The problem with the KSM story, of course, is that Zubaydah didn’t lead them to him — a walk-in informant did. And the problem with the Padilla story is that, although, at best, this mentally challenged wannabe might have entertained plans to use a dirty bomb, he hadn’t got any further than browsing the internet, as Wolfowitz admitted shortly after his capture.

Not that this did anything to stop the Cheney crew torturing him in a naval brig until he lost his mind, and rendering the other conspirator in a non-existent plot — Binyam Mohamed — to be tortured in Morocco and the “Dark Prison.”

Not sure how this could be construed as success …

I’m going to try and get engaged here on a more regular basis, however. FDL’s definitely the place where clued-up, inquiring minds go to talk.

Loose ends?

Do bin Laden or Zawahiri qualify too?
Who else?

Perhaps this is more appropriate (also from Mayer), and relating to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s “interrogation”:

“There were some horrible moments,” said [a] former CIA officer, who declined to provide details. “Things went too far. It was awful. Awful.”

Thanks yet again for a stimulating article and discussion. I had it in the back of my mind that something else happened to al Libi in Egypt, and it always takes a while but I remembered what it was and I was confusing him with someone else tortured in Egypt, after being questioned by American interrogators. By same time frame, I mean that he was transferred there in late 2001. His name is Mamdouh Habib, Australian citizen. Here is a link to what happened to him.

It made me think of this because of Jack Cloonan’s description of the arrest and rendition of al Libi, and his feeling that the Egyptians treated him very roughly. Also your description of al Libi being buried in a box. Habib was put in a small coffin-like cell for months, but then tortured with an electric drum and shackles.

For some reason I had thought I had read of the same treatment being applied to al Libi but maybe I’m wrong. There is a statement from him somewhere about his transcript, that is, his recanting his statements about Iraq.

The questions keeps recurring – why did they continue to torture when it didn’t work? It could be that they were trying to extract testimony to support the Iraq invasion. But I keep having this creepy thought. What if they just like to torture people?

I read somewhere that Bush had a media room with some large screen televisions with direct closed circuit access to his Generals in country in the war on terra. I wonder if they were watching any of these sessions, especially at Gitmo.

His chapter on DDD (Dependence, Debility, Dread) which forms his heart of the argument about how this torture works is worth reading, although much more could be written about it. It was created by psychologists and psychiatrists, just like the “enhanced” techniques. It’s core program is still used in the Army Field Program, the same program Soufan lauded in his testimony as “a knowledge-based approach.”

After the Cheneyesque filth is washed out of the system, it will be harder still to extirpate this DDD program, as the premises for its supposed “safe” use are part of the argument that some establishment figures (Soufan, Wilkerson) are using in their condemnation of the EIT.

The “false confessions” were the real purpose, but not necessarily what the technique was invented for.