Fact is I don't buy his story.
The reasons he's out in public giving this story are my suspicions, and not yet based on facts, may never be, but than again all it takes is total honesty, by someone, to get the real story.
The whole debate, to date, revolves around one form of Illegal Torture, Waterboarding.
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was a member of the team that captured and questioned al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002. The interrogation is one of two CIA interrogations at the heart of the current controversy surrounding destroyed videotapes.
One of the reasons Kiriakou is traveling around giving his story, I believe, is to help keep it a one Torture subject. Another, I believe, after watching what this Administration will resort to, on numorous other subjects, is to place himself front and center as a topic taking heat off what the Administration knew, hoping it will die down as they concoct more crap for the headlines, and like everything else leave the concious thought of the populace.
Having gone through SERE - Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape at Camp Pendleton, out of the Coranado Calif Naval Base, back in 1970, prior to my tour in 'Nam, and been one of those Waterboarded, as only one part of the Resistance, something one could expect if captured, because we were doing it In - Theater, as someone showed in an earlier DKOS Diary.
A U.S. soldier in Vietnam supervises the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. Bettmann/Corbis
I find his story rather incredible giving other information he puts forth.
Let me inject something here. The limpbaugh, o'really, fox crowd have been spouting off that because we do Waterboarding in our Training that makes it a non issue as to Torture. Wrong, that's precisely why WaterBoarding is a part of the training, as an Expected Torture Technique, known to be illegal, and one that can be a controlled training technique. The control comes from the fact that at least one of those giving it can monitor your pulse and if any change can end the technique quickly by pulling off the rag covering your face and stop the other from pouring the water, something that probably doesn't happen in the reality of Torturing suspected targets, the monitoring of ones pulse that is.
He keeps saying, in all the interviews I've heard, that this was an "Intelligence success story that Americans should be proud of." This coming from an officer of the CIA and unless they stopped explaining what the Geneva Convention, International Law and U.S. Law are, as they supposedly did with our Military Troops, at least the Reserves and Guard, I want to know why we should be Proud of our Government, a Nation of Laws, condoning Torture, that which we Condemn others for doing! And by doing so leave our Military Troops, In-Theaters, subject to the Same as well as any Citizen of this country found anywhere on this planet!
Now he also says in all these interviews
"In 2002, I believed that desperate times called for desperate measures. And we were so convinced that al-Qaida was planning another massive attack that we really felt that we needed to do anything to get the information to disrupt it," Kiriakou tells Robert Siegel.
And
Kiriakou says that the decision in Zubaydah's case to use waterboarding — or controlled drowning — came after three to four weeks of questioning during which Zubaydah was uncooperative.
This above apparently to suggest that during the previous three to four weeks of questioning we were giving him cake and ice cream, cigarettes if he smoked, plenty of rest, frequent trips to the local Starbucks by other agents for Zubaydah's favorite coffee mixture................., and all that just wasn't working.
So
Kiriakou describes the process of waterboarding, his own experience being waterboarded and how it took only 35 seconds once the technique was employed for Zubaydah to start talking.
Bam, strap him to a board, cover face with cloth, pour water, and this Hardened Terrorists Breaks in 35seconds and gives a bunch of Real Useful Intelligence where American lives were saved as a result of the information the CIA learned through this singular technique of interrogation.
Yet no one seems willing, already known how this terrific intelligence information was gathered, what Exactly it Was and What The Targets were, Nobody!!
It reminds me of Collin Powel at the UN, or Rummy saying the Administration knew exactly where the WMD's were, in Iraq, yet when the Inspectors kept asking for the Known locations the Administration kept saying they couldn't pass that on as it would give away their intelligence sources.
Now my first thoughts were that the tapes show One Hell of Alot More than just Waterboarding was taking place!
My second thought was that they would also show that Absolutely No Relative Intelligence was gathered, no matter How Much We Tortured, these Suspects weren't giving up a Damn Thing, couple that with the Illegality of Torture would make this Extremely Damning for any and all involved!!
I'm glad I waited to hit this subject as others seemed to be seeing exactly the same thing.
Olbermann said a few things on last nights show, 12-14-07, about previous statements of Kiriakou that point in the direction of non useful intelligence, can't remember eactly what Keith said and can't find that video at his site nor transcript.
But we have this, below, from
Naomi Wolf
Found at The Huffington Post and now on the Alternet Site as well.
On the missing tapes, we would likely see "confessions" of prisoners who would say anything at all in order to end the violence.
Giving us the following
According to the little-noticed but extraordinarily important book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, Columbia University Press, New York 2007), which presents dozens of original formerly secret documents - FBI emails and memos, letters and interrogator "wish lists," raw proof of the systemic illegal torture of detainees in various US-held prisons -- the typical "harsh interrogation" of a suspect in US custody reads like an account of abuses in archives at Yad Vashem.
And continues with this
"Through the FOIA lawsuit," write the authors, "we learned of the existence of multiple records relating to prisoner abuse that still have not been released by the administration; credible media reports identify others. As this book goes to print, the Bush administration is still withholding, among many other records, a September 2001 presidential directive authorizing the CIA to set up secret detention centers overseas; an August 2002 Justice Department memorandum advising the CIA about the lawfulness of waterboarding [Italics mine; nota bene, Mr. Mukasey] and other aggressive interrogation methods; documents describing interrogation methods used by special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; investigative files concerning the deaths of prisoners in U.S. custody; and numerous photographs depicting the abuse of prisoners at detention facilities other than Abu Ghraib.'
Leading to this, and much more
On the missing tapes, we would likely see responses from the prisoners that would be obvious to us as confessions to anything at all in order to end the violence. In other words, if we could witness the drama of manufacturing by torture the many violently coerced "confessions" upon which the whole house of cards of this White House and its hyped "war on terror" rests, it would likely cause us to reopen every investigation, including the most serious ones (remember, even the 9/11 committee did not receive copies of the tapes); shut down the corrupt, Stalinesque Military Commissions System; turn over prisoners, the guilty and the innocent, into a working, accountable justice system operating in accordance with American values; and direct our legal scrutiny to the torturers themselves -- right up to the office of the Vice President and the President if that is where the investigations would lead.
Naomi closes with the following, and I'll put in Bold
An independent special prosecutor must be appointed. The people who are found guilty, in America, must face justice.
Let the investigations begin.
Yes, Let The Investigations Begin, RIGHT F**KING NOW!!
My Name Has Been Soiled Enough, as have All Our Names All This Has Been Done Under!!
