Torture May Have Slowed Hunt For Bin Laden, Not Hastened It

[Keith Bee]

Torture apologists are reaching precisely the wrong conclusion from the back-story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, say experienced interrogators and intelligence professionals.

Defenders of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies have claimed vindication from reports that bin Laden was tracked down in small part due to information received from brutalized detainees some six to eight years ago.

But that sequence of events -- even if true -- doesn’t demonstrate the effectiveness of torture, these experts say. Rather, it indicates bin Laden could have been caught much earlier had those detainees been interrogated properly.

"I think that without a doubt, torture and enhanced interrogation techniques slowed down the hunt for bin Laden," said an Air Force interrogator who goes by the pseudonym Matthew Alexander and located Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/torture-may-have-slowed-h_n_858642.html

But, b-but this would mean that Cheney & Rumsfeld have been lying!!!
:wow:

[dkf]

1. I am not sure about this.

I read a piece where KSM was lecturing his "interrogators" about procedures and scolding them for forgetting his earlier talks. Sounds to me like the man simply wasn't going to spill the beans...and really he didn't.

Torture or no torture I think we had the same outcome. The value was in what he didn't say, not what he did say.

That piece said KSM hated us because of the way we treated him after he incurred some debts in the US. Seriously.

[Keith Bee]

3. What, we had "Fat Tony" rough KSM up?

:P

[pacalo]

2. Some interesting comments from Alexander & Lawrence Wilkerson from the 5/2/11

Ed Show:

(edited to add link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42881405/ns/msnbc_tv-the_ed_show/)

Schultz: (...)And did the waterboarding work?(...)

Alexander: MATTHEW ALEXANDER, FORMER MILITARY INTERROGATOR:  No, I don‘t believe that at all.  In fact, it turns out that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, if the piece of information he gave was the fact that bin Laden had a courier, one, is not anything that is that revealing.  Every senior leader of al Qaeda leader has a courier.

But, two, it happened a year after he was waterboarded, which tells me from my experience that I saw in Iraq, that the waterboarding actually slowed down the acquisition of intelligence by a year.

Moments later, Schultz interviewed Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on the effect torture had in finding bin Laden.  (I boldened an interesting comment he made about Rush Limpballs as a bonus. ;) )

Wilkerson:Well, I hope so.  I doubt it, though, because my Republican party will make that issue a big one, and they will find plenty of room to attack in, and create that room if it‘s not there.  After all, we‘ve got Rush Limbaugh out there making the most absurd statements you could possibly imagine about this incident.

By the way, I listened to Matthew Alexander in your previous piece.  There‘s another book coming out.  It is going to be written by a CIA veteran of many, many years who was at Hotel California, at Point Zero, was in the secret rendition program, and the secret prisons.  And this book is going to blow Cheney, Addington, all the rest away of them away.

I‘ve read the galleys, be out in June or July.  Name of it is “The Interrogator,” if I didn‘t say that, Persius Books.  And most of all, it says enhanced interrogation techniques, AKA torture, doesn‘t work.  It‘s not even not productive.  It‘s counterproductive.

[joshcryer]

4. Nice find. The dude was tortured for months when he should've been carefully interrogated.

Now what would have happened if they kept it going and we didn't get him as soon as we did? Another 9/11? Say 4 more months of torture. Pow, we're behind by that much.

[n2doc]

5. ...

[Keith Bee]

6. That's very good

:thumbsup:

[Keith Bee]

7. Where did this go?????

I quoted four paragraphs, as per the rule. :shrug: