Harsh interrogations crucial in Osama bin Laden capture, Republicans say

The Washington Times ^ | December 25, 2014 | Rowan Scarborough

[jazusamo]

Senate Democrats’ ‘torture report’ claims tactics played no role in finding al Qaeda leader

Senate Democrats’ argument that harsh CIA interrogations played no role in finding Osama bin Laden revolves in crucial ways around the life of Hassan Ghul.

It was Ghul, an al Qaeda operative who moved between Pakistan and Iraq, who turned out to be the most informative biographer of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. It was al-Kuwaiti who eventually led the CIA to bin Laden’s home address in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

To Democratic staffers who wrote the Dec. 9 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, the gems Ghul presented after capture came before coercive questioning. The Democrats, in a report based solely on thousands of pages of intelligence memos, emails and studies, asserted that he provided nothing of value afterward.

Republican committee members present an entirely different set of facts — using the same documents. They say Ghul became more expansive, providing details in 2004 that led CIA analysts to focus like a laser on identifying the mystery man known as al-Kuwaiti, who was born Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed and also went by the honorific Abu Ahmed.

The CIA eventually found al-Kuwaiti. Culminating one of the world’s longest manhunts, he unwittingly led American spies to the walled compound where bin Laden lived with a scant security detail, his youngest wife and al-Kuwaiti.

Senate committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein’s release of the 499-page report seemed to have two prime motives.

One was to reveal CIA interrogation methods that included waterboarding three al Qaeda chieftains, sleep deprivation, nudity and forced standing in shackles. Some human rights groups have called the methods torture.

[jazusamo]

DiFi is a sorry excuse for the Chairman of the Sen Intel Committee when she puts politics above national security. It's evident that interrogations of these terrorists led to the location of bin Laden.

[dowcaet]

The Democrats always believe that party comes before country and unfortunately too many on our side are telling all of us we need to compromise with these idiots. Forget it.

[Chode]

well they sure as hell didn't cough up the intel because they were given the Comfy Chair...

[jazusamo]

Absolutely right.