CIA agents threatened to quit over waterboarding!
WASHINGTON - July 19, 2009 - Two of the key designers of the Bush regime’s torture program ended up in a “tug of war” with their superiors about how far to go when coercing information out of suspects, says a new article in the Washington Post.
The article, published Sunday, provides graphic descriptions of some of the techniques contemplated when the torture program was just beginning, in the months after September 11, 2001. Faced with the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the al Qaeda operative who had become the CIA’s first “star witness” in the “war on terror,” the CIA contemplated some disturbing options:
Put him in a cell filled with cadavers was one suggestion, according to a former U.S. official with knowledge of the brainstorming sessions. Surround him with naked women was another. Jolt him with electric shocks to the teeth was a third.
“The thing that will make [Zubaida] talk,” one participant quoted by the Post said, “is fear.”
The article goes on to describe the evolving process by which the CIA tried to extract information from Zubaida.
In the initial stages, Abu Zubaida was stripped of his clothes while CIA officers took turns at low-intensity questioning. Later, [CIA contractor James E.] Mitchell added sleep deprivation and a constant bombardment of loud music, including tracks by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After each escalation, he would dispatch an interrogator into Abu Zubaida’s cell to issue a single demand: “Tell me what I want to know.”
There was also a struggle between the FBI and CIA agents present over the tactics to be used on Zubaida: “The CIA team lowered the temperature in Abu Zubaida’s cell until the detainee turned blue. The FBI turned it back up, setting off a clash over tactics.”
Ed. Note: As intelligent people have understood from the times of the Catholic Inquisition, torture never gets anyone to tell the truth; it simply gets people to confess to anything they think will get the torture to stop, period, end of discussion.
The article, published Sunday, provides graphic descriptions of some of the techniques contemplated when the torture program was just beginning, in the months after September 11, 2001. Faced with the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the al Qaeda operative who had become the CIA’s first “star witness” in the “war on terror,” the CIA contemplated some disturbing options:
Put him in a cell filled with cadavers was one suggestion, according to a former U.S. official with knowledge of the brainstorming sessions. Surround him with naked women was another. Jolt him with electric shocks to the teeth was a third.
“The thing that will make [Zubaida] talk,” one participant quoted by the Post said, “is fear.”
The article goes on to describe the evolving process by which the CIA tried to extract information from Zubaida.
In the initial stages, Abu Zubaida was stripped of his clothes while CIA officers took turns at low-intensity questioning. Later, [CIA contractor James E.] Mitchell added sleep deprivation and a constant bombardment of loud music, including tracks by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After each escalation, he would dispatch an interrogator into Abu Zubaida’s cell to issue a single demand: “Tell me what I want to know.”
There was also a struggle between the FBI and CIA agents present over the tactics to be used on Zubaida: “The CIA team lowered the temperature in Abu Zubaida’s cell until the detainee turned blue. The FBI turned it back up, setting off a clash over tactics.”
Ed. Note: As intelligent people have understood from the times of the Catholic Inquisition, torture never gets anyone to tell the truth; it simply gets people to confess to anything they think will get the torture to stop, period, end of discussion.
