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MSNBC: Key 9/11 Commission
Report Testimony Based on Torture
911
Blogger
Friday February 1, 2008
(I subbed in the word "torture" in the above headline,
where MSNBC will only say "waterboarding". Even though
Chief Justice Mukasey won't say it, Malcolm Nance, "a former
master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival,
Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego"
says, I know waterboarding is torture - because I did it myself.
So there you have it. -rep.)
9/11 Commission Controversy
By Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco - January 30, 2008
The 9/11 Commission suspected that critical information it used
in its landmark report was the product of harsh interrogations
of al-Qaida operatives - interrogations that many critics have
labeled torture. Yet, commission staffers never questioned the
agency about the interrogation techniques and in fact ordered
a second round of interrogations specifically to ask additional
questions of the same operatives, NBC News has learned.
Those conclusions are the result of an extensive NBC News analysis
of the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report and interviews with
Commission staffers and current and former U.S. intelligence officials.
The analysis shows that much of what was reported about the planning
and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington
was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al-Qaida operatives.
Each had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Some were even subjected to waterboarding, the most controversial
of the techniques, which simulates drowning.
(Article continues below)
The NBC News analysis shows that more than one quarter of all
footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al-Qaida
operatives who were subjected to the now-controversial interrogation
techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations
is central to the Report’s most critical chapters, those
on the planning and execution of the attacks. The analysis also
shows - and agency and commission staffers concur - there was
a separate, second round of interrogations in early 2004, done
specifically to answer new questions from the Commission.
9/11 Commission staffers say they "guessed" but did
not know for certain that harsh techniques had been used, and
they were concerned that the techniques had affected the operatives’
credibility. At least four of the operatives whose interrogation
figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told
interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "tortured."
The claims came during their hearings last spring at the U.S.
military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"We were not aware, but we guessed, that things like that
were going on," Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission executive
director, told NBC News. "We were wary…we tried to
find different sources to enhance our credibility."
Specifically, the NBC News analysis shows 441 of the more than
1,700 footnotes in the Commission’s Final Report refer to
the CIA interrogations. Moreover, most of the information in Chapters
5, 6 and 7 of the Report came from the interrogations. Those chapters
cover the initial planning for the attack, the assembling of terrorist
cells, and the arrival of the hijackers in the U.S. In total,
the Commission relied on more than 100 interrogation reports produced
by the CIA. The second round of interrogations sought by the Commission
involved more than 30 separate interrogation sessions.
No one disputes that the interrogations were critical to the
Commission’s understanding of the plot.
"What we did is the authoritative basis of knowledge on
the interrogations until historians get to ply them years from
now," said a former Commission staffer who worked with the
CIA on the interrogation reports.
Errors pointed out
One critic of U.S. use of harsh interrogation techniques says
that while the Commission Final Report remains credible, it was
a mistake to base so much of it on what was retrieved from the
interrogation sessions.
Karen Greenberg, director of the Center for Law and Security
at New York University’s School of Law, put it this way:
"You read it, the story still makes sense, forgetting the
interrogations. What matters - who did it, who planned it - looks
like the right story. But it should have relied on sources not
tainted. It calls into question how we were willing to use these
interrogations to construct the narrative."
According to both current and former senior U.S. intelligence
officials, the operatives cited by the Commission were subjected
to the harshest of the CIA’s methods, the "enhanced
interrogation techniques." The techniques included physical
and mental abuse, exposure to extreme heat and cold, sleep deprivation
and waterboarding.
In addition, officials of both the 9/11 Commission and CIA confirm
the Commission specifically asked the agency to push the operatives
on a new round of interrogations months after their first interrogations.
The Commission, in fact, supplied specific questions for the operatives
to the agency. This new round took place in early 2004, when the
agency was still engaged in the full range of harsh techniques.
The agency suspended the techniques in mid-2004. Agency spokesmen
have refused to identify what techniques were used, when they
were used or the names of those who were harshly questioned.
Zelikow said the lack of direct access forced the Commission
to seek secondary sources and to request the new round of questioning.
In the end, says Zelikow, the Commission relied heavily on the
information derived from the interrogations, but remained skeptical
of it. Zelikow admits that "quite a bit, if not most"
of its information on the 9/11 conspiracy "did come from
the interrogations."
