Rep. Schakowsky: I was privy to briefings on torture - saw no evidence that it gave critical info

[sabra]

http://blog.thehill.com/2009/04/21/refuting-the-self-fulfilling-torture-prophecy-a-response-to-hayden-and-mukasey-rep-jan-schakowsky/

Refuting the Self-Fulfilling Torture Prophecy: A Response to Hayden and Mukasey (Rep. Jan Schakowsky)

No timid wimp is former CIA Director Michael Hayden. And he’s not reluctant to tell you so. You can find out what a tough guy he really is by reading his opinion piece, written with former Attorney General Michael “Not sure waterboarding is torture” Mukasey in the April 17 Wall Street Journal, defending the use of torture and objecting to the release of the nightmarish memos. We’re talking here about “walling”, (repeatedly smashing a detainee against a wall), stress positions (hanging a person from the ceiling with feet barely touching the floor — including a one legged man), sleep deprivation for as long as 11 days, cramped confinement (put in a casket-sized box or smaller — insects optional), and that medieval favorite, waterboarding.

In fact, it was the torture described in these memos, the existence of secret prisons, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib that endangered the security of the United States. What better tools could there be to inflame and recruit new terrorists and instill hatred for our country throughout the Muslim world and beyond? Still Mukasey and Hayden clearly believe that these techniques should have been used and should be used in the future. They are in favor of torture.

Hayden and Mukasey accuse the no-torture policy of inviting “the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on September 11, 2001.” That’s a version of history I actually hadn’t heard espoused by anyone ever before — that had the intelligence community not been weakened by timidity and fear, 9/11 might not have happened. All this time I thought it had more to do with the fact that the White House did nothing to follow up on the August 6, 2001 daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” that included the warning that “FBI information… indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings…”

The Michaels Hayden and Mukasey assert that “public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them.” Certainly the men who served as CIA Director and Attorney General must be aware that the secret of these techniques has been known by anyone who could read a newspaper beginning as long ago as December 26, 2002. That’s when Dana Priest and Barton Gellman of the Washington Post reported on “stress and duress” interrogation tactics. Yes, everyone already knew about this dirty secret, and many have long been genuinely repulsed and offended by the attitude of one official who was quoted years ago as saying, “If you don’t violate someone’s human rights some of the time, you probably aren’t doing your job.”

...

Hayden and Mukasey claim that critical information regarding terrorists and their attacks were derived from use of these “enhanced techniques” and suggest that anyone on the Congressional committees who heard Hayden’s briefings could not conclude otherwise. As one of those who was privy to those briefings, I saw no empirical evidence to prove that assertion. Video tapes that were made of the interrogations have been destroyed. It is public knowledge that the interrogators administering the harshest techniques, pleaded to headquarters to stop, saying that Abu Zubaydah had nothing more to offer. Headquarters said no.

[Spazito]

1. Excellent read!

"Hayden and Mukasey claim that critical information regarding terrorists and their attacks were derived from use of these “enhanced techniques” and suggest that anyone on the Congressional committees who heard Hayden’s briefings could not conclude otherwise. As one of those who was privy to those briefings, I saw no empirical evidence to prove that assertion. Video tapes that were made of the interrogations have been destroyed. It is public knowledge that the interrogators administering the harshest techniques, pleaded to headquarters to stop, saying that Abu Zubaydah had nothing more to offer. Headquarters said no."


Says it all, imo.

Recommended.