Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, April 24, 2009 5:18:17 PM
In the debate that has erupted on enhanced interrogation techniques since Barack Obama released the OLC memos, we have demanded an honest debate with all of the information on the table. I’ve linked to the CIA standing by its action and the results, Dennis Blair’s memo to Obama (which Obama had redacted to water down) calling the interrogations successful, and Pete Hoekstra’s demand to get the Congressional briefings released to show the approval from key Democrats and Republicans.
To get the whole story, though, everything should be on the
table — including personal testimony from a man who was present at some
of the interrogations. Ali Soufan represented the FBI in the Abu
Zubaydah interrogations, and he objected to it during the
interrogations and afterwards as well. Soufan explains that he felt they could get the necessary information from Zubaydah without waterboarding (via Howard Kurtz)
Update: Tom Maguire does some fact-checking on Soufan:
Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah joins
the torture debate on the NY Times op-ed page and explains that the
Bush era enhanced interrogation techniques were unnecessary and
ineffective. Torture doesn’t work, and Mr. Soufan is today’s darling
of the reality-based community. However, based on earlier Times
reporting and the DoJ Inspector General report Mr. Soufan is, well,
misleading us. …