EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW: Ex-CIA Official Reveals New Details About Torture, Plame Leak

[IScreamSundays]

Source: truthout

In a wide-ranging video interview with Truthout, former CIA counterterrorism official John Kiriakou reveals new information about the capture and torture of "high-value" detainee Abu Zubaydah and discloses, for the first time, his role in the events that led to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.


On March 28, 2002, at exactly 2 AM, CIA, FBI and Pakistani intelligence agents raided 14 houses in Faisalabad, Pakistan and captured 52 alleged terrorists, including one who the Bush administration had wrongly claimed was the No. 3 person in al-Qaeda and one of the planners of the 9/11 attacks: Abu Zubaydah.

The CIA official who led the team that resulted in Zubaydah's capture was, at the time, a 12-year agency veteran named John Kiriakou, who was sent to Pakistan just two months earlier to take charge of counterterrorism operations there.

Kiriakou made headlines in December 2007, when, during an interview with Brian Ross of ABC News, he became the first CIA official to publicly confirm that agency interrogators had waterboarded Zubaydah and that Zubaydah broke after 30 to 35 seconds, revealing actionable intelligence about a terrorist attack that "probably" saved American lives. Kiriakou said he believes waterboarding is torture.

snip>

Read more: http://www.truthout.org/interview-with-former-cia-officer-john-kiriakou59396

[leveymg]

1. An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, chocolate-coated and foil-wrapped in self-serving lies.

Tempting, but I won't buy anything John Kiriakou says. His account about how he and Grenier at CIA were told a year in advance that we'd be invading Iraq to take the heat off the Saudis is interesting, but that's been said before by other sources.

His account about the capture of AZ never made any sense, and his 2nd-hand account of the 83 waterboarding sessions is even less credible.

He's still covering several asses for the Plame outing. I don't believe him about Grenier.

This further layer of lies, cover stories, and plausible deniability just depresses the Hell out of me.

[cascadiance]

2. Interesting that Grossman is mentioned in the inner circle here on Plame exposure...

Since it was Grossman that Sibel Edmonds alleged was the original leaker of Brewster Jennings operations that got them in effect shut down before Libby did.

[judesedit]

3. Thank you John Kiriakou for speaking the truth. Obviously, there's alot more where that came from.

Now...to find the people with the balls to speak out about all of the deceit and lies the Bush imposters told the American people and people of the world to start their war of choice. They should be held responsible for all of the lives lost in NY, DC and PA on 9/11, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And have to repay the zillion $$$$ spent to satisfy their massive greed and egos. Bush, Cheney and their crook cronies should be hung for treason. Most Americans are starting to realize 9/11 was an inside job. Why else weren't the bomb sniffing dogs allowed in the building that morning when they were there EVERY other morning? That is only one of the many proofs it was planned. I will have to create a list to post on blogs like this to make the doubters doubt their own abilities to make rational decisions when faced with the real truth, instead of the paid-off media propaganda bullshit. It's time.

[alfredo]

4. Very good. He was a mix of truthful and evasive, but that is understandable for

anyone who possess/possessed security clearances. Secrecy is drummed into your head every day. You live it and it is hard to not be closed mouthed about certain things even if there is no real reason for it.

[bemildred]

5. And we are supposed to believe that these morans are "protecting" us? nt

[JoeyT]

6. It's interesting,

but of little practical value. Everyone responsible could confess on national television and no one would have the guts to prosecute them.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Interesting lapses of memory.

If I had the wherewithal to investigate either of these issues--torturing prisoners on suspicion of their ties to 9/11--no trial, no rights, no defense--and the outing of the CIA's entire WMD counter-proliferation project (not just Valerie Plame)--I'd look hard into each of Kiriakou's "I don't recall"'s. One that jumped out at me was his inability to remember the name or even the country of some (maybe "Tunisian?") prisoner that he interrogated where he vaguely remembers a tape recorder. (Leopold had asked him about the 'disappeared' videotapes of torture sessions.) He does this vague forgetfulness thing at several points, claiming "it's been so long" and "so much was going on." Of course, someone COULD forget details--names, nationalities, etc. But when you're dealing with a spy--a man whose career involves government secrets and protecting government secrets--and given the horrendous crimes of the Bushwhacks during his tenure at the CIA--the presumption should be that he's got things to cover up--personal or government--so, how to zero in on them?

