As reports come out, it appears that the initial leads that eventually led to the killing of Usama bin Laden in Pakistan sprang from the enhanced interrogation methods used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at GITMO. As for the actual operation itself, it apparently involved a super secret unit of the Navy Seals, Team 6. It also appears that the operation was carried out unilaterally by US forces without advising the Pakistanis. (Of course, if there was Pakistani involvement, it may be prudent to mask that for Paskistani public consumption, or it may be that a few isolated officials were involved or advised.)
So, as things stand now, the initial information was obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques, developed certainly through wiretaps and culminated with US forces unilaterally carrying out the operation in another country-apparently without the knowledge and/or consent of the Pakistanis.
Now mind you; I have no problem with any of that whatsoever. If the Pakistanis were not told, it is because they couldn't be trusted. Indeed, it seems that bin Laden had to have some degree of Pakistani connivance in order to live in this huge compound in a city home to the nation's military academy and so close to its capital. Be that the case, in my view, a nation forfeits a degree of its sovereignty, as did Afghanistan after 9-11.
But would it not be ironic if the very methods that George W Bush instituted after 9-11, which were so roundly condemned by the media and the Democrats-including Senator Obama-were responsible for this success? Indeed, had Bush still been president, can you imagine the second-guessing from the media and the Democrats at this very operation-apparently carried out by a unit that Keith Olbermann once described as 'Dick Cheney's private assassin squad."
None of this is meant to take away credit from what President Obama did in directing this operation. Yet, had Bush been president last week, would Chris Matthews be falling all over himself as usual describing the greatness of this commander-in-chief? Or would be already be starting the second-guessing?
When the final story is written, I believe President Bush's measures post-9-11 will be vindicated.
The information was not gained through "enhanced interrogation techniques."
ReplyDelete"Prisoners in American custody told stories of a trusted courier. When the Americans ran the man’s pseudonym past two top-level detainees — the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; and Al Qaeda’s operational chief, Abu Faraj al-Libi — the men claimed never to have heard his name. That raised suspicions among interrogators that the two detainees were lying and that the courier probably was an important figure."
"Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic."
"We can conclude that either KSM shielded the courier’s identity entirely until close to 2007, or he told his interrogators that there was a courier who might be protecting bin Laden early in his detention but they were never able to force him to give the courier’s true name or his location, at least not until three or four years after the waterboarding of KSM ended. That’s either a sign of the rank incompetence of KSM’s interrogators (that is, that they missed the significance of a courier protecting OBL), or a sign he was able to withstand whatever treatment they used with him."
"Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells Newsmax the information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden was obtained through “normal interrogation approaches” and says the notion that terrorist suspects were waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay is a 'myth.'"
That could be true too.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I saw Rumsfeld on TV last night and what he denied was that waterboarding had been done at Quantanamo. Obviously, the waterboarding was done at one of the secret rendition places, probably by one of our ally's interrogators. They all acknowledge that the nickname of the courier was given up by KSM. This fit in to an intelligence effort to complete the mosaic, which led to his name, and so forth.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous people who would like to spare Islamic terrorists harsh interrogation techniques forget this:
"Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as that sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst."
Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, 1832
It is unbelievable that a man who has been in custody for several years gave critical information as to the whereabouts of a man who has been on the run, and moving many times, since they last had any contact.
ReplyDeleteAll available data helps -- but plenty of work has been going on since George W. Bush left office, a good deal of it by people who worked under Bush, and for that matter under Clinton. That is the nature of civil service, and of large government operations.
Any and all second guessing, me-tooism, and belated name-calling is absurd.
KSM gave up the nickname of OBL's courier. This took place under the renditions instituted by Bush not Clinton. Clinton was given OBL's location and decided not to act on it. It was pre-9/11.
ReplyDeleteIt took several years to learn the courier's real name and then time to finally track him down and follow him.
No need to speculate... the facts are established.
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Sounds like a long winding trail to me Miggie, plus a bit of second-guessing about things you could hardly know, unless you are the direct recipient of a leak. Everybody gets a piece of the credit, but its a big mosaic.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, a conservative voice puts it so much better than I do:
ReplyDeletehttp://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-agree-with-new-york-times.html
I would have posted this earlier, but I usually go to Fousesquawk first, then to Red.
Of course it is a long winding trail. If it were easy anyone could do it.
ReplyDeleteNobody is disqualified from saying what was or was not given up because they weren't present. I'm taking the word of the head of all of the intelligence agencies, including the current (Democratic) CIA head, Leon Panetta.
Your author stating that "... nobody can say..." is expressing an opinion as though it were a fact... in other words, just bullshitting.
People interpret things according to their paradigms but there is also such a thing as absolute facts.
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Joseph Stalin once said that paper will put up with anything you print on it. You can square that for expressing opinions on the internet.
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