Waterboarding KSM saved hundreds of lives in 2006. But of course, death by drone bombing is more humane than waterboarding, right ?!

And compare all the information we got via waterboarding against
the info we get after we have killed everything in sight via drone
bombings. The morons are in  charge and we are all so screwed.  ---  jds.

Courting Disaster

by Marc Thiessen
http://www.courtingdisaster.com/
 
    As President George W. Bush's top speechwriter, Marc Thiessen was 
provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al 
Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid 
Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).

Now, in his riveting new book, Courting Disaster, How the CIA Kept 
America Safe and How Barack Obama is inviting the next 
attack.(Regnery).  Here is an excerpt from Courting Disaster:

************

    Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed 
Pakistani tactical assault forces move in  and surround a safe house in 
Rawalpindi.  A few hours earlier they had received a text message from 
an informant inside the house. It read:  "I am with KSM."

    Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 
attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into 
custody.  In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, 
documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."

    Once in custody, KSM is defiant.  He refuses to answer questions, 
informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to 
America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a 
lawyer.  Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an 
undisclosed location.

    Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of 
Americans.  He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or 
what his fate will be. 

    Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk.  He spews 
contempt at his interrogators, telling them that Americans are weak, 
lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the 
terrorists from succeeding in their goals.  He has trained to resist 
interrogation.  When he is asked for information about future attacks, 
he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know." 

    It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using 
traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of 
"enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on  the most 
high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding. His 
resistance is described by one senior American official as 
"superhuman."  Eventually, however,  the techniques work, and KSM 
becomes cooperative-for reasons  that will be described later in this 
book.

    He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots 
to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets.  
He holds classes for CIA officials, using a  chalkboard to draw a 
picture of al Qaeda's operating structure,  financing, communications, 
and logistics.  He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, 
and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer 
records seized in terrorist raids.  He identifies voices in intercepted 
telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded 
terrorist communications.  He provides information that helps our 
intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists,

    KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces 
more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the 
intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world. In 
one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to 
his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a 
dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the  Pacific Ocean. 
Years later, an observant CIA  officer notices that the activities of a 
cell being followed by  British authorities appear to match KSM's 
description of his  plans for a Bojinka-style attack.

    In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence 
cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel 
the plot. On the night of Aug.9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in 
a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda 
terrorist suspects. 

They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with 
security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven 
trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of 
each other:

    *        United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 
2:15 p.m.;

    *        Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;

    *        Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;

    *        United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 
p.m.;

    *        United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 
p.m.;

    *        American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 
p.m.

    *        American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 
p.m.

    They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make 
liquid explosives.  And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the 
suicide bombers had prepared.

    Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know 
about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much. 
Few Americans are aware of the fact that al Qaeda had planned to mark 
the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and 
magnitude. And still fewer realize that the terrorists' true intentions 
in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained 
through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh 
Mohammed. This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of 
the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in 
the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and 
plots,  CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an 
unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda. Until the program was 
temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over 
half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it 
operates, how it moves money, how  it communicates, how it recruits 
operatives, how it picks  targets, how it plans and carries out 
    attacks-came from the  interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.

    Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know that this 
program has saved lives.  I know we've disrupted plots.  I know this 
program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence 
Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to 
tell us."

    Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said:  "The facts of the case 
are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us 
safer.  It really did work."

    Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis 
Blair, has acknowledged:  "High-value information came from 
interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper 
understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this 
country."

    Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said:  "Important 
information was gathered from these detainees.  It provided information 
that was acted upon."

    And John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in 
an interview if enhanced-interrogation  techniques were necessary to 
keep America safe, replied :"Would  the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA 
was not, in fact, able to  carry out these types of detention and 
debriefing activities?  I would say yes."

    On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, 
closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all 
interrogations by U.S personnel must follow the techniques contained in 
the Army Field Manual. The morning of  the announcement, Mike Hayden 
was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel 
Greg Craig and told him  bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA 
officially nonconcurring."  The president went ahead anyway, overruling 
the objections of the agency.

    A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the 
release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the 
techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists.  
This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA  
directors -- including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta --  
objected.  George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release.  So 
did Porter Goss.  So did John Deutch.  Hayden says:  "You had CIA 
directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 
'Don't do this.'"

    In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a 
collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the 
agency's covert field operatives.  A few weeks earlier, Panetta had 
arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet 
with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine 
officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to 
warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives 
at risk.  The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then 
ignored their advice.

    With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to 
America's national security in his first 100 days of office than ANY 
President in American history !

Thanks to one of our email pals, Mark H.