Leopold does a good job in the interview. He knows his stuff. He follows up. He probes. But I mean for further investigation--including investigation of events that are not the focus of the interview. Those "I don't recall" black holes may be resonance points that could reveal other crimes or shed more light on the crimes in question. I've little doubt that Leopold, Marci Wheeler and others have red-flagged every one of them already--I just wanted to point this out for the sake of the general reader. Notice the lapses of memory.

One other thing--as to the purpose of Kiriakou's revelations. In his description of how the Bushwhack CIA was trying to suppress his book and then treating the Panetta era as a "new day" (not suppressing his book), at the end of the interview, I was reminded of my thoughts upon Obama's appointment of Leon Panetta as CIA Director. Some facts that were rather lost in Panetta's free sail through Senate confirmation: Panetta was a member of Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group." And the early talk about Panetta being an "inexperienced civilian" was silenced. (Diane Feinstein made some noises then she very quickly shut up.)

Leon Panetta is no civilian, in my opinion. I think he is long time, deep cover CIA--and he was brought out of retirement to end the vicious war between the CIA and the Pentagon that resulted in the outing of the entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation project. My pick for the first perp of those outings is Rumsfeld, not Cheney. Cheney was handling the political end of things. But it was Rumsfeld who created his own 'intelligence' shop--the "Office of Special Plans"--to get around the professionals at the CIA and start COOKING intelligence. He had the most direct involvement in intelligence and the most direct motive (war profiteering) to cook it. And I do think that this issue--the internal war that Rumsfeld/Cheney started--and the matter of nuking Iran came to a head circa late 2006, when nuking Iran was taken "off the table" (along with impeachment) and Rumsfeld (not Cheney) was forced out. The Democrats were also permitted--via the corporate-run 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines that had been installed all over the country during the 2002 to 2004 period--to "win" Congress, with the people voting for an end to the Iraq War and the new Congress then lavishly funding that war instead (i.e., the (s)election of 'Blue Dog'/Puke-infested Congress that only looked like a representative Congress).

I think Bush Jr was in BIG trouble with the CIA, and Daddy Bush intervened--probably in coalition with military and corporate/political power players with various motives, including dislike of widespread torture and fear of a nuclear Armageddon in the Middle East (with China and Russia coming into it, on Iran's side). Rumsfeld was ousted. Cheney was curtailed--and had little or no power over foreign policy/military decisions after that point. And how this "deal" was accomplished was by offering them immunity from prosecution--announced by Pelosi ("impeachment is off the table"), confirmed later by Obama ("We need to look forward not backward.") (Note: Both of these statements are violations of their oaths of office and the Constitution, for which they themselves could be impeached, if we still had a democracy that could hold its leaders accountable.)

In other words, what we may be looking at now ("through a glass, darkly") is the healing of the secret establishment that runs the USA, to make it more efficient, more cohesive, less "out there," and less likely to prompt a rebellion by the peon taxpayers, corporate slave laborers and "cannon fodder" that we, the people, have become. Operatives like Kiriakou are trying to convince us that our government has become more "open," more democratic, more "liberal," when in truth what is happening is that the velvet "Iron Curtain" is coming down. "We need to look forward not backward." Uh-huh. Like we do when we throw small-time drug offenders into prison for 30 years?

That statement not only violated the presidential oath of office, it didn't make any sense. Since when do we NOT "look backward" at what an accused criminal HAS DONE?

Obama is a very intelligent guy. I'm surprised that he didn't come up with a more intelligent excuse for ignoring the vast criminality of the Bush Junta. In any case, it points to the probable (more or less) accuracy of my scenario. (He was vetted. He agreed to "the deal." He was permitted to win.) (I think he DID win--on the basis of the hope he inspired in the American people for peace and justice--but he was also permitted to win and can easily--EASILY!--be ousted in 2012, if he doesn't play ball with our real rulers).