Confirming The Obvious

Micheal Isikoff of Newsweek chats with former FBI Agent Ali Soufan and confirms that his recent op-ed in the NY Times represents an absurd misrepresentation of the Zubaydah interrogation. 

From the op-ed (my emphasis):

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.

Per the Inspector General (p.111), the CIA took over the interrogation at the outset in late March/early April and employed techniques that one of the FBI agents described as "borderline torture" right away.  Newsweek tells a similar story:

The arguments at the CIA safe house were loud and intense in the spring of 2002. Inside, a high-value terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was handcuffed to a gurney. He had been wounded during his capture in Pakistan and still had bullet fragments in his stomach, leg and groin. Agency operatives were aiming to crack him with rough and unorthodox interrogation tactics—including stripping him nude, turning down the temperature and bombarding him with loud music. But one impassioned young FBI agent wanted nothing to do with it. He tried to stop them.

...As Soufan tells the story, he challenged a CIA official at the scene about the agency's legal authority to do what it was doing. "We're the United States of America, and we don't do that kind of thing," he recalls shouting at one point. But the CIA official, whom Soufan refuses to name because the agent's identity is still classified, brushed aside Soufan's concerns. He told him in April 2002 that the aggressive techniques already had gotten approval from the "highest levels" in Washington, says Soufan. The official even waved a document in front of Soufan, saying the approvals "are coming from Gonzales," a reference to Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel and later the attorney general. (A lawyer for Gonzales declined to comment.)

Well.  Soufan's statement that "the harsh techniques were introduced later in August" is not accurate.

Comments

[sbw]

By design, the protective umbrella that is the American legal system extends to Americans. Others do not agree to abide by its rules are not extended its every protection.

When non-Americans agree by their actions to live under similar protective umbrellas elsewhere, they are not a threat and then such protections can be extended to them.

Non-Americans who would, by any means, undermine the American protective umbrella, cannot presume to benefit from the protections of that umbrella. In other words non-Americans who fight us, are not uniformed soldiers, and who are captured can be interrogated by exceptional means

But, simply because we can interrogate non-Americans using exceptional techniques doe not mean it is wise to do so. Rare use is still an option.

But for lefties and progs to argue Americans have not the option is to misunderstand the world they live in.

[Pofarmer]

"secession is sounding better and better every day."

Yeah, but how do we secede from the blue cities from within our own state?

[glasater]

Rick B~

Thank you for straightening out my hearing on the corporate tax receipts being off 37%.
I was afraid I had misheard the CNBC bond reporter when he was rattling off the numbers.

[PeterUK]

Oh stop all this defeatist talk about secession and islands,run the bastards out of town,they are only liberals.

[verner]

Hear Hear PUK!

[sbw]

Yay, Puk.

What I said lays the foundation for your approach.

Some people call "Distinguo!" I call "Bullshit!"

[verner]

Ya know, I have a new name bor the Noah's and Sullivans of the world.

Since they are basically acting like PETA with all their outrage over the horrible treatment bestowed on AlQaeda, why don't we start calling them

PETA-Q

People for the Ethical Treatment of Al Qaeda.

That about sums it up.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

angulimala, put down the fingers, you're not acting like a sannyasin yet. Your refuges don't include revenge on those you imagine trouble you.

[verner]

Charlie, he was a fake Buddhist....Kind of like when Allah tell you it's ok to lie to the Infidel

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Junior al Qaeda

Sanskrit name: the murderer who Buddha admitted to the Sangha. Ang, when you can put the branch back, hen think about revenge.

[RichatUF]

Rick-

Don't scare me, its bad enough already. Could the budget deficit crack 2.5 trillion and is it at that point monopoly money that the Dem Congress and the Obama Administration actually don't have to pay any sort of political price.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Verner, it doesn't matter, the lesson's the same no matter who the student might be.

[Ignatz]

-Could the budget deficit crack 2.5 trillion-

Look on the bright side Rich.
The higher it goes the easier it will be for Barry to claim he's going to cut it in half.
All he has to do is get it down to a mere 1.25 trillion per year and we're on easy street.

