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Bad morning for Pelosi @ 9:53 am by Eric Zimmermann Two new developments in the "what did Pelosi know about waterboarding" series spell trouble for the Speaker. First, CNN reports that an aide told Pelosi in February 2003 that waterboarding had been used on Abu Zubaydah. This contradicts Pelosi's assertion that she only knew about the legal rationale for waterboarding, not that it had been used. Sheehy attended a briefing in which waterboarding was discussed in February 2003, with Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who took over Pelosi's spot as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. This source says...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for the U.S. government in a case involving a Guantanamo Bay detainee seeking what the government said is secret information. Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002, was once thought to be a high-ranking member of the terrorist group al-Qaida. Zubaydah was seeking to get the testimony of two former CIA contractors as part of an Polish investigation into his treatment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in an opinion joined by six of his colleagues that the government had argued “Zubaydah’s discovery request could force former CIA contractors to confirm...

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Gina Haspel is personally blocking the declassification and release of key Russiagate documents in the hopes that President Donald Trump will lose his re-election bid, multiple senior U.S. officials told The Federalist. The officials said Haspel, who served under former CIA Director John Brennan as the spy agency’s station chief in London in 2016 and 2017, is concerned that the declassification and release of documents detailing what the CIA was doing during the 2016 election and the 2017 transition could embarrass the CIA and potentially even implicate Haspel herself. “Haspel and [FBI Director Christopher] Wray...

“We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”-John Kirakou I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit.  I question his credibility. What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria:...

Press Center Home » Press Center » Press Releases » Treasury Targets Al Qaida Operatives in Iran  Treasury Targets Al Qaida Operatives in Iran 1/16/2009 hp-1360   Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated four al Qaida associates under Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. "It is important that Iran give a public accounting of how it is meeting its international obligations to constrain al Qaida," said Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.  "Global efforts to financially isolate al Qaida have made it...

A Senate Judiciary Subcmte. looks into the legal conduct of Justice Dept. lawyers who approved harsh interrogation techniques. One of the witnesses, fmr. FBI agent Ali Soufan, interrogated Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah.

The jailed architect of 9/11 revealed that al Qaeda's plan to kill the United States was not through military attacks but immigration and "outbreeding nonmuslims" who would use the legal system to install Sharia law, according to a blockbuster new book. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also predicted that intelligence officials using so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques such the waterboarding he experienced would eventually come under attack from weak-kneed U.S. politicians and media. In Enhanced Interrogation, CIA contractor James Mitchell tells for the first time about his role interrogating al Qaeda principles, many like KSM still jailed at Guantanamo Bay. He details accounts...

Lots of good posts lately from the authors about the interrogation of Zubaydah, the latest being Word's post on the book The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack by Ronald Kessler. To add a few more cents Tom Maguire at Just One Minute has noticed an interesting discrepancy in the tall tale coming from Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent, in which he says: It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002,...

From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber Saajid Badat this week pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a plane. What drove this quiet football fan to thoughts of terror? Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd Saturday March 5, 2005 The Guardian He seemed the model British Muslim citizen - a poster boy for integration whose knowledge of the Qu'ran and achievement at grammar school made Gloucester's close-knit Islamic community proud. When in November 2003 anti-terrorist police turned up at the terraced house in the Barton and Tredworth district of the city that Saajid Badat shared with his...

Well, it's official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about. Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency's intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he told ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in a much ballyhooed, exclusive interview that senior al Qaeda commando Abu Zubaydah cracked after only one application of the face cloth and water.... Now comes John Kiriakou, again, with a wholly different story. On the next-to-last page...

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

'Waterboarding broke al Qaeda captive in 35 seconds,' says former CIA agent defending tortureUse of the interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" was approved by the White House and gets results, a former CIA agent admitted yesterday. The technique - which simulates drowning - was used against Al Qaeda captives with success, John Kiriakou told a U.S. TV network. The one-time CIA interrogator is the first to speak out about the "torture" methods that have earned President George Bush's administration worldwide condemnation. The White House has denied torture is used on terror suspects, but Mr Kiriakou said waterboarding "broke" one stubbornly...

