Photo Courtesy United Press International
Many CIA officials see water boarding as a poor interrogation method because it scares the prisoner so much you can't trust anything he tells you. Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a POW during the Vietnam War, says water boarding is definitely a form of torture. Human rights groups agree unanimously that "simulated drowning," causing the prisoner to believe he is about to die, is undoubtedly a form of psychological torture. The international community recognizes "mock executions" as a form of torture, and many place water boarding in that category. In 1947, a Japanese soldier who used water boarding against a U.S. citizen during World War II was sentenced to 15 years in U.S. prison for committing a war crime.
If Rodriguez is saying they obtained information regarding a courier for bin Laden as early as 2002, then what took so long? Why were there two wars that have lasted more than a decade each and two decades in total?
No one in the media asks the tough questions when Rodriquez is selling his book, so much as play Rove politics to sell a "W"rongful administration that liked torture for torture rather than the ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE the soldiers in the field needed.
I have watched several of Rodrequez interviews and they are all the same, they attempt to raise controversy to sell the book for political reasons, rather than address the very facts that obviously are inconsistent with advocating waterboarding as legitimate. I have yet to hear an interviewer ask why it took so long for Bush to use the information to capture or kill bin Laden and END THE WAR before al Qaeda spread its tentacles throughout the world. The manifestation of al Qaeda in Iraq occurred after 2002 and not before!
I have watched several of Rodrequez interviews and they are all the same, they attempt to raise controversy to sell the book for political reasons, rather than address the very facts that obviously are inconsistent with advocating waterboarding as legitimate. I have yet to hear an interviewer ask why it took so long for Bush to use the information to capture or kill bin Laden and END THE WAR before al Qaeda spread its tentacles throughout the world. The manifestation of al Qaeda in Iraq occurred after 2002 and not before!
...But these assertions just don’t pass muster. (click here) One reason might beRodriguez himself. As professional interrogator Mark Fallon points out, “Like other torture advocates, Rodriguez wasn’t a trained interrogator and lacked meaningful experience with Al Qaeda.”
Rodriguez’s claims that torture worked hinge on a flimsy premise: that KSM, Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and the other so-called high-value detainees who were waterboarded and subjected to other forms of enhanced interrogation needed to be made “complicit” before their interrogations could proceed. According to Rodriguez, these detainees were not cooperative and resisted CIA interrogation when they arrived. As this story goes, after the CIA subjected them to EITs, the detainees became cooperative and started answering questions....
...And there’s the rub. According to its advocates, enhanced interrogation works when traditional interrogation won’t, but only so much. In real life, professional interrogators use non-coercive interrogation methods with high-value detainees and get the reliable, actionable information they’re after, without torturing or abusing anyone. And in real life, EITs and torture get you false information. The false link between Saddam Hussein
and al Qaeda, a major motivation for the war in Iraq, came largely from interrogations that involved torture....
The point is waterboarding is not necessary to get ACTIONABLE intelligence. So, why would the USA commit human rights violations when it didn't have to and other methods of interrogation PROVED to work more effectively.
Waterboarding has proven to eschew interrogation. The technique was so intense it caused the detainee to answer with any answer rather than the correct answer. That has been proven. So, why risk false information out of desperation of the detainee that will then act as a threat to provide information along the same theme.
Updated 5/5/2006 2:13 AM ET
BAGHDAD (AP) — Abu Musabal-Zarqawi (click here) is shown wearing American tennis shoes and unable to operate his automatic rifle in
video released Thursday by the U.S. military as part of a propaganda war aimed
at undercutting the image of the terror leader.
The
U.S. command showed the footage to reporters at a time when it is stepping up
operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq and making overtures to other Sunni groups.
The Americans hope to isolate religious extremists from insurgents they believe
are more likely to cut a deal to end the war....
Rodriquez claims the knowledge of bin Laden's courier came during 2002, the same year of the tapes he destroyed. So what is the truth? Is Rodriquez capable of telling it as the tapes from that time were destroyed by him in 2006. In 2006, Rodriquez also fired Robert Grenier for not being aggressive enough.
He was involved with Iran-Contra under Reagan, too.
There are a dozen questions to ask Rodriquez rather than raising controversy to debate a defunct method of interrogation.
June 8, 2006
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, (click here) al Qaeda's leader in Iraq who led a bloody insurgency of suicide bombings and kidnappings, was killed in an airstrike Wednesday, north of Baghdad.
U.S. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, confirmed that the operation which ended in al-Zarqawi's death was the result of "tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network."
A senior U.S. military official said on Wednesday afternoon U.S. forces tracked al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser for two hours as he headed to a meeting with al-Zarqawi.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary North says the intelligence report was forwarded on to two F-16C pilots who were told to strike a building in which there was "a high target of interest."...
The USA media is not doing their jobs. They are acting as political gossip rags rather than getting to THE TRUTH. The methodology of extrapolating controversy for monies has made the USA media a 'tool' for entertainment rather than protecting the knowledge base of the electorate of the USA.
The facts according to Rodriquez's rantings is the knowledge of bin Laden being in Pakistan with a courier dates back to 2002. Bush and Cheney hadn't yet entered Iraq and the USA military had subdued al Qaeda. It was before any escalation by al Qaeda in a global methodology to destroy the civilized war. Bush/Cheney had an agenda and it involved war and not peace. That theme existed through the eight years of the Bush Administration while the electorate remained in fear of the truth for the possibility of the return of al Qaeda.
