Effectiveness Of Harsh Questioning Is Unclear - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009042503122_2.html
Abu Zubaydah CIA Guantanamo ICRC Jose Padilla Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Office of Legal Counsel Torture US
shared by Argos Media on 26 Apr 09
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It is unclear from unclassified reports whether the information gained was critical in foiling actual plots. Mohammed later told outside interviewers that he was "forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop" and that he "wasted a lot of their time [with] several false red-alerts being placed in the U.S.," according to the Red Cross, whose officials interviewed Mohammed and other detainees after they were transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2006.
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Mohammed continued to be a valued source of information long after the coercive interrogation ended. Indeed, he has gone on to lecture CIA agents in a classroom-like setting, on topics from Greek philosophy to the structure of al-Qaeda, and wrote essays in response to questions, according to sources familiar with his time in detention.
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Counterterrorism officials also said the two men and other captured suspects provided critical information about senior al-Qaeda figures and identified hundreds of al-Qaeda members, associates and financial backers. if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & INLINE_ARTICLE_AD ) == INLINE_ARTICLE_AD && inlineAdGraf ) { placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,20,'inline=y;',true) ; } The accumulation and triangulation of information also allowed officials to vet the intelligence they were receiving and to push other prisoners toward making full and frank statements.
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The memo said the CIA waterboarded Mohammed only after it became apparent that standard interrogation techniques were not working, a judgment that appears to have been reached rapidly. Mohammed, according to the memo, resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, saying, "Soon you will know."
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A 2005 memo by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said that Mohammed and Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, an al-Qaeda associate who was also subjected to coercive interrogation, have been "pivotal sources because of their ability and willingness to provide their analysis and speculation about the capabilities, methodologies and mindsets of terrorists."
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One of the Justice Department memos said waterboarding "may be used on a High Value Detainee only if the CIA has 'credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent.' " It also stated that waterboarding can be employed only if "other interrogation methods have failed to elicit the information [or] CIA has clear indications that other methods are unlikely to elicit this information within the perceived time limit for preventing the attack."
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The memo, while saying it discussed only a fraction of the important intelligence gleaned from Abu Zubaida and Mohammed, cited three specific successes: the identification of alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla; the discovery of a "Second Wave" attack targeting Los Angeles; and the break-up of the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiya cell, an al-Qaeda ally led by Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali. The last example was an undoubted success that led to the capture of several suspects, but the other two are much less clear-cut.
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The Office of Legal Counsel memo said Abu Zubaida provided significant information on two operatives, including Jose Padilla, who "planned to build and detonate a dirty bomb in the Washington D.C area."