ABC has a very interesting interview with John Kiriakou, the retired leader of the CIA team that captured and tortured Abu Zubaydah. Andrew Sullivan provides commentary on the information. Basically we tortured with water boarding and sleep deprivation. Kiriakou calls the techniques torture and while at the time he thought they were justified, he's rethought that and now thinks otherwise. Also, he says every single thing done was approved up the chain of the command. I think Sullivan jumps the gun a little saying that it's clear Bush himself knew about the specifics, but I'd guess that he did. Kiriakou also says that the information gotten via waterboarding Zubaydah absolutely helped prevent dozens of attacks against US interests but not on US soil. Sullivan goes on to compare this information with Gestapo toture techniques.
In related news, digby wonders: "Gosh, I sure hope nobody tore up these photos [of bruises to Binyam Mohammed after being totured by the CIA] over the week-end before the Attorney General finally got around to ordering everyone to cease destroying evidence."
Think Progress asks: "Is CIA Director Michael Hayden Lying About When The Agency Stopped Videotaping Interrogations?" Amnesty International reports tell of prisoners seeing cameras after 2002 but then again Kiriakou thought the cameras were closed circuits and not being recorded. Think Progress adds Spencer Ackerman's comments "The CIA lied for years about the existence of videotaped interrogations, so there’s no reason to credit Hayden’s account of when the recordings ceased."
Ackerman wonders in TPM How Do Classified Letters Get Classified?. Personally I wonder about how congressmen find out about classified stuff and then can't discuss it with anyone or each other. I think this is a deliberate tactic by the Bush administration. Instead of releasing information to say the entire Intelligence committee they release it to just the top 4 members (2 of each party). But then they can't discuss it with the rest of the committee so how can they perform any oversight duties?
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