I’m certainly not the first blogger to draw attention to this stunning New York Times op-ed written by Ali Soufan, but it’s worth quoting at length in case you missed it:
One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.
So: all the useful intelligence gained from Abu Zubaydah was the result of “traditional interrogation methods.” “No actionable intelligence” came from “enhanced” interrogation–what the rest of the civilized world would call torture–and torture often “backfired.”
Can there be any doubt about the total intellectual and moral bankruptcy of torture defenders? It’s not as if Cheney and company didn’t know that they were distorting the record in the way Soufan indicates. They know torture doesn’t work, and when they say otherwise I presume they’re simply lying. After reading this op-ed, can anyone continue to believe that using torture as an “interrgation” technique has anything to do with protecting the U.S. from terrorist attack? Read it for yourself, as they say, and let me know.