Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 Commission Report's Star Witness, Waterboarded 183 Times
That's like once for each footnote attributed to him in the 9/11 Commission Report... OK I actually haven't done the math for that but it's probably close...
April 20, 2009
Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects
By SCOTT SHANE
C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.
The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.
A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.
The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.
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I wonder...
Was the guy who confessed to planning 9/11 waterboarded 183 times or did a guy who was waterboarded 183 times confess to planning 9/11?
I'm going to go with B
n/t
Something fishy
Do you think there is something odd here?
"Others pushing for more investigation included Philip D. Zelikow, the former State Department counselor in the Bush administration. On his blog for Foreign Policy magazine and in an interview, Mr. Zelikow said it was not up to a president to rule out an inquiry into possible criminal activity. “If a Republican president tried to do this, people would be apoplectic,†he said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/us/politics/21intel.html?_r=1&hp
I just get the feeling that all this media hoopla to push for an investigation of torture may be used as a way to appease activists and then to avoid even more crucial investigations such as 9-11. Torture is illegal and should be investigated, but this should in no way stop an investigation of 9-11, US entry and conduct in the Iraq and Afghanistan war, and the Patriot Act.
An even deeper investigation should look at how US officials are manipulated by powerful groups that influence the government to advance the causes of foreign countries in particular Israel and enrich certain bankers at the expense of its own citizens.
European Nations May
European Nations May Investigate Bush Officials Over Prisoner Treatment
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
BERLIN, April 21 -- European prosecutors are likely to investigate CIA and Bush administration officials on suspicion of violating an international ban on torture if they are not held legally accountable at home, according to U.N. officials and human rights lawyers...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR200904...
This torture investigations is really being pushed through mass media. I don't mind as long as it is not a loophole for other crimes to be forgotten which I expect it will be.
Why the clamor for torture inquiry from all the wrong people?
Can you believe someone like Zelikow cares about the people who were tortured or whether the state broke the law? Unlikely, maybe downright impossible. So why put the Bush admin on the spot? The following are some possibilities:
1. a pressure tactic to keep past officials in line on other issues (maybe to keep them silent on Zionist involvement in 9-11 or other issues)
2. a way to inject false info to mislead people on 9-11 or other issues (reveal questions and extracted testimony supporting the LIHOP myth) making people think that they have demanded an investigation and have discovered new truths without knowing that these new truths are planted misinformation
3. a way to mollify the demand for change and justice by throwing some ex officials under the bus but preserving the status quo for the real power brokers behind the scenes. Convict a Bush official here and reprimand an official there and make the public feel like democracy and the justice system still works. In the end however, the US would still be occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and people in those countries are still suffering from US bombs and bullets.
don't forget Hellerstein
he's all over those decisions...
Yes, like this
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/866.html?task=view
In a two-page order dated April 20, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein set an April 29 deadline for the government to produce a schedule as to when and how it intends to turn over materials related to the destruction of 92 interrogation tapes, including the contents of videotapes made prior to August 2002.
Hellerstein said “the government shall produce records relating to the content of the tapes not merely from August 2002, but from the entire period the tapes were destroyed.â€
...