'Good Cop' Enticed 9/11 Mastermind to Talk

Senate committee hears specifics, warning of possible Al-Qaeda spread

(NEWSER) - The CIA used waterboarding three times following the 9/11 attacks, the agency's current director testified today. Interrogators used the method on suspected attack planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two top al Qaeda members, Reuters reports. Michael Hayden's statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee marks the first time a US official has publicly confirmed specifics of the use of a technique many consider torture. More»

Some who were tortured misled interrogators

(NEWSER) - Some conservatives are arguing that Osama bin Laden's death justifies Bush-era harsh interrogation techniques , but after looking at the trail of evidence, the New York Times concludes that torture played “a small role at most” in finding bin Laden’s courier. The detainee who provided the most crucial information about Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (the nom de guerre the courier apparently used) wasn’t waterboarded. And though the CIA asked for permission to use harsh techniques on him, one official says he was “quite cooperative” and says any rough treatment would have been brief. More»

Psychologists first known waterboarders in secret prisons

(NEWSER) - The CIA secretly agreed to pay at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who designed interrogations and repeatedly waterboarded detainees, say former US officials. Whereas CIA agents generally receive agency-paid insurance for potential legal bills, psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the first individuals to have been confirmed as having carried out waterboarding sessions, wanted extra coverage as public citizens. So the CIA agreed to pay Mitchell and Jessen’s firm’s legal fees directly. More»

(NEWSER) - After being waterboarded 183 times and deprived of sleep for a week, self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Kalid Sheikh Mohammed transformed from an avowed enemy of the US into a sort of CIA guest lecturer, the Washington Post reports. Two anonymous sources, looking to build the case that harsh interrogation worked, say that in 2005 and 2006, KSM gave what CIA officers called “terrorism tutorials,” expounding on al-Qaeda’s structure and even reprimanding his “class” for poor note-taking. More»

(NEWSER) - Dick Cheney has long insisted that two CIA documents from 2004 and 2005 would prove the value of torture. But after obtaining them yesterday, the Washington Independent says they do nothing of the kind. The documents actually suggest, albeit murkily, that non-abusive techniques were more effective. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s interrogators got some of their best intelligence not after the 183 times he was waterboarded, but with an old-fashioned trick: He believed another detainee had already given up the same info he shared. More»