The Day After
Sep 7th, 2006 at 11:42 am by Susie
Hercules cleansing the Augean stables.
Any time Bush gives a speech, there’s so damned much manure to be cleaned up the next day. From Bubble Boy’s little speech:
Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM’s accomplices in the 9/11 attacks–a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh. The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh. And together these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
As it turns out, eh! Not so much. From Spencer Ackerman:
First, according to Ron Suskind, Abu Zubaydah didn’t clam up because he was “trained to resist interrogation,” but because he has the mental capacity of a retarded child. Second, the idea that Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation tipped off the U.S. to the existence of Ramzi bin Al Shibh is just an outright lie. A Nexis search for “Ramzi Binalshibh” between September 11, 2001 and March 1, 2002–the U.S. captured Abu Zubaydah in March 2002–turns up 26 hits for The Washington Post alone. Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was. Now-retired FBI Al Qaeda hunter Dennis Lormel told Congress who Ramzi bin Al Shibh was in February 2002. Abu Zubaydah getting waterboarded and spouting bin Al Shibh’s name did not tell us anything we did not already know.
Of course, most Americans don’t have access to Nexis. And most Americans don’t remember–and can’t be expected to remember–newspaper coverage of Al Qaeda for a seven-month stretch between the attacks and Abu Zubaydah’s capture. Bush is exploiting that ignorance to tell the American people an outright lie in order to convince them that we need to torture people. As Bush once said in another context, if this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.
Another beauty was W’s “claim” that the “alternate methods” produced information that led to the wacko who thought he could take down the Brooklyn Bridge with cutting torches!
President Bush said “The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh.”
Spencer Ackerman said “Second, the idea that Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation tipped off the U.S. to the existence of Ramzi bin Al Shibh is just an outright lie… Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was.”
Everyone may have known who bin Al Shibh was, but they didn’t know where he was. The clear implication of Bush’s statement is that Zubaydah’s interrogation provided clues about bin Al Shibh’s location.