"We didn’t have blind faith," Zelikow tells NBC
News. "We therefore had skepticism. The problems (in getting
cooperation from the agency) enforced our concerns about the underlying
interrogation.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official says the Commission
never expressed any concerns about techniques and even pushed
for the new round.
"Remember," the intelligence official said, "The
Commission had access to the intelligence reports that came out
of the interrogation. This didn't satisfy them. They demanded
direct personal access to the detainees and the administration
told them to go pound sand.
"As a compromise, they were allowed to let us know what
questions they would have liked to ask the detainees. At appropriate
times in the interrogation cycle, agency questioners would go
back and re-interview the detainees, many of (those) questions
were variants or follow ups to stuff previously asked."
Commission staffers interviewed by NBC News do not dispute the
official’s assertion that they didn’t ask about interrogation
techniques. "We did not delve deeply into the question of
the treatment of the prisoners", as one put it. "Standards
of treatment were not part of our mission." According to
the other, "We did not ask specifically. It was not in our
mandate."
The commission first requested access to the detainees early
in 2004, around the same time the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. In
that scandal, military interrogators at Baghdad’s most notorious
prison were accused of torturing low level prisoners. The Commission
wanted the access not to check on interrogation techniques or
the operatives’ condition, but to get their own access.
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
says he is "shocked" that the Commission never asked
about extreme interrogation measures.
"If you’re sitting at the 9/11 Commission, with all
the high-powered lawyers on the Commission and on the staff, first
you ask what happened rather than guess," said Ratner, whose
center represents detainees at Guantanamo. "Most people look
at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document.
If their conclusions were supported by information gained from
torture, therefore their conclusions are suspect."
Zelikow says the Commission tried its best to get inside the
interrogation process.
"In early 2004, we conducted private interviews with (CIA
Director George J.) Tenet. There were three interviews…five
or six hours each, involving Zelikow, Kean and Hamilton,"
said a Commission staffer, referring to the commission director,
and co-chairs, former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean and former
Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton. "We talked to him about
access at that point…Tenet doesn’t say no…the
response was ‘Talk to my people."
Tenet’s "people" explained why the commission
couldn’t question the operatives.
"The explanation was that the symbiosis between the interrogator
and the prisoner would be harmed," added the staffer, "…that
introducing external elements could unbalance the relationship.
They wanted the prisoners to have total dependency on them…all
this psychology."
Although he admits neither he nor his staff asked about interrogation
techniques, Zelikow now believes perhaps he should have, that
there were reasons for the agency’s lack of cooperation.
"A whole lot needed to be kept from us," he said he
now realizes. "It would have revealed a lot of things that
it was not in the government’s interest to reveal. They
might have worried what we would have learned about the interrogation
techniques."
Zelikow adds that one particularly telling position was the agency’s
refusal to let the Commission interview the interrogators.
"We needed more information to judge reports we were reading,"
he said. "We needed information about demeanor of the detainees.
We needed more information on the content, context, character
of the interrogations."
Current and former agency officials say the commission had enough
information to fulfill their mission.
"The CIA went to great lengths to meet the requests of the
9/11 Commission and provided the Commission with a wealth of information,"
said Mark Mansfield, the CIA’s chief spokesman. "The
9/11 Commission certainly had access to, and drew from, detailed
information that had been provided by terrorist detainees. That's
how they reconstructed the plot in their comprehensive report."
The former official said that senior intelligence staff feared
that if the agency permitted the commission to send staffers to
the CIA’s secret prisons to talk with the operatives, the
locations of the prisons wouldn’t be secret for very long.
Zelikow agreed that the Commission specifically asked for the
new round after reviewing the agency’s first interrogation
reports. "That is correct," he said of the rationale
for the new round of interrogations. "That was one of the
ways they sought to deal with our concerns. They (the first round)
had value but were not satisfactory."
"They were looking prospectively in their questioning…looking
at current threats. We were looking retrospectively. So we needed
the follow-up questions."
The NBC News analysis shows that there were 30 separate interrogation
sessions in early 2004 when the second round of questioning began.
Based on the number of references attributed to each of the sessions,
they appear to have been lengthy.
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INFOWARS:
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