Accused terrorist Harkat gets bombshell help from declassified U.S. documents

[sabra]

Source: montreal gazette

OTTAWA — The federal government's case against Mohamed Harkat appears to have suffered a significant blow Wednesday when a document was introduced in court showing that Abu Zubaydah, once considered a master terrorist and 9/11 mastermind, actually had nothing to do with the attacks.

Even more surprising, the document, which quotes U.S court filings declassified last week, shows that Zubaydah, once believed to be one of the top leaders in al-Qaida, was not even a member of the terrorist group.

One of Harkat's lawyers, Norm Boxall, said the information is significant because part of the government's case against Harkat is that he is an associate of Zubaydah. If Zubaydah has no ties to al-Qaida, as now appears to be the case, a large chunk of the case against Harkat is under question.

The government alleges that Harkat, a pizza delivery man in Ottawa, came to Canada in 1995 from Pakistan as an al-Qaida sleeper agent.

...

The document distributed in Federal Court Wednesday quotes a redacted U.S. Justice Department filing on Zubaydah as saying the U.S. government "does not contend that (Zubaydah) was a 'member' of al-Qaida in the sense of having sworn bavat (allegiance)."

Rather, it says Zubaydah's detention is based on conduct and actions as part of hostile forces in Afghanistan.



Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Case+against+alleged+Qaida+agent+should+stayed+Lawyer/2749600/story.html

[Lil Missy]

1. Whoo boy.

[JackRiddler]

35. Plus, we missed that this same story was already in the Washington Post A YEAR AGO!

The government already knew a few weeks after Zubaydah's capture that he was never a high al-Qaeda official and had nothing to do with 9/11.

That didn't stop the Bush regime from hyping their fabricated image of him for years afterwards, and using it in their campaign to inspire terror among Americans.

It didn't stop the 9/11 Commission from using CIA purported summaries of his interrogations as though it were a primary source (although they didn't get to see him or videos of the interrogations or even the full transcripts) in their fraudulent report, which presented him as one of the 9/11 planners.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066.html

Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots
Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 29, 2009


When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him. The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a "fixer" for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with al-Qaeda only after Sept. 11 -- and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan.

SNIP! More juicy stuff at link.

[Blue_Tires]

37. thanks!

[JackRiddler]

38. Zubaydah's name occurs 59 times in the 9/11 Commission Report.

A quick scan of the report Notes shows about 15 citations as a source of the "interrogation of Abu Zubaydah' - which again, refers to the CIA's written summaries of these interrogations as provided to the Kean Commission, which never saw full transcripts or videos, and was never allowed to see Zubaydah.

[No Elephants]

2. Ooops. But, it's all good bc the terrorism label justifies anything and everything. Terra! Terra!

[Soylent Brice]

3. K&R

[skeptical cynic]

4. A budding police state has no bigger adversary than

The Truth

Waterboarded twenty times!

Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who warned us that those who would sacrifice liberty to obtain security deserve neither and will lose both?

"Terrorism" and "Democracy"-- Remember when they were more than just words?

[FiveGoodMen]

5. Remember: Our current President claims the right to hold people without trial

because he thinks they might be bad.

Can we see what's wrong with that?

[Ian David]

9. Well, now that we've tortured them, they're probably bad. n/t

[Kelvin Mace]

15. And when I bring this up

when I point to it, and when I point to Obama's lying in court in favor DADT, while claiming he supports repeal, when I point out that he has thrown every major member of the Democratic party under the bus from environmentalist, to feminists, to civil libertarians, I am called:

1) A GOP plant.

2) A disgruntled Hilary supporter.

3) Unrealistic

4) Naive


The we are betrayed on a new issue, rinse, repeat.

[FiveGoodMen]

16. Whereas, I think that Obama is a GOP plant.

Or he might as well be.

[OnyxCollie]

24. Totalitarian governments

will turn on anyone.

The ideology behind this totalitarian government is that corporations are good.

Who needs rights when you can shop? It's all good until we run out of money, which should happen in 3... 2... 1....

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. This is important.

Need to keep this kicked.

[EFerrari]

8. Okay

:kick:

[Solly Mack]

19. It is indeed

[Arctic Dave]

7. I'm no "truther", but this is a huge blow to the credibility to anyone

who tries to justify the response of the US government after 9/11.

[JackRiddler]

39. You don't have to be a 'truther' to be a 9/11 skeptic and join in the broad coalition of those...

who

- given this and so many other examples of distortion, omission and cover-up, and
- given the paradoxical full-spectrum exploitation of 9/11 as a casus belli and reason to expand the police state and revolutionize our "way of life" in ways that have shifted trillions of dollars in spending priorities;

cease to accept the government's word on anything about 9/11 until there are credible, independent, subpoena-powered investigations both by the Congress and by criminal prosecutors that explicitly address all of the omissions and unmentionable issues like:

- the validity of the prisoner interrogations, under torture, on which the 9/11 Commission's account of the plot for the attack is mainly based;
- the contradictions among the many versions put out officially by different agencies of the timeline of events in the air, which necessitate that some of the accounts were conscious falsehoods, as even the 9/11 Commissioners admitted long after their report;
- Able Danger and all other examples alleged of surveillance of the alleged hijackers prior to the attacks;
- obstruction of these investigations and of actionable information at Alec Station and in the FBI; - - Sibel Edmonds' testimony;
- foreign agency surveillance of the alleged hijackers;
- how the many foreign warnings based on evident, specific foreknowledge were treated by the US agencies that received them;
- the anomalous actions of the chain of command and top officials on the day itself and contradictions in their own accounts;
- all of the reports of money dealings possibly based in foreknowledge, in the US and in other financial centers;
- the history of US agency and contractor and allied foreign agency dealings with the jihadi complex centered on Bin Ladin;
- the money connections between that complex and Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, and US intelligence;
- and yes, items like possible use of explosives at WTC 7, even if I put little faith in that item.

