Posted on The Patriot Update-By Ann-Marie Murrell-On May 3, 2011:
“On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer talked about the US giving $3 billion in aid to Pakistan but he suddenly veered the conversation toward a much more disturbing issue.
“The problem isn’t Pakistan, the problem is Obama,” Krauthammer said. “Obama and the Democrats were so critical of what Bush did—the interrogations, the secret prisons, Guantanamo and all of that and even the ‘War on Terror’—Obama won’t use the word. He’s made a war on the War on Terror, that if we pick up somebody we cannot really interrogate them. You have to use the Army field manual…you’re going to get name, rank and serial number…”
This anti-interrogation problem is the subject of “Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack” written by President George W. Bush’s top speechwriter, Marc A. Thiessen. The book is all about how Obama put an end to the CIA programs used to interrogate Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
“We can’t pick anybody up because…there’s nowhere to hold them,” Krauthammer said. “All the secret prisons are shut; he won’t put anyone in Guantanamo—you’ve got to release them in 2 weeks and if you use the kid glove interrogation you’re not going to get anything.”
In Thiessen’s book, he describes in detail how after unsuccessfully trying to get information out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad they used “enhanced interrogation” and were not only able to get valuable information from him, but he was also used to thwart future attacks.
For unknown reasons (and despite the huge life-saving success of enhanced interrogation), Thiessen wrote, “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, when 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.”
Regarding the difficulties CIA agents are currently having, Krauthammer said, “Is there anyone in the CIA who is going to want to interrogate after the Obama administration has threatened to prosecute the people who interrogated after 9/11? We have no sources of information and that’s why we’re killing these guys (with drones in Libya) rather than capture them as you want in a war on terror.”
Following is an excerpt from “Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack ” by Marc Theissen and I recommend everyone give it a read:
“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 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 on only 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 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 al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude. And still fewer realize 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.
Editor’s Note: For other foiled terrorist plots, see page 9 of “Courting Disaster.”
Read More:
http://patriotupdate.com/articles/obama’s-interrogation-phobias-end...
Note: My following blog post includes the above article and/or blog post, along with numerous other articles and/or blog posts and videos that relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
Could Steps That Team Obama Has Taken Be Emboldening Terrorists?
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/could-steps-that-team-obam...
Note: If you have a problem viewing any of the listed blog posts, please copy the web site and paste on your browser. Sure seems like any subject matter that may be considered controversial is being censored-what happened to free speech?-You Decide.
“Food For Thought”
“God Bless & Keep Our USA Safe”
Semper Fi!
Jake
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