MucheDumbre

In July 2002, Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to former President George W. Bush, verbally approved the water-boarding of an al Qaeda terrorist named Abu Zubaydah.  On August 1st, after ignoring dissenting legal opinion on the legality of water-boarding and whether it was ethical or even productive, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department gave the green light to water-board Abu Zubaydah in what is now being called the ‘‘torture memos’. One memo, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use “harsh interrogation techniques” on a high-ranking terrorist( Abu Zubaydah) on the grounds that previous methods had not been working.

Zubaydah was water-boarded 83 times  that month.

According to many, including Marc Thiessen President Bush’s former speech writer, the technique was a success. Jose Padilla was apprehended in Chicago on May 8,2002 because of information learned through Zubaydah’s water-boarding sessions.

The problem with this is, in May 2002 Condelezza Rice hadn’t yet given her verbal authorization to water-board and the Justice Department, along with Gonzales and Ashcroft hadn’t yet given the written authority. Rice’s authorization wouldn’t come for another 2 months and the ‘Torture memo’ authorizing  the water-boarding would not be written for another month after that. If Abu Zubaydah gave interrogators the information needed to apprehend Jose Padilla, he did it without being water-boarded or he was water-boarded without consent of the NSA,White House or the justice department.“

one of the top

three leaders

in the [al-Qaeda] organization.

Another question raised is, if Abu Zubaydah was cooperating  and had already given up the information that lead to Padilla’s capture in May, then why did he need to be water-boarded 83 times in August?

In a story from CBS news, dated March 29, 2009, a former senior government officials said that not only was the information Abu Zubaydah gave after being tortured worthless, but it also caused the FBI and CIA to run aimlessly around the globe chasing made up shadows.

President Bush, in order to justify what he was allowing to take place, called Abu Zubaydah “al Qaeda’s chief of operations” and “one of the top three leaders in the organization.”

Not long after his capture though, this was found to be inaccurate..

Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man

Image via Wikipedia

that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a “fixer” for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with al Qaeda only after Sept. 11 – and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan.

This is not to say Zubaydah wasn’t a criminal or even part of a terrorist conspiracy, but he was not what he was water-boarded for. He was being water-boarded, so they told us, because he was the number 3 in al Qaeda, he wasn’t cooperating and he knew things that would help us stop the next wave of the attacks.

a senior terrorist leader

and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden

But was he a high-ranking Al Qeada member with close ties to Osama Bin Laden? Was he uncooperative under normal interrogations? Author Ron Suskind wrote, which the Washington Post has confirmed, that President Bush was so invested in Zubayduh that another question that be must be asked is; is it possible that his ties to Bin Laden or his level of cooperation really didn’t matter at some point?

Suskind writes in his book, “The One Percent Doctrine” which Barton Gellman reviews, that not only was Zubayduh just the ‘go-to guy’ for minor purposes, but  he was also mentally ill.

Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries “in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3″ — a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail “what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said.” Dan Coleman, then the FBI’s top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, “This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality.”

During this time President Bush’s outward proclamations were that we had captured a major leader in Bin Laden’s network. Privately though he wasn’t so sure, at one point even asking George Tenet “‘I said he was important,’

…’You’re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?’

To which Tenet replied, “‘No Sir, Mr. President.’”

The Chinese used water-boarding as a way not to get their enemies to confess their crimes, but to get them to confess to things they had not done. In the middle of 2002, what was going on that would require someone to force a person to falsely confess to something?

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

It’s true that a link from those responsible for the 9/11 attack  to Saddam Hussein would have made the case for the war in Iraq that much easier, but is that the reason for Zubaydah’s treatment?

In 2002, this country was still reeling from the attacks only a few months earlier, crews were still digging out ground zero and our hearts were still broken into pieces as we remembered  those flag-draped remains being brought home to those who loved them. Would we have tortured anyone to get  any information telling us who, why and if there was another attack coming?

When Zubaydah was water-boarded in 2002, the CIA video-taped it. Some of the question we have today could be answered by just reviewing those tapes. Unfortunately, the CIA’s director, Michael Hayden had them destroyed for security reasons. But there are many principals left who can answer some of these questions.

ABC News Video

One of the 1st questions being, why was the Vice President the one to  give the order to use these techniques and where was President Bush during these discussions and decisions?

Allah had visited

him in his cell

during the night and

told him to cooperate,”

Do we ‘cross the Rubicon’ as my colleague says and open an investigation of the previous administration? And if by doing so, do we damn all other Presidents who come after him? Dick Cheney wants more memo’s released so that his side of the story can be told. But will he stand before congress and give his side under oath is the question. Judging by the last time his administration was under oath in in front of Congress..

In several hours before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Gonzales said he had done nothing improper in firing the eight prosecutors, but conceded the case had been badly handled. At the same time, he said 71 times that he either could not recall or did not remember conversations or events surrounding the dismissals.

The answer to that question is not as clear as it should be.

Abu Zubaydah was captured in 2002, he was water-boarded 83 times in August 2002 for not cooperating with interrogators even though 3 months earlier he had given enough information for officials to arrest Jose Padilla. A CIA operative involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou now retired, told ABC News that what happened to Zubaydah was in fact torture, but it was also necessary. He goes on to say  the water-boarding was so effective that Zubaydah broke within 35 seconds and the next day told investigators  that “Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate” and that… “From that day on, he answered every question,”

If Zubaydah broke after only 35 seconds, broke to the point where he spoke with Allah and Allah told him to answer every question then why did he need to be water-boarded an additional 82 times that month?  The Chinese used water-boarding to make their victims give false confessions.  What question did he either refuse to answer or not know the answer too?

Before the release of the ‘torture memos’ Kiriakou was sure about the number of water-boardings and even had actual quotes made by Zubaydah, but after the memo’s release, ABC contacted him and he had this to say

When I spoke to ABC News in December 2007 I was aware of Abu Zubaydah being water boarded on one occasion. It was after this one occasion that he revealed information related to a planned terrorist attack. As I said in the original interview, my information was second-hand. I never participated in the use of enhanced techniques on Abu Zubaydah or on any other prisoner, nor did I witness the use of such techniques.”

So who has the 1st hand information on this session where these comments were made? Who can answer if  Zubaydah was tortured before NSA Rice gave a verbal nod allowing it? Who can answer if Zubaydah was in fact cooperating with interrogators 3 months before the “Torture memo’s” were even put to paper? Who can answer if he really broke after only 35 seconds of one session or if he needed an additional 82 more before he gave information that had the CIA and FBI running all over the world to confirm? Did traditional interrogation methods work with Zubaydah? Did he give up the information he had on Jose Padilla and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, did the Bush Administration really get ‘actionable intelligence’ from by using these ‘enhanced’ techniques? The man who really was there, Ali Soufan says he questioned Zubaydah from March to June 2002 using traditional methods and he was successful in gathering actionable intelligence and the information Zubaydah gave up on KSM and Jose Padilla came before he was water-boarded in 83 times in August. Mr. Soufan goes on to say that not only were the enhanced technique unnecessary and useless, they even created a wall between the FBI and the CIA, similar to wall that impeded the sharing of information before 9/11. It was so detrimental to the rival bureaus that the person who knew Khalid Shaikh Mohammad more than anyone else in the government, was  not allowed to speak with him.

There are so many questions that need to be answered and we know the principals involved who need to be asked.  But the biggest question of all is, do we really want the answers? Do we really want to go down that road and if so, just how far are we willing travel on it?

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