Torture Techniques Not Looking High Value
 Tuesday, June 16th, 2009  by Connie T.

New excerpts have been released from a 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that reveal startling testimony by Abu Zubaida, a detainee that George W. Bush once called "al-Qaeda's chief of operations."

Zubaida told the panel in Guantanamo that he was told by doctors that he nearly died four times, he endured "months of suffering and torture" for a false accusation of being an al-Qaeda leader, and ended up giving false information to interrogators after being waterboarded 83 times.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who did not declare innocence and claimed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was waterboarded 183 times, and also testifies that he gave false information regarding Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. He said it went like this: "'Where is he?' 'I don't know.' Then he torture me. Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area.'"

The blurbs from the transcript have been released in response to a lawsuit and Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

It comes in stark contrast to former Vice President Dick Cheney's claims that harsh interrogation techniques were of "high value," and a "success." Instead, they seem to corroborate party mate John McCain's original theory that extreme interrogation techniques lend phony information.

And, common sense can basically predict that anyone who is pushed beyond their breaking point will do or say anything to cease torture.

Zubaida testified that he was told by CIA officials that he was believed to be the Number 3 man in al-Qaeda's hierarchy, but was an uninvolved Pakistani citizen. CIA has told the Washington Post that Zubaida was a "fixer" for radical Islamist ideologues, but not a member of al-Qaeda.

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