MSNBC: Key 9/11 Commission Report Testimony Based on Torture

(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.

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.

Thanks, this is fascinating

Thanks, this is fascinating . . .

Since when does anyone outside of Democracy Now interview Michael Ratner? I think this is the first time I've seen someone like him get included in an MSM story like this where people are also blatantly covering up and saying that -- essentially -- the story is 'fixed' and so they should have gone about piecing it together without relying on tainted sources . .. i.e., we already know the story, so the supposed 'sources' of it don't matter!

And how long has MSNBC had this "Deep Background" thing up?

I wonder what else will pop up, or unwind, as the Bush Admin slips away, who will be emboldened to speak.

Zelikow: "We didn't have blind faith"

OK Phil...I'll take your word on that.

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He is running for Senate in 2008: http://www.murraysabrin.com/

Great Post Rep...

We need it.

Torture is intended for false confessions

I did a keyword search of "water torture, , inquisition" and found a lot of good information from some rather unusual web sites. I hope someone with writing talent can do justice to the relationship between torture and false confessions. The purpose of torture IS false confessions!

Here is one very good article I found:
http://impiousdigest.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=275&I...
When Torture is Designed for False Confessions
Torture Works! Consider The Salem Witch Hunts

Where the phrase "holding one's feet to the fire" comes from.
Yep. If it wasn't for Salem's patriotic witch hunters, 19 confessed witches wouldn't have been sent to the gallows. Among the charges the tortured accused confessed to, in vain attempts to avoid the gallows:

* Flying through the air on a pole
* Speaking with the devil and writing in his book
* acts of terrorism against the people of Salem

Also, two dogs were executed as accomplices to witchcraft. Whether or not the dogs were tortured for their confessions is unknown as of this writing.
Lie Activation Temporal Lobe (middle temporal). (Image courtesy of Radiological Society Of North America)

* Human Brain Operates Differently In Deception And Honesty, University Of Pennsylvania Researchers Report
* Brain Imaging With MRI Could Replace Lie Detector
* Retired FBI agent: Waterboarding produced 'crap' information from detainee

Reliable interrogation methods without torture already here. The truth is that sometimes false confessions are actively sought, and this is one such occasion.

MRI scans can easily determine the difference between remembering past events, which is essential in interrogations, and the process of deception, which involves areas of the brain associated with creativity. Even if the science wasn't around during the time of water boarding interrogations, which is untrue, the fact remains it is here now and very much refined from the time it originally appeared in medical journals, way back in December of 2001. Because of this, the argument that we need torture under any circumstances is exposed for what it is: the despicable and cowardly stance of sadistic criminals and tyrants who deliberately seek false confessions; all while cheered on by the kind of senile or uneducated sick fucks with Speedo-clad Bill O'Reilly posters over their beds, writing hate mail to editors who publish the Bill of Rights and claim it is "un-American". Speaking of un-American, one reason Sean Hannity and O'Reilly are so hungry to keep American soldiers in Iraq is that they know what they're in for if they ever come home.