In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida 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. . . . None of [their earlier claims] was accurate, the new evidence showed.And then this quote from Publius at Washington Monthly:
As weeks passed after the [Zubaida] capture without significant new confessions, the Bush White House and some at the CIA became convinced that tougher measures had to be tried. The pressure from upper levels of the government was "tremendous," driven in part by the routine of daily meetings in which policymakers would press for updates, one official remembered. "They couldn't stand the idea that there wasn't anything new," the official said. "They'd say, 'You aren't working hard enough.' There was both a disbelief in what he was saying and also a desire for retribution -- a feeling that 'He's going to talk, and if he doesn't talk, we'll do whatever.' "
Sullivan points out how this scenario is far from the proverbial ticking time-bomb one routinely hauled out by Bush apologists. Notice how revenge is never easily separated from intelligence-seeking when it comes to torture. Notice the unintended consequences. This particular torture led to the torture of another person, Jose Padilla, an American citizen who also turned out to be far less significant a figure than the Bush administration suspected. It also led to dozens of false leads, wasted time, and bad information. (Remember how the critical bad information that Saddam and al Qaeda were connected came from torture as well.) Cheney and his apparatchiks continue to insist that they got reliable and vital information from these torture sessions, but they can never verify it.
No comments:
Post a Comment