CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding

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.

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

No matter that Kiriakou wearily said he shared the anguish of millions of Americans, not to mention the rest of the world, over the CIA's application of the medieval confession technique.

The point was that it worked. And the pro-torture camp was quick to pick up on Kiriakou's claim.

"It works, is the bottom line," conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the day after Kiriakou's ABC interview. "Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works."

A cascade of similar acclamations followed, muffling -- to this day -- the later revelation that Zubaydah had in fact been waterboarded at least 83 times.

Had Kiriakou left out something the first time?

Now comes John Kiriakou, again, with a wholly different story. On the next-to-last page of a new memoir, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror (written with Michael Ruby), Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.

"What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts," he writes. "I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence."

But never mind, he says now.

"I wasn't there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time."

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LABMAN57

4:32 AM ET

January 27, 2010

Torture doesn't work, unless the truth is irrelevant

Those who are formally trained in interrogation techniques consistently agree that the methods employed by the Bush Administration were totally inappropriate and tactically inane.

These techniques are commonly used by foreign extremist groups and dictatorial regimes that are trying to get prisoners to confess to crimes that the interrogators know were not committed, i.e., they are not interested in obtaining information, their goal is the confession itself.

KARENFERN

4:43 AM ET

Waterboarding

How many people died before Robert McNamara confessed his own complicity in a disaster? How was he going to apologize to the dead and those who loved them. How is this guy going to apologize for facilitating driving people mad?

If I recall, in "1984," O'Brien did not torture Winston to get him to disclose something. He tortured Winston to get him to agree that 1 + 1 = 3 (or something like that).

There is something profoundly ugly about what the author says, though not as ugly as what he did.

ONDINE

11:09 AM ET

What Did He Do?

In his original ABC News interview, Kiriakou specifically said he didn't torture anyone, he didn't witness the torture, and he didn't approve of enhanced techniques. He said as Americans "we're better than that." I think Jeff Stein completely missed the boat here.

SPECOPSMIKE

3:44 PM ET

January 31, 2010

Nothing about waterboarding that I have seen on the technique released to the public has been a true or accurate rendition of the correct procedure here. US personnel undergo this "same" process during special education deemed necessary for those in unique units or positions. The problem I see is civilians using what they need to undo or undermine what other's put their lives in jeopardy for.

MAJUSMCRET

6:47 AM ET

The use of "torture" in interrogation

SEE: http://www.thebutter-cutter.com/Torture_in_Interrogation.php

THEDUMBONE

10:19 AM ET

The Unpopular Truth

This won't be taken well but I believe it is the unfortunate reality that torture often times DOES work. I also presume that there are countless cases of torture acting counterproductive to the interrogator's objectives. So, I suppose the interrogator would need to know when it is "appropriate" to use torture. To say torture "doesn't work" is, I think, idealistic and naive.

BIBLEMIKE

10:54 AM ET

What is naive and, franklly, uninformed is the belief that torture works. Every expert in the field currently admits that torture is not successful in obtaining truthful or verifiable information. Torture was never designed to obtain truth. Torture has always been used to obtain whatever statements the torturer requires as a response. Hence, "witches" confessed to eating children, POWs admit to being involved in bizarre plots to overthrow countries they had never been in, U. S. pilots captured in Vietnam "confessed" to flying aircraft that did not exist and so on. The Soviets used torture to get dissidents to admit to actions that never occured and the torturers knew that. Innocents in China, Cuba and other extremist countries frequently confess to being agents of the CIA to get the torture to stop. A tortured individual wil say anything you want him to say in order to get the torture to stop. One would have to be dumb to believe otherwise.

SFCA

2:20 PM ET

RE: The Unpopular Truth

There are perhaps lots of ways to accomplish things through unethical or immoral means. But even IF torture "works" (sometimes or even often), it doesn't prove there is no BETTER way to reach the desired goal, and it doesn't make it acceptable. As far as I'm concerned, debating the efficacy of torture is a shameful distraction. If we do not condemn the use of torture, we have essentially become the enemy. Taking the low road leads eventually to Hell.

The larger issue here is that branches of government and agencies such as the CIA conspired to falsify the existence of such techniques, then when that failed attempted to justify their use with false reports about their efficacy.

Kiriakou, those who interviewed him, and the public who was willing to accept reports at face value without analysis, adequate follow, and sufficient moral reflection, are all complicit to some degree in a breakdown of our societal standard of moral conduct.

Time for all of us to own up.

ACHARN

1:13 AM ET

January 28, 2010

Here I have to agree with the

Here I have to agree with the OP with one caveat: SOMETIMES is works, but how do you tell the difference? Just like proponents of the "ticking bomb scenario" never explain how the situation arises that they have a prisoner whom they KNOW has information that will allow them to prevent the bomb from exploding. Most of the time the only purpose of torture is to make someone say what the interrogator wants to hear, even when the interrogator is denying that. The only surprising thing is that sometimes the victim is able to resist for a very long time.

