What George Bush Didn't Say About Guantanamo-By Larry C Johnson

[kpete]

What George Bush Didn't Say About Guantanamo
by
Larry C Johnson

If we had to rely solely on the word of George W. Bush about the progress in the war on terrorism and the value of information obtained from Muslim prisoners in U.S. custody we would be in trouble. Bush's speech today from the White House was both self-serving and misleading. I give the President credit for one thing--he's a great propagandist. Let's ignore for the moment that terrorist attacks in which people have been killed or wounded have quadrupled since 2001. Are you getting this? We have four times as many attacks with people being killed and wounded by terrorists and Bush wants you to believe you are better off. But I digress.

According to Bush, secret prisons and torture have kept America safe. Not entirely true. While fessing up to the secret prisons, one of the critical things Bush failed to tell the American people was that CIA interrogators learned the hard way that torture was not an effective interrogation method. Books written by Jim Risen and Ron Suskind during the past two years provide compelling accounts that torture against people, particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohamad (KSM), was ineffective. Suskind recounts that KSM, one of the masterminds behind the 9-11 attack, was waterboarded--a technique designed to make you feel like you are drowning. Interrogators also threatened to rape and murder his family. KSM reportedly replied, "Do what you will, my family will be with God".

Bush also neglected to mention that, despite his previous criticism of the Clinton Administration for not fighting terrorism as a military threat, almost all of the Al Qaeda operatives cited in his speech were captured through intelligence operations. In other words, most of the successes we have achieved as a nation in tracking down and capturing terrorists has been the work of law enforcement and and intelligence officials, not our soldiers.

Another thing not mentioned by Bush in the speech today concerns the CIA officers who first told Washngton Post reporter Dana Priest about the secret prisons; they spoke up because they were alarmed by the Administration's violations of the Geneva Accords and its refusal to recognize that torture was counterproductive.

more at:
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/what_george_bus.html#more