[narciso]

You know every time, Ole Maverick does something stupid like this, he makes me reconsider the write-in ballot last November. Well I guess Meghan is a chip off the old bloc after all, and its a block of cheddar cheese. When he wonders how he lost
a fifth of the GOP vote, despite having Sarah on the ticket, this is the kind of idiocy that does it. He really wants to lose the primary too, doesn't he.

[Thomas Collins]

I appreciate the thought about running libs out of town, PUK, but if someone tried that in most Massachusetts towns, they would have to run several marathons worth of libs to purge the place of them.

[verner]

Here's a question for Issie and Soufan. When they captured A-Z, did they know for proof certain whether or not A-Q had gotten, or was close to getting it's hands on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction?

If I remember, that's what we were all really worried about.

If they didn't even know the name of the mastermind of 911, I would assume that the answer was NO.

So the idea that they could just wait around for him to fall in love with Soufan cause he spoke Arabic and was giving him TLC is a little silly as far as I'm concerned.

I think we need to remember how utterly clueless the FBI and CIA were pre911.

[RichatUF]

Ignatz-

Don't think the Obama Administration is going to wittle away at the budget deficit for a while. And anyway budget deficits don't matter-$480 billion...$2.5 Trillion-same difference.

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

Dunno about $2.5T. The CBO has the current defict projection at $1.7T with GDP contracting at -1% for the entire year. I believe that the Q1 initial number next week is going to come in at worse than -6%. The (D)irty Socialists increased the CBO deficit projection by $500 billion between January and March. As their panic deepens, so will the deficit.

They expect to sell $2.1T new Treasury debt to the public in 2009. What interest rate do you think they'll have to offer to get rid of it? (Current average rate is 1.9%.)

[verner]

McSwain slaps the bejezus out of FBI Pretty Boy Soufan in the WSJ LUN

Read it and weep PETA-Q

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Remember last fall when we examined the Candidate Zero's experience in administering his Chicago non-profit organizations before his run for Senator?

We (nearly unanimously) concluded that His experience indicated that he could spend money faster without result than anyone we could remember. The non-profits which he was "running" spent money more money than they took in without accomplishing much of anything.

Then his campaign spent more money than any campaign in the nation's history.
Can even the trolls on this thread give us any examples that would comfort us that His activities before the election are not perfect examples of his performance in the first hundred days?

And it looks like those "working" people tax cuts are going to end up on the cutting room floor.

Does anyone here really think the muddle will ever figure this out?

If so what will it do?

[narciso]

No, it's been exactly as I expected, just at a bit of a faster clip, which idea seems craziest, more daft, more self destructive;
how much time have you got? I nominate cap n trade, and whatever national healthservice
straightjacket they want to fit us with, but results may vary.

[RichatUF]

Rick-

Whatever the number, it's going to be staggering. At 2T, it'll be about 14% of GDP. I suppose since Obama has declared war on America, it could be considered a wartime deficit.

The UAW must be feeling some heat and looks to have made a minor concession. I was thinking on the Chrysler bankruptcy talk was to prepare for a Sunday night filing.

[PD]

And it looks like those "working" people tax cuts are going to end up on the cutting room floor.

Well, since they are not tax cuts in the first place (a change in witholding rate does not a change in tax liability make), they're already on the cutting room floor.

It really burns me that Obama and Gibbs can so blithely say "tax cut" with a straight face and not get called on it.

[PD]

No, it's been exactly as I expected, just at a bit of a faster clip

I'm surprised he hasn't move faster, actually.

[JM Hanes]

Verner:

From your McSwain article link:

Military and CIA interrogators are trained to use creative means of deception, and to play on detainee emotions and fears. This can be a nasty business. People unfamiliar with it, therefore, might even view a perfectly legitimate interrogation of a prisoner of war that is in full compliance with the Geneva Conventions as abhorrent by its very nature.

These are probably the same folks who think more "diplomacy" will be our salvation, without realizing that it's a really nasty business, not respectful congeniality.

[RichatUF]

Jim-

Not really sure. No one seemed to care much about his radical roots, his tenure at the CAC, or the peculiar secrecy regarding his college activities and grades.

Don't know what would wake people up either-some sort of shock Fannie and Freddie investigation roping in a bunch of dems might do it, but the media filter would pretty much kill the story. A terrorist attack might do it, but I think the Obama Administration would have success in deflecting the story by blaming the previous administration (esp. with Bush created more terrorists because he waterboarded 3 of them).

