Posted on 02/14/2011 8:00:02 AM PST by MindBender26
As President George W. Bush's top speech writer, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM). Now, his riveting new book, "Courting Disaster,"
How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been published.
Here is an excerpt from "Courting Disaster:"
Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi. A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM."
Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter." Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location. Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.
Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."
It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding. His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.
He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists, KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world. In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.
Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack. In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot. On the night of Aug.9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:
* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p.m.;
* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;
* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;
* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p.m.;
* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p.m.;
* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p.m;
* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p.m.
They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much. Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude. And still fewer realize the terrorists' true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Editor's Note: For other foiled terrorist plots, see page 9 of "Courting Disaster."
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda. Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda - how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."
Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these > > terrorists made us safer. It really did work."
Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country."
Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon."
And John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied : "Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes."
On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual. The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially nonconcurring". The president went ahead anyway, over- ruling the objections of the agency. A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta objected.
George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"
In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully - and then ignored their advice.
With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America's national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history.
Pass on now!!! Don't wait until after the next 911
he needs to be removed NOW not 2012
Should we really surprised to read this coming from a non-American, Muslim, Marxist, impostor-in-chief with the Secret Service code name of Renegade?
Obastard really is a treasonous POS...
When the Islamic Jihadists understand that we may not always follow the rules they are learning from our media we may have an advantage in the field.
Obama needs to be impeached NOW, tried for treason NOW and suffer the consequences for treason NOW.
Impeach now.
The book isn’t new, I read it some time ago.
Definitely a worthy read.
They haven’t invented the curse words to describe this man yet.
he needs to be removed NOW not 2012
2012 may be too late...
They haven’t invented the curse words to describe this man yet.
Any derivation of EVIL will do.
I personally am unable to even think his name without mentally adding expletives.
In the case of the democrat party, none of the cute little (dumocrat) titles help. Finally, I realized that you can't be more descriptive than to simply write their name, no capitalization. In and of itself, it is an expletive.
In both cases, it helps to remember that "evil" is a fitting adjective.
I don’t know how anyone can support him knowing this information.
I don’t know how anyone can support him knowing this information.
I saw an aticle yesterday about Obummer being caught in a homosexual and drug encounter, and in it they described him with havingbad teeth.
there was an accompnaying article that showeed him with crooked teeth like 8-10 years ago- and he has certainly had them fixed since then.
But the original teeth and look on his face was so evil it came me the willies.
I think he is an infiltraitor from the muslim brotherhood, born in Kenya, and should be impeached and tried for treason.
**************************
Time to start posting a link to Horowitz's book...at Amazon:
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam And the American Left [Paperback]
****************EXCERPT ********************************
Vastly Illuminating, September 25, 2004>
I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.
It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.
Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.
This book is so illuminating that I simply cannot do justice to it here. I love people who reason so clearly that they help me get my own reasoning clear. Horowitz is just that type of person! In the terrain of mindless clichés (no-blood-for-oil, etc.), he is a breath of real fresh air.
To be treasonous, he'd have to be an American and that seriously in question.
What we know about this president's actions is chilling enough. What we don't know--and that's probably 90% of it--is terrifying.
People who blindly object to enhanced interrogation or even torture are using soft sentimentality rather than true morality. The ones who want to weaken us compare it to the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi death camps or Vietnam War treatment of POWs.
When used to force a confession of past crimes, torture is truly evil and wrong. It has been used by despots throughout history to gain evidence to justify killing their enemies.
This is entirely different than aggressive interrogation used to obtain intelligence about future plans for murder, bombings and terror attacks. I, for one, have little trouble trading one person’s pain and or discomfort to prevent the death of hundreds or thousands. It is gong too far to permanently injure or maim the people being questioned. But effective fear of the same in order to prevent death of innocents is a fair trade off. In order to prevent abuse, it would be fair to say that any information gained from such techniques could not be used for criminal prosecution of the one questioned.
These are just some of my thoughts on the matter. Considering what is at stake, our country needs to have an in depth debate about this subject. We need to sort through all the nasty, ugly moral issues and come to a workable set of behaviors. To just throw up our hands and eliminate any aggressive interrogation, in light of who our enemy is, is the equivalent of unconditional surrender. But it is not surrendering ourselves to enslavement but surrendering our children to enslavement. That is cowardice in the extreme.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.