Former CIA analyst (42 years experience) slams Washington Post for pro-torture piece

[Becky72]

Walter A. Goodman calls for an independent blue-ribbon commission to investigate "all aspects of the CIA's detentions and interrogations policies."

Today’s article argues that the techniques of torture and abuse turned KSM into the CIA’s “preeminent source” on al-Qaeda. Citing an intelligence assessment by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, which was presumably prepared for Vice President Cheney, the Post article argues that waterboarding was the key to breaking KSM’s spirit and eliciting valuable intelligence on the “inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group’s plans, ideology, and operatives.”

This view contradicts the findings of the authoritative 2004 report on detainees and interrogations of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) as well as the personal views of the Inspector General (IG) himself.

As the Post acknowledges, John Helgerson, the former IG who commissioned the 2004 study, said that the work of the OIG did not permit “definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of particular interrogation methods.” Helgerson acknowledged that waterboarding and sleep deprivation “elicited a lot of information,” but the OIG didn’t “do a careful, systematic analysis of the use of particular techniques with particular individuals and independently confirm the quality of the information that came out.”

http://pubrecord.org/commentary/4287/washington-postone-sided-account/

Others who have criticized the anonymously-sourced article are Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/29/post/index.html

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/ksm-the-wapo-and-torture.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Mugging is an effective way to obtain money

Maybe we should legalize muggings, based on they fact that they work.