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Cheney would have you believe, but they water boarded Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a total of 266 times! Cheney feels that they got enough nformation out of these guys to protect America from any other attacks, except the ones that they didn't......

We already have a way to assess how much intelligence we got directly from torturing Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: the 9/11 Report!

Marcy Wheeler of the EmptyWheel blog has been doing the legwork that the New York Times needed done for their story about torturing of these two men.

In the entire 9/11 Report, just ten pieces of information are sourced to Abu Zubaydah's interrogation reports. TEN! OMFG 10 plots thwarted!!!! Not quite.

Wheeler's got a timeline from March 2002 to February 2004, where she unpacks both the significant decisions that governed Zubaydah's detainment and itemizes the intel gleaned from interrogation. Wheeler's diligence and detail is superlative. There's just no substitute for the full Monty, so do make sure you take in all of her work. But in the narrow interest of summarization, here's what 83 trips to the waterboard got us:

1. "Abu Zubaydah describes his role running the Khaldan and Derunta training camps."

2. "Abu Zubaydah describes Rahim al-Nashiri's success as a recruiter."

3. "AZ describes Bin Laden's popularity."
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4. "AZ gives tempered description of KSM's popularity."

5. "AZ insisted there were no ties between al Qaeda and Iraq."

6. "AZ claims Bin Laden expanded the scope of KSM's original plan."

7. "AZ provides description of the origins of "the Encyclopedia," a terrorist training manual created during the anti-Soviet campaign."

8. "AZ provides a description of Bin Laden's actions after the Cole bombing."

9. "AZ provides information on Abu Turab, who reportedly conducted the final training for the 9/11 plotters."

10. "AZ provides a comment on whether Saudis were selected for the 9/11 plot specifically."

There's just no substitute for the full Monty, so do make sure you take in all of her work

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/abu-zubaydah-waterboarded-83-times-for-10-pieces-of-intelligence/

It seems that although torture produced information that there was no link between Al Queda and Iraq, that was not important, it got in the way of the message that there was, so it did not count.

72,000 American dead and wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's and thousands of Afghans, dead and wounded, perpetual civil war/religious war in and for Iraq, and $5 trillion in US debt is what the Bush administration as a whole caused because of Chimpy McFlightsuit's desire to be a wartime President or a cowboy.... All on a series of lies and trumped up bullshit.

And now Darth Cheney is trying to polish that fact with the feeblest of lies, showing his utmost contempt for less Republican Americans. All I can say to the former VP using Cheney's own words to the press, "Fuck Off!"

Current Mood:

Appalled