I think the last couple of years the American public has been oversaturated with media. The MSM turned the volume up to 11 and have just desensitized the voting public to such a degree they don't hear or see the danger they are in. And the Obama media bootlickers will do everything in their power, up until they can't buy ink any more, to prop up The Fraud and to cover for his administration.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

I think you are right, Rich. Even if the tax increases, deficits, and stagflation hit the "forgotten folk", I fear the desire for "security" will overcome the desire for liberty (and I intend the scare quotes). That is, unless the spirit of the tea parties begins to get some traction.

It does not appear to me that there is a strong leader among the opposition to galvanize that spirit.

I hope I am wrong.

[verner]

Here's a very very important line too JMH:

"But military interrogation is not akin to a friendly chat across a conference table -- nor is it designed to gather evidence in a criminal trial, as an FBI interview might be. There is a fundamental distinction between law enforcement and military interrogations that we ignore at our peril."

FBI agents don't do WAR. That's the problem. And I wonder what Soufan's fellow agents were telling the bosses at home about him behind his back. Maybe something like "would you get this guy out of here." Because remember,from the article TM posted, the other FBI guy is quoted as saying the CIA acted professionally.

And isn't it funny. For the PETA-Q, when it suits their political sensibilities, they treat it like a war (assassination by hellfire, rendition), but when they can make the Bush Administration look bad, they treat it like a law enforcement issue (Enhanced Interrogation)

Soufan is putting himself right in the middle of it, and should make plenty of cash for his trouble.

[Fresh Air]

As stupid and counterproductive as it is to discuss EI in the public, I don't actually think it's a planned smokescreen for the other baloney coming out of Washington. Byron York reported last week that scumball traitor Soros is behind this whole thing. Read through Peter's poll above and you'll see why this issue is red meat for the left wing, but absolute gruel for everyone else. I think it's an absolute non-issue politically, though it could and probably will have grave consequences for national defense.

I am going on record right now: Zero is the worst president in American history. He doesn't really have to do much more to eclipse Carter. He's set the aircraft carrier on a course that leads right over Niagra Falls. It doesn't turn fast enough to avoid them. Two years out, we're looking at a best case scenario of a deep recession.

Everyone keeps looking at the federal government. Look at the state, county and local governments. Only two or three states in the country aren't running deficits. Some, like New York, California, Illinois and Michigan, are in massive trouble. Instead of laying off hundreds of thousands of do-nothing government employees, they're financing shiftlessness and waste with higher taxes.

We have, therefore:

1. A credit crisis;
2 Massive new taxes at the federal, state and local levels;
3. Unprecedented levels of new intrusive, anti-business regulation;
4. Massive funding to miscreants like ACORN that are parasites on the communities they allegedly try to help;
5. Punitive taxes on corporations;
6. Strong-arming of banks and other lenders to make bad loans;
7. Deficit spending that will surely result in major devaluation of the dollar and future debts that are incompatible with a vibrant economy;
8. A dithering, useless Congress rubber-stamping all of this horeseshit;
9. A diterhing, dangerous moron authoring same;
10. A hive of assholes protecting said dangerous moron while pretending to report the news.

I'm sure it could be worse, but my imagination isn't vast enough to figure out how.

[Pagar]

The current Dem leadership may be hypocrites.

Change may to ARE!

Watching Obama destroy the country and weaken national security as the so-called mainstream news media cover for him is torture.

Incidentally, the bloody tactic commonly referred to as “partial birth abortion” in which the “doctor” pushes, with the intent to cause death, a sharp instrument into the almost-born baby’s head makes the cut in describing the word “gruesome.”

And speaking of losing “our moral bearings,” as Obama charged, referring to policies that contributed heavily in preventing post 9/11 terrorist attacks on American soil, it appears that Obama lost his moral bearings years ago.

.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/the_interrogation_memos_and_th.html

[Pofarmer]

I'm sure it could be worse, but my imagination isn't vast enough to figure out how.

Uh, huh.

[Tom Maguire]

We will never slack in our support to see them punished. You will slack in your defense of them. God has already ordained our inevitable victory in this.

God? You mean that white haired ghost in the clouds?

That is a sure tip that arugulamala is not a true Prog.