Techniques Worked – May Have Prevented Los Angeles Terror Attack
April 21, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
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.
You ask how?
CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles from Townhall.com
“Soon, you will know.”
That is the ominous statement an uncooperative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, told his Central Intelligence Agency interrogators when they initially asked him, after he had been captured, about additional planned al-Qaida attacks on the United States.
In March 2003, KSM became the third and final terrorist ever waterboarded by the CIA. The other two were Abu Zubaydah and Rahim Al-Nashiri.
On Tuesday, the CIA confirmed to that it stands by assertions credited to the agency in z 2005 memo that subjecting KSM to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation including waterboarding caused him to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to stop a planned 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.
The previously classified memo was released by President Obama last week.
Before they were waterboarded, both KSM and Abu Zubaydah did not believe Americans had the will to stop al-Qaida, the 2005 Justice Department memo says, citing information from the CIA.
“Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general U.S. population was ‘weak,’ lacked resilience and would be unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals,’” said the memo. “Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon, you will know.’”
After he was waterboarded, KSM provided the CIA with information that allowed the U.S. government to close down a terror cell already “tasked” with flying a jet into a building in Los Angeles.
