Like everyone else this morning, I’ve been reading the account of the torture of cpatured AQ operative Abu Zubaydah provided by retired CIA agent John Kiriakou in an exclusive interview with ABC News (full transcript here). What happened as a result of the waterboarding, asked interviewer Brian Ross?
Kiriakou: He resisted [for] probably 30, 35 seconds….And a short time afterwards, in the next day or so, he told his interrogator that Allah had visit him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate because his cooperation would make it easier on the other brothers who had been captured. And from that day on he answered every question just like I’m sitting here speaking to you.
….Ross: So in your view the water boarding broke him.
Kiriakou: I think it did, yes.
Ross: And did it make a difference in terms of —
Kiriakou: It did. The threat information that he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.
But Kevin Drum, on the ball as ever, remembered that there’s an account of the torture of Abu Zubaydah in Ron Suskind’s terrific account of the war on terror, The One Per Cent Doctrine. So he looked it up again, and found this account, which begins with what investigators found in Zubaydah’s diary:
“The guy is insane, certifiable, split personality,” [Dan] Coleman told a top official at FBI after a few days reviewing the Zubaydah haul….There was almost nothing “operational” in his portfolio. That was handled by the management team. He wasn’t one of them….”He was like a travel agent, the guy who booked your flights….He was expendable, you know, the greeter….Joe Louis in the lobby of Caesar’s Palace, shaking hands.”
….According to CIA sources, he was water-boarded….He was beaten….He was repeatedly threatened….His medication was withheld. He was bombarded with deafening, continuous noise and harsh lights.
….Under this duress, Zubaydah told them that shopping malls were targeted by al Qaeda….Zubaydah said banks — yes, banks — were a priority….And also supermarkets — al Qaeda was planning to blow up crowded supermarkets, several at one time. People would stop shopping. The nation’s economy would be crippled. And the water system — a target, too. Nuclear plants, naturally. And apartment buildings.
Thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each flavor of target. Of course, if you multiplied by ten, there still wouldn’t be enough public servants in America to surround and secure the supermarkets. Or the banks. But they tried.
So what do we make of the discrepancy? As Drum notes, it’s the “same guy. CIA sources for both accounts. But diametrically opposite conclusions.” His conclusion:
I don’t know. But even if waterboarding worked Kiriakou has since decided that it was wrong. Why? “Because we’re Americans, and we’re better than that.”
Update: Kiriakou’s being investigated by the Justice Department for giving ABC the interview.
