ABC Outs Waterboarding Architects…And Gets Their Facts Wrong
ABC is running a story right now about the two men who are claimed to be the architects of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.
They’re playing off the story as if these two individuals are extremely unqualified and that the CIA was dumb to use them to build the interrogation program.
Former U.S. officials say the two men were essentially the architects of the CIA’s 10-step interrogation plan that culminated in waterboarding…
Both Mitchell and Jessen were previously involved in the U.S. military program to train pilots how to survive behind enemy lines and resist brutal tactics if captured.
But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them.
It’s a good thing they weren’t the ones conducting the interrogations then. They simply were devising the “enhanced” methods. I also think it would be extremely naive to believe that only these two individuals came up with the entire process of these enhanced methods. Like I said in an earlier post, the higher-ups in the CIA had to approve from someone to be subject to these methods, I’d have to imagine that they played a very large part in planning them.
The new documents show the CIA later came to learn that the two psychologists’ waterboarding “expertise” was probably “misrepresented” and thus, there was no reason to believe it was “medically safe” or effective. The waterboarding used on al Qaeda detainees was far more intense than the brief sessions used on U.S. military personnel in the training classes.
Again, as I said in my earlier post, all waterboarding was supervised by a CIA medical officer. That officer had the authority to stop the interrogation at anytime if they felt the interrogation would cause serious physical or mental damage to the detainee. If the media had reported that portion of the memo, I wouldn’t have to continually point it out.
“The use of these tactics tends to increase resistance on the part of the detainee to cooperating with us. So they have the exact opposite effect of what you want,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich).
Again, the recently released memos showed that the CIA thought this was a highly successful program that thwarted an attack on this country. The CIA has yet to back down from that statement. And Obama’s current Intel Chief said the same thing. By saying that these methods had a negative effect, when the CIA said they had a positive effect, you’re in essence saying the CIA doesn’t have America’s best interest in mind. And that’s a ridiculous claim to make.
The new memos also show waterboarding was used “with far greater frequency than initially indicated” to even those in the CIA.
Abu Zubaydah was water boarded at least 83 times and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed at least 183 times.
Again, ABC is reporting false information. As Fox News reported a few days ago, and I linked to in an earlier post, those numbers do not represent the number of times those detainees were waterboarded. Rather, they represent the number of times that water was applied to their face. One of the “enhanced” methods is “water dousing” which would apply water to the face. If any of them were doused with water, or any other interrogation technique that involved water was used against them, it would be included in those numbers.
Can the media please get their facts straight? The problem with the media today is that once false information is in the system, it continually gets regurgitated. ABC is proving that point positive.
–jb