I notice the auther is not emphasizing that this turkey didn't know if they got any useful information out of Zubaydah. Other sources have stated that they didn't.

A slightly different aspect of this: does anybody think the MSM is going to pick up this story? Just like they've picked up the story in this month's Harpers (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368) about the three "suicides" in Guantanamo.

ROSA BARBOA

8:46 AM ET

February 3, 2010

Torture? Never! Really?

Giving Kiriakou the benefit of the doubt for a brief moment... it's possible that what he was trying to say is that he was so immersed in a culture of deception that it felt like he was telling the truth by spreading this bold claim. However, without letting him off the hook, his comments paint in vivid colors the extent to which the CIA had become obsessed with information control. I know what many of you are probably thinking. Torture? Never! Because in your heart of hearts you are absolutely and positively certain that torture can never be condoned. I applaud you for that. It’s a good default position from which to start. And after you torture a person, You can not just say I'm sorry, or offer him discount dental insurance plan for his broken teeth. I know that. But think again. Are you really as set against it as you might think you are? Ask (honestly) yourself one question: if your child were kidnapped and held prisoner somewhere. Would you torture the serial killer who took him in order to get him back alive?

NEWTON WHALE

10:55 AM ET

Did you bother to read the transcript?

If you read the transcript of his interview with Brian Ross, it's clear that he never claimed to be present. Ross and the other so called journalists who ran with the original story are either guilty of journalistic malpractice or of deliberately using it to misleadingly strengthen the argument that torture works. And you, Mr. Stein, are blaming Kirakou when the real culprits are your colleagues.

From page 15 of the transcript:

John: We had a group of folks--at the agency who were trained in--what had been reported in the press, we called them enhanced techniques. I came back to the--to the United States to headquarters to move onto a different job.

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/brianross_kiriakou_transcript1_blotter071210.pdf

Furthermore, the transcript makes clear that Brian Ross understood that Kiriakou was not present.

After Kirakou tells Ross that Zubaydah was waterboarded, he says he did not feel comfortable with the techniques and elected to forego the training:

Ross: So you did not go through the training?

John: I did not.

Ross: Have you seen waterboarding?

John: We waterboarded each other in the beginning to see what it felt like.

Transcript, p. 25

At that point in the interview, the only reason to ask if he'd seen waterboarding was because Ross understood that he was not present when Zubaydah was waterboarded.

And yet Ross and his ilk failed to mention what the original transcripts clearly showed: that Kiriakou's testimony was hearsay.

3:53 PM ET

Transcript

Yes I read the whole manuscript and watched the video that was produced, and as one who has undergone this technique personally several times, and who used it on others, I can tell you the way it was shown and the procedure shown was inaccurate. I still get a kick out of other peoples comments on several subject areas who have either never experienced or been there done that concept. One wonders how a vast group of individuals can just calmly take what others say for gospel instead of doing their own homework. If more would truly understand why the Gitmo personnel or other terrorist personnel were not considered combatants; therefore immune to Geneva accords, never mind their countries were never Geneva accord partners, and that Terrorists are not "armed combatants" to the word, would they then open their eyes?

REDSKIN777

11:14 AM ET

Waterboarding works

It works no matter how much you cry and scream that it doesnt . What a shocker. Someone who works for john "cambodian Christmas" kerry lying and placing himself in harms way when he was no where near it. Did he also throw someone else's CIA medals over the fence in Langley?entry pifer

KDJKDJ

2:57 PM ET

Lack of truthfulness

Saing one thing and then saying another after saying he lied the first times means nothing he has said should be regared as other than noise.

J BAUSTIAN

4:11 PM ET

not-so-hidden agenda

After leaving the CIA, Mr Kiriakou worked as a Foreign Relations Committee staff member for Sen. John Kerry. That is sufficient to raise questions regarding his veracity, then and now. He has an agenda -- he wants to make the Democratic critics of the Bush Administration look good in the historical record.

What is the truth? We may never know, certainly the CIA is not going to make a public statement. But Kiriakou is not a reliable witness.

RYANU

4:55 PM ET

here we go again

with the inflated claims of waterboarding 83 times. This has been thoroughly debunked but apparently the truth is not what FP is after.

MIKEKROHDE

6:42 PM ET

enhanced interrogations/torture

I worked in criminal defense for 25 years and read hundreds of confessions by clients to police. Some were the result of brutality, verbal and psychological abuse, fatigue, depression, mental illness, the entire continuum of human experience. The FBI has done more research than anyone I'm aware of on confessions and their accuracy and utility. Their best interrogators are all very bright, true experts in the observation of human behavior and interpeting facial expressions and body language. None of them use enhanced techniques, i.e. all of the things you read and heard about in the C.I.A. torture confessions. The short and long answer to why is simple. The FBI methods elicit accurate and actionable information that can be used in courts of law anywhere. If torture worked, the FBI research would say it does, show why it does, and recommend that we use it. Torture is the method of the lazy and incompetent interrogator. It elicits suspect informationa that is useless. It might make someone feel good, that a bad guy is getting a bad time, but it doesn't make us safer or get us where we want to go. There are condemned men and probably women that are on death row as the result of enhanced interrogations. Some have already been exonerated and more will be. Sadists enjoy torture, and if it makes you feel good to hear about it you might want to check yourself. There is no such thing as good torture. Get over it people, torturing suspects is not effective, and doesn't make you safer. That's reality.

