Triad
Banned
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2008
- Messages
- 1,041
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- 233
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- Political Leaning
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WASHINGTON – President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.
Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.
...Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html?_r=1Several news accounts, including one in the New York Times last week, have quoted former intelligence officials saying the harsh interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda operative who was waterboarded 83 times, did not produce information that foiled terror plots. The Bush administration has long argued that harsh questioning of Qaeda operatives like Zubaydah helped prevent a planned attack on Los Angeles and cited passages in the memos released last week to bolster that conclusion.
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Politically Obama screwed the pooch on this.
Thinking to cash in with the lunatic fringe he made a fringe issue into a central issue and now people want to know the WHOLE story...and that doesn't fit the charade he wished to capitalize on.
I suspect he and much of the media will suddenly have amnesia on this issue and try as quickly as possible to change focus to something else.
I think its important to note..
They edited out anything contradicting their story in a memo released by a frigging ADMIRAL.
Much of the media made up a story to go along with the Obama administrations selective use of information made public.
(interesting that the New York Times mentions the New York Times "reporting" such..)
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