Justice Department recants nearly every major claim against Abu Zubaydah

[eridani]

http://www.truthout.org/government-quietly-recants-bush-era-claims-about-%22high-value%22-detainee-zubdaydah58151

The Justice Department has quietly recanted nearly every major claim the Bush administration had made about "high-value" detainee Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner who at one time was said to have planned the 9/11 attacks and was the No. 2 and 3 person in al-Qaeda.

Additionally, Justice has backed away from claims intelligence officials working in the Clinton administration had also leveled against Zubaydah, specifically, that he was directly involved in the planning of the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.

Zubaydah's name is redacted throughout the 109-page court document, but he is identified on the first page of the filing by his real name, Zayn Al Abidin Muhammad Husayn. He was the first detainee captured after 9/11 who was subjected to nearly a dozen brutal torture techniques, which included waterboarding, and was the catalyst, the public has been told, behind the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" program. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has publicly admitted that personally approved of Zubaydah's waterboarding.

His torture was videotaped and the tapes later destroyed. The destruction of 90 videotapes of his interrogations is the focus of a high-level criminal investigation being conducted by John Durham, a federal prosecutor appointed special counsel in 2008 by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

In recent months, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen has been on a public relations campaign promoting his book, "Courting Disaster," in which he defended the torture of Zubaydah, claiming, among other things, that he reviewed classified intelligence that revealed Zubaydah's torture produced actionable intelligence that thwarted imminent plots against the United States.

But court documents unclassified last week debunk Thiessen's assertions as well as those made by, among others, George W. Bush, who said Zubaydah was one of al-Qaeda's "top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."

[The Magistrate]

1. A Damning Account, Ma'am

[Ghost Dog]

2. Very conclusive, yes indeed.

The comments at t r u t h o u t are relevant, too.

[EFerrari]

3. It would be so much simpler to list the things George Bush and his cabal didn't lie about.

[Rex]

4. Wow I guess it should be easy to connect those fucking dots now...

Won't hold my breath... :eyes:

[EFerrari]

6. We got actionable intelligence from the torture of this man.

We learned the Bush DoJ was full of criminals.

[Winterblues]

16. So what...No one will do anything about it..

They swagger about bragging about their torturing people and warrantless wiretaps and we just smile and wave as they head from bank to bank with their ill gotten goods..

[EFerrari]

19. You're right. Left to themselves, the government will never do anything about it.

But I don't think that the people are willing to let this one go. At some point, somebody will be forced to deal with this.

[noise]

5. Not important

Who cares if everything we heard about al Qaeda and torture was made up for political advantage. We need to move on. There are more important issues that concern the country.

[noise]

7. Kiriakou's book on the Zubaydah capture was recently released

Kiriakou was a CIA agent who led the effort to capture Zubaydah. I haven't read his book so I wonder if he stayed to the "Zubaydah was a key al Qaeda operative" script.

A refresher:

(FBI agent Dan) Coleman also reiterated his skepticism about Zubaydah’s supposed importance, describing him as a “safehouse keeper” with mental problems, who “claimed to know more about al-Qaeda and its inner workings than he really did,” pointing out that his diaries were “full of flowery and philosophical meanderings, and made little mention of terrorism or al-Qaeda,” and explaining how he and others at the FBI had concluded not only that he had severe mental problems — particularly because of the head injury that he had suffered in 1992 — but also that this explained why he was regarded with suspicion by the al-Qaeda leadership. “They all knew he was crazy, and they knew he was always on the damn phone,” Coleman said. “You think they’re going to tell him anything?”

In key passages, Suskind explained, how, from early on, President Bush was briefed that Zubaydah was not as significant as had been presumed, a judgment that was “echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President,” but that this did nothing to prevent Bush, just a few weeks after his capture, from portraying Zubaydah as “one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States.” According to Suskind, Bush told CIA director George Tenet, “I said he was important. You’re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?” He added that the President “was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth,” and asked, “Do some of these harsh methods really work?” As Suskind described it, “Interrogators did their best to find out,” introducing the torture techniques whose clinically regulated horrors were exposed so memorably by Mark Danner, and also by Jane Mayer in her book The Dark Side.

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/03/30/abu-zubaydah-the-futility-of-torture-and-a-trail-of-broken-lives/">Abu Zubaydah: The Futility Of Torture and A Trail of Broken Lives by Andy Worthington

[Solly Mack]

8. K&R

I want to scream.

[Solly Mack]

9. Let me kick this

I can't begin to give voice to my anger.

The lack of prosecution of America's own war criminals is beyond despicable.

[Rex]

15. THIS SHOULD BE the most important news in a decade, but it will fade.

That is how the media will let it slide...move on, nothing to see here. COMPLETE FABRICATION LIKE THE LEFT HAS BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS? Snore...zzzzz....not interested. NOW if it would have happen during Clinton's administration, Repukes would still be rounding up democrats against the wall to be shot! Just ask Sarah Palin.

How funny main stream doesn't want to make months of news out of the most important story, since Osama Bin Laden said he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks...you know when his family was safely flying away from America...before he initally said he DIDN'T mastermind 9/11.

Just all left wing looney toons. :sarcasm:

[DavidDvorkin]

10. Nothing will come of this

No one, with the possible exception of a few minor scapegoats, will ever be punished for it. It won't even be publicized. The public will continue to think that Bush saved America and that torture is justified.

I hope I'll be proved wrong, but I don't expect to be.

[Solly Mack]

11. Bush bragged about torturing this man

Course, now people are attempting to portray a war criminal as a humanitarian.

Guess America's war crimes are just so forgettable. (especially for Americans)

I suppose allowing war criminals to get away with their crimes makes America stronger...after all, it couldn't possibly say anything about the fundamentals of government just because government officials can get away with war crimes.

[noise]

12. What does this say about the whole circus of

bullshit? The fearmongering, the secrecy, the legal memos.

The whole thing was about making the Bush administration look like they were tough on terror? That was worth all the disgrace?

[Solly Mack]

14. Sickening isn't it...

[gratuitous]

13. Gee, I hope nobody gets steamed about this

Buncha third world ingrates, who don't appreciate everything the United States does. This will likely set one or more them off, and they'll attack us. For our freedom. Because they're terrorists who don't value human life the way we do.

[Wilms]

17. So he wasn't behind 9/11 either? Then who does that leave?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

20. Why does nobody seem to care who did 9/11?

:shrug:

[leftstreet]

18. K&R

Thanks for posting this