8:25 PM ET

So Gestapo torture against

So Gestapo torture against suspected French underground agents wasn't successful at learning the identies or whereabouts of other agents? William Buckley didn't divulge the names of CIA agents under torture by the Lebanese terrorists? To say torture hasn't worked is incorrect. To say it never works is incorrect. And just because you find this historically acurate fact to be disturbing does not make me a sadist. I'm not saying torture is "good" or that we should use it or anything of the sort. If I say the sky is blue and you find blue to be repugnant, does that change the fact? Save your emotions for your girlfriend/boyfriend.

MARTIAL

10:42 PM ET

February 1, 2010

Yes and with domestic criminals there is an important correlary.

Whether or not torture works to obtain the truth, it is exceedingly useful to obtain and maintain power. Surely the ones who would love to use torture the most would be corrupt policemen; they would love to apply the techniques to their honest colleagues to ensure an unimpeded flow of drug money.

C1NUGENT

3:00 PM ET

February 8, 2010

Yo Aptly named one "The short

Yo Aptly named one

"The short and long answer to why is simple. The FBI methods elicit accurate and actionable information that can be used in courts of law anywhere."

What good are the principles of law and morality if you don't live by them?
Quit watching 24

3:04 PM ET

THAGORE

10:02 PM ET

Waterboarding has worked

I don't agree that water boarding crosses the line to torture, but that is a matter of opinion. It is certainly a harsh technique that, if used, should only be done so in rare situations when intelligence is actionable and can save American lives. Only three terrorists have been waterboarded. In the case of Abu Zubaydah, we didn't gain anything extra after the water boarding. But in the case of Kalid Sheik Mohammed we did gain quite useful information. KSM refused to cooperate only saying that a 'second wave' was going to hit the US after 9/11.

Following water boarding we found out about the plot to crash airliners into a building in Los Angeles then captured Zubair, Hambali, al Hadi and stopped the 17 member terrorist cell responsible for carrying it out. In addition, KSM's revelation after being water boarded led to the capture of Iyman Faris who was involved in the plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.

So one can't say that we never get useful information from water boarding.

1:59 AM ET

Re: Waterboarding has worked

I believe you are mistaken that "only three terrorists" have been waterboarded, unless you mean that all of the other people who were waterboarded were really not terrorists, which certainly is a plausible statement. Nevertheless, we know that other harsh interrogation techniques have been used on many hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners. Certainly in Abu Ghraib and Bagram. Well over a hundred prisoners have died in custody as a result of their interrogations, and at least six of those cases were determined by Army investigators to be homicides.

By the way, the plot to crash airliners into a building in Los Angeles was discovered and stopped the previous year (according to President Bush's original announcement). It is by no means clear that KSM's information led to thecapture of the totally inept Iyman Faris, whose plan was utterly unworkable.

I agree one can't say that we never got usefulinformation from waterboarding. The trouble is, how do you know when the information you've gotten is useful and when it's a lie?

F1FAN

9:48 AM ET

So, because torture worked, it's okay.

Well, that should comfort American and British soldiers who were tortured by the Nazi's and Japanese, or the Americans tortured by the Vietcong, because it worked in those cases it was acceptable and legal. Except it wasn't, Japanese officers were executed by the United States for ordering the waterboarding of American POW's, waterboarding is legally and ethically torture and if you believe it isn't then you should be leading the movement to have those Japanese officers that were hanged exonerated.

It is true to say that you can 'never get useful information' from torture, but any interrogation expert will tell you that physical torture is more likely to give false information. People will say what they think you want to hear to get the torture to stop, whether it's true or not.

9:39 AM ET

It's not about torture

It's about the CIA and how the CIA continually lies to the American people to exaggerate the threat and their own alleged effectiveness against it. Mr. Kiriakou lied because that's what they are trained to do, and now we are surprised.

9:45 PM ET

Not About....

Your right It is not about "torture" because if so, the military including some worldwide organizations would have to shut down some pretty high rated schools to better prepare their personnel to succeed where it counts!

WADEH

9:21 PM ET

Medieval?!

"... CIA's application of the medieval confession technique"

Oh please, medieval interrogators would get a good laugh at what we call torture. The effectiveness of waterboarding or other harsh techniques may be debated but it pales in comparison to the horrors that have been visited on people throughout history. Don't compare the discomfort of waterboarding with the rack, starvation, chopping off body parts, branding blinding, rape, flogging... Make your argument, state your case but keep it in perspective. Waterboarding may well be ineffective and mean but it is sure as hell not medieval.

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2009	2010	2011

CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding

A study in "enhanced reporting techniques."

BY JEFF STEIN | JANUARY 26, 2010

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