CIA Head Defends Harsh Interrogations

[unhappycamper]

CIA Head Defends Harsh Interrogations
January 16, 2009
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Michael Hayden strenuously defended the effectiveness of the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques Thursday, only moments after Attorney General-designate Eric Holder said the use of waterboarding was torture.

Though U.S. officials say interrogators have not engaged in waterboarding in the past five years, Hayden said the coercive techniques and other harsh tactics were useful in the war on terror.

"These techniques worked," said Hayden, who is due to replaced by Leon Panetta as President-elect Obama's CIA director.

According to Hayden, the CIA held and interrogated fewer than 100 detainees at secret detention sites. Of those, a third were subjected to harsh techniques. Three of them, he acknowledged, were waterboarded.

"I am convinced that the program got the maximum amount of information, particularly out of that first generation of detainees. The Abu Zubaydahs, the Khalid Sheik Muhammeds," Hayden said referring to top al-Qaida operatives who were detained and questioned with harsh techniques. "I just can't conceive of any other way, given their character, given their commitment to what it is they do."


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/cia-head-defends-harsh-interrogations.html?col=1186032310810

[Me.]

1. Sounds Like The Guy Is Worried About His Future

& a prison cell that might be awaiting his arrival