Took Me A Whole Five Minutes

Much is being made by the right of today's WaPo op-ed from former Bush Pentagon man and speechwriter Mark Thiessen.

In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists "did not make us safer." This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public -- in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media.

Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that "the CIA believes 'the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.' . . . In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques." The memo continues: "Before the CIA used enhanced techniques . . . KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will find out.' " Once the techniques were applied, "interrogations have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its affiliates."

Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques "led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' 'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los Angeles." KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that "information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the 'Second Wave.' " In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.

Only one problem. It took me all of five minutes to find this story also from the WaPo that ends up completely annhilating Thiessen's bullshit. (emphasis mine)

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

So Thiessen's entire premise of his editorial is built on a lie the same newspaper completely debunked not more than a few weeks earlier as a front-page story. And yet, the WaPo still publishes this propaganda when they know it is demonstrably false. I honestly don't get it. The Post's own reporters tore the "torture worked!" meme apart. The stories and lies that Abu Zubaydah gave the CIA were wild goose chase stories.

And yet here we have this editorial, printed by the Post itself, that is filled with untruths debunked and investigated by its own reporters. If I were Post reporters Peter Finn and Joby Warrick, I would march down to the Editorial desk and smack somebody over the head with a Sunday paper. Even worse, the Wingers are dancing in the streets spitting out the Cheney meme that Obama has weakened the country. Torture did not work, people. When you waterboard a man dozens and dozens and dozens of times and gain nothing, you lose everything.

It's a lie. And the WaPo is printing it. And people wonder why newspapers are dying. Nice work, Washington Post. Nice work indeed.