You don't have to believe ANYTHING about what happened to join with the very same relatives of 9/11 victims who fought to get the 9/11 Commission in the first place and demand, given the evidence of cover-ups and the importance of 9/11 as the most important defining event for politics and policy in the following decade, that a full accounting be made by investigations with teeth.

[JackRiddler]

40. kick

[Javaman]

10. Kick.

[Supersedeas]

11. but Agent Kirakou went on National Television to say that critical information came from Zubaydah

35 secs into his torture.

[sabra]

12. and Bush speech writer Thiessen also said the torture of AQ leader Zubaydah lead to many lives saved

:sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

14. Monstrous. They have contempt for us, too, feeding US citizens pure filth where truth is expected.

Thank you, sabra.

Thank late arriving goodness they didn't pull it off entirely, we hope.

[lyonn]

13. So, you don't think torture works? (facetious)

Poor ol' W and cheney were so freaked out by the attacks on the U.S.. Their intel let them down, ok, they didn't read that sorta stuff, they had their stove pipe hooked up and all was well. Naturally, those two chicken$#@% geniuses and all those neo-cons clustering around the oval office would decide to torture anyone caught in Afghanistan; taxi drivers, farmers, cocaine growers, etc., as they were running scared. They have proved they were the cowardly leaders of our great country. How effin sad.

Hope this comes off as sarcasm......

It's hard to imagine the intel fed to the people back then was actually this bad?

[Supersedeas]

17. I feel ya -- but what is hard to imagine is how easily, even flippantly, this 'intel' was

disseminated to the American people, complete with the solemn gravitas of members of the National Media who were active participants in the dissemination of outright lies...and for what, for the service of the cause of torture.

Kiriakou now has a book out, The Reluctant Spy.

When will BRIAN ROSS do a follow-up to his EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW to correct the record?

[sabra]

31. looks like Kiriakou still thinks Zubaydah is some AQ leader

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/02/john-kiriakou-the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold-part-one/

<snip>

NRB: Abu Zubaydah and his lawyers try to make him out as a sympathetic figure with little importance. Is that a fair description?

Kiriakou: That is revisionist history, absolutely untrue. It was reported that he was mentally and emotionally ill. That is so far from the truth that it is almost laughable.

NRB: What were his duties in Al Qaeda?

Kiriakou: He was a master at logistics. He was the commander of one of Al Qaeda’s most important training camps in Afghanistan. Abu Zubaydah was famous in the organization for knowing absolutely everybody and he had a mind for detail. He was smart and a great organizer and was the one who gave up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

NRB: Former FBI agent Ali Soufan made the claim that he was getting actionable intelligence without the harsh interrogation techniques. Do you agree?

Kiriakou: He is just plain wrong on this issue. The reason the President took away FBI responsibility for the interrogations and gave it to the CIA is simply because the FBI was not getting anywhere with him.

NRB: Do you want to elaborate?

Kiriakou: It makes no sense at all that if the FBI was getting all this intelligence they would have the whole interrogation yanked out from under them by the President. The reason the President took away the FBI’s responsibility was because they were failing on getting actionable intelligence.

[Solly Mack]

18. K&R

[Iggo]

20. kick

[valerief]

21. Per the PNAC papers, the neocons, after securing the Contract on America Congress,

wanted to invade Iraq and they (ahem) coincidentally (cough) got what they wanted. How hard is that for ANYONE to understand? What they do after that is all residue bullshit to support the major bullshit.

[BolivarianHero]

22. Remember...The Liberals pulled this security certificate shit..

Real Canadian Patriots who care about civil liberties support the NDP.

[pundaint]

23. Can the system be repaired within the evolved bounds of the system? On my most optimistic days I

think "not likely."

[OnyxCollie]

25. K&R. nt

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

26. Exactly how many "masterminds" were there for Sept. 11th? nt

[OnyxCollie]

28. LOL!

That pic!:rofl:

[Art_from_Ark]

29. Well, for starters,

there were Ali bin Cheney and Mohammed al-Rumsfeld

[JDPriestly]

27. K&R

[RainDog]

30. another k&r

[bvar22]

32. I wonder how much MSM play THIS will get?

K&R

[JackRiddler]

33. After eight years, the obvious lie of "Abu Zubaydah" is discreetly revealed as a LIE.

This coming eight years after early 2002, when Zubaydah's supposed confessions of prospective terrorist plots - in part of ideas later revealed to have been taken from the Emmerich remake of Godzilla - were the cause of a constant drumbeat of warnings and moves like the shutdown of the Brooklyn Bridge because... an unattended plastic bag was seen there. Or eight years after it was obvious to anyone reading without the '9/11 Tint' glasses that this guy was a joke. At this rate, it should become mainstream by 2020 or so that Osama Bin Ladin died long ago and that his video and audio releases are therefore mildly dubious.

Some of us remember. The 9/11 Commission Report cites this guy as one of the top three sources on Qaeda among the "high value prisoners," the other two being Ramzi Binalshibh (who definitely existed and worked with the Hamburg crew) and "KSM" (largely a construct of the propaganda even if the main facts of his life are not made up).

This is about the 10th death-blow delivered to the 9/11 Commission Report, but none of them count in the ideologically determined reality of the US media.

Some of us remember.

[librechik]

34. Wow. You mean the CIA and the Bushies were lying?

Can we get some law enforcement over here please?

[fascisthunter]

36. in other words the GOP had this government arrest this man just for a prop

in their bullshit fight against terrorism... yet they fan the flames for domestic terrorism by their own followers.