Balkinization: CIA Torture Timelines

Comments:

Very interesting. Bart and I were comparing the Kiriakou and Suskind versions over at a VC comment thread last week.

If the WaPo story is accurate, then Suskind's chronology (at 115-17) seems flawed. Suskind has Zubaydah being waterboarded, etc., and "then" subjected to more clever questioning by a CIA interrogator who played upon his religion, upon which Zubaydah disclosed Padilla's name and KSM's code name, the latter of which apparently allowed us to peg KSM as the architect of 9/11.

# posted by

Anderson : 9:11 AM

I am having a hard time giving the FBI agent Coleman much credibility here.

FBI claims that their non-coercive interrogation was successful, but later admit that Zubaydah was giving them "crap."

FBI also claims that CIA's interrogation was ineffective, but also admit that they had nothing to do with this interrogation.

As for the effectiveness of the interrogations, take a look on the linked timeline how much of the al Qaeda leadership was rapidly rolled up after CIA started to work on Zabayda in the fall of 2002 and then KSM in March 2003. Nearly all the major reported captures happened right around that time period.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:33 AM

anderson:

I think we are going to have to wait about 20 years for some genuine perspective on the actual events concerning this interrogation program. There is far too much self serving and contradictory disinformation being reported in the media by anonymous sources.

A brief perusal of the hash of contradictory news reports based on anonymous sources provided in the linked timeline makes the problem clear.

The only useful items are the dates when the CIA interrogations began and the dates when other al Qaeda were captured. The proximity of these dates is pretty strong indirect evidence of the effectiveness of the interrogations.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 9:40 AM

Torture is a crime.

The torturer's song is that what he has done has lead to reliable information. What else can he say? He wants to convince us not to prosecute him for the crime he committed.

The tortured's song is to say whatever will stop the torturer. What else can he say? We do not consider evidence from his torture admissible against him in a court of law.

The effectiveness/ineffectiveness debate obscures the fact that to torture is a crime.

What the timeline says is that a conspiracy to torture started from the President's September 17, 2001 authorizing of CIA interrogation techniques, from the CIA exploring with known torturing countries techniques that they would use, through the February 7, 2002 mischaracterization of the Geneva Conventions, through Chertoff's authorizing of waterboarding (which is torture for the past 500 years) and on and on. Each of these are acts in furtherance of the conspiracy to torture. We pick up principals in the conspiracy at each step. Paust calls this the common plan in his Beyond the Law.

Can I get a DC police officer to walk into Secretary Chertoff's office and arrest him please? Or is that too much to ask?

Best,
Ben

# posted by

Benjamin Davis : 11:25 AM

Sorry if my comments on torture are not sufficiently erudite and detached. Here we have evidence of torture going up to the President and people just sit, watch. comment and some applaud. Amazing what we have come to as a country.
Best,
Ben

# posted by

Benjamin Davis : 11:47 AM

Some applaud, but some, the decent one that is, do not. Have a listen. To this . Apparently waterboarding is only part of the story, they apparently torture them to death in those interrogation rooms of ours.

(QuickTime required, see Apple site).

# posted by

wg : 12:51 PM

or alternatively see this link.

# posted by

wg : 1:00 PM

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# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 1:30 PM

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# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 1:37 PM

Adding one more thought: If torture were shown to be "ineffective", I don't think there's anyone in the world that would or could justify it as morally or legally permissible. Which should be sure sign that it is not.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 1:40 PM

This comment has been removed by the author.

# posted by

wg : 2:43 PM

Paul Kiel at TPM compares the WaPo and Kiriakou accounts, and adds this bit from Newsweek:

[The interrogation of Zubaydah] sparked an internal battle within the U.S. intelligence community after FBI agents angrily protested the aggressive methods that were used. In addition to waterboarding, Zubaydah was subjected to sleep deprivation and bombarded with blaring rock music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. One agent was so offended he threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators, according to two former government officials directly familiar with the dispute.

Definite inter-agency catfighting.

# posted by

Anderson : 2:43 PM

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# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 2:51 PM

-wg-:

I think the gracious host of this site is too nice to let you know you are way past abusing his hospitality, but I won't be that nice. What do you say?

Was that directed at me? If so, at your request, I will delete my posts here.

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 2:54 PM

yes it was, and I'm replying only because I had to delete my original post (bad link). Here is what I wrote (subject to correction by the owner of this site of course):

I think the gracious host of this site is too nice to let you know you are way past abusing his hospitality, but I won't be that nice. What do you say?

# posted by

wg : 2:56 PM

I think that if the gracious host is willing to let Baghdad Bart use this site for rightwingnut propaganda, there standard for abusing this site must be pretty damned high.

Arne, I think your posts are great. You should continue.

# posted by

Bartbuster : 3:01 PM

As I said at the VC, I do wish Suskind would speak up -- have his sources nothing more to say now that the hush-hush is pretty much out in the open?

# posted by

Anderson : 3:40 PM

-wg-:

yes it was, and I'm replying only because I had to delete my original post (bad link)....

Fair 'nuff. Gone. I'll beg your indulgence and leave the one original post above in. I do think it bears addressing (although perhaps you're right that a comment on "effectiveness" has no place in a thread like this).

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 5:01 PM