How Bush's Torture Helped al-Qaeda

How Bush's Torture Helped al-Qaeda
Though George W. Bush's defenders say his torture policies worked, al-Qaeda captives told fake stories about Iraq and bought time for al-Qaeda to regroup in nuclear-armed Pakistan, reports Robert Parry. April 23, 2009

Captured al-Qaeda operatives, facing the threat or reality of torture, appear to have fed the Bush administration’s obsession about Iraq, buying Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders time to rebuild their organization inside nuclear-armed Pakistan

Even now, as al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies expand their power ever closer to Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, ex-Bush administration officials continue to insist they protected U.S. security by repeatedly waterboarding the likes of 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and terrifying others, such as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, with “extraordinary renditions” to foreign countries known to torture.

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However, the emerging evidence, including recently released Justice Department memos, suggests that the “high-value detainees” may have helped divert U.S. focus away from their al-Qaeda colleagues by providing tantalizing misinformation about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and dropping tidbits about Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who operated inside Iraq.

The May 30, 2005, memo by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, also appears to have exaggerated the value of intelligence extracted from detainee Abu Zubaydah through harsh interrogations – references that Bush administration defenders have cited as justification for abusive tactics, including the near-drowning of waterboarding.

The May 30 memo states: “Interrogations of Zubaydah – again, once enhanced techniques were employed – furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda’s ‘organizational structure, key operatives, and modus operandi’ and identified KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. …

“You [CIA officials] have informed us that Zubaydah also ‘provided significant information on two operatives, [including] Jose Padilla [,] who planned to build and detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ in Washington DC area.”

However, that last claim conflicts with known evidence about Zubaydah’s interrogations and with the time elements of Padilla’s arrest. Zubaydah was captured on March 28, 2002, after a gunfight that left him wounded. Padilla, an American citizen who converted to Islam, was arrested on May 8, 2002.

Yet, Bush administration lawyers did not give clearance for the “enhanced interrogation techniques” until late July, verbally, and on Aug. 1, 2002, in writing.

In addition, Zubaydah’s information about Padilla and KSM was provided to FBI interrogators who had employed rapport-building techniques with Zubaydah, not the harsh tactics that CIA interrogators insisted upon later, according to published accounts.