all?

[tridim]

13. Lots of Americans still don't know this.

Maybe that'll change in the coming months, but until then make sure all your Republican acquaintances know the truth.

[Kaleko]

14. Recommended

[Solly Mack]

16. K&R