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, whose real name was Ali Mohammed al-Fakheri, 46, took his own life in his prison cell, according to the Libyan newspaper Oea. Information gained from the interrogation of al-Libi was cited on several occasions by the Bush administration as justification for the war in Iraq. He told his CIA interrogators that al-Qaeda had sent two men to Iraq to seek training in chemical and biological weapons in December 2000. Classified documents added that the men did not return, so al-Libi did not know whether the training took place, and that, in any case, he was probably "intentionally...

A Turkish court on Thursday charged a Syrian national suspected of plotting to slam speedboats packed with explosives into cruise ships loaded with Israeli tourists, lawyers and police said. According to The AP, defense lawyer Ilhami Sayan said the suspect, identified in the Turkish media as Lu'ai Sakra, was charged with membership in an "illegal organization." He was arrested earlier this month. Police said Sakra was linked to al-Qaeda. "I have no regrets," Sakra shouted to journalists as he was led into the courthouse. "I was going to attack Israeli ships. If they come, my friends will attack them." "I...

A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told US interrogators the meeting never happened, according to US officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the US in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague in the Czech Republic, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. US officials caution that Ani may have been lying...

If you live in L.A. and didn't die in a terrorist attack, you may owe it to the CIA's use of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that are currently under fire from the Obama administration and the left-wing fringe. In a compelling Op-Ed in Tuesday's Washington Post, Marc A. Thiessen disproves Barack Obama's hollow claim that such techniques "did not make us safer." Rather than following the MSM lead and merely parroting the Obamatons' talking points after the release of previously-classified memos this week, Thiessen actually examined the documents. Thiessen concludes that Obama's contention is "patently false. The proof is in...

The Book Behind the Bombshell By ROMESH RATNESAR In the abstruse world of espionage, it's not always easy to know when you are in on a secret. So when intelligence sources approached New York Times reporter James Risen in late 2004 with evidence that the Bush Administration was running a covert domestic-spying program, Risen says he "wasn't sure what to believe." As Risen and Times colleague Eric Lichtblau looked into the story, more whistle-blowers came forward, convincing the reporters that the eavesdropping claims were credible. At that point Risen asked a few "very senior" government officials what they knew about...

A jihadist serving life in prison on terror charges brought in the wake of 9/11 has claimed the Saudi Arabian royal family helped finance the plot. Zacarias Moussaoui, 46, says an unnamed Saudi Prince paid for flying lessons for him and the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes in the September 11 attacks in the run-up to the atrocities. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2837261/Saudi-prince-paid-9-11-pilots-learn-fly-Incredible-claims-20th-hijacker-serving-life-prison-terrorism-asks-testify-court.html#ixzz3JIFO3rer

FBI: Terror suspect plotted fuel attackAl-Marabh planned to blow up tunnelJail informant reported `martyr' bid JOHN SOLOMONASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh, who ran a print shop with his uncle in Toronto, plotted to steal a fuel tanker truck and blow it up in one of the heavily travelled tunnels between New Jersey and Manhattan, FBI documents allege. Al-Marabh, 36, was arrested Sept. 19, 2001, in Chicago in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. His arrest prompted an RCMP raid of his uncle's copy shop on Charles St. in Toronto. The U.S. deported him...

'CIA island jail' to be probed A UK parliamentary committee is to investigate allegations that US authorities held 'terrorist' suspects in secret prisons on an Indian Ocean island leased by the US from Britain, officials said. Reprieve, a British legal charity, says the CIA detained suspected al-Qaeda members at an airbase on the island of Diego Garcia. Reprieve says at least three al-Qaeda linked prisoners - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Hambali - were held on the island with the consent of British authorities. George Bush, the US president, admitted in 2006 the CIA had held the three and...