CIA

By Michael S. Smith II

The CIA, responding to a request issued by Attorney General Eric Holder, on August 24 declassified portions of an Inspector General's Special Review published in May of 2004. According to the attorney general's plans, this report will serve as the first piece of publicly disclosed discovery materials in a special investigation of alleged abuses perpetrated by CIA-interrogators against suspected terrorists.

This, after the Obama administration made public plans hatched by US-CIA to create a program that would target high-level terrorists for assassination -- as if Americans expected anything less from CIA following 9/11!

Now the administration is trying to cast intelligence officers responsible for protecting America after 9/11 in the same light as the terrorists who they were working to glean information from in order to prevent future "man made" catastrophic events from occurring both here at home and abroad.

One has to ask: Have members of Obama's team lost their minds? This is nucking futs!

Within this recently declassified report titled Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities: September 2001 - August 2003 one finds the following (with ellipses representing redacted portions of text):

Section 214, Page 85 - 86:

When the Agency began capturing terrorists, management judged the success of the effort to be getting them off the streets, ... With the capture of terrorists who had access to much more significant, actionable information, the measure of success of the Program increasingly became the intelligence obtained from the detainees.

Section 213, Page 86:

Quantitatively, the [Directorate of Operations] has significantly increased the number of counterterrorism intelligence reports with the inclusion of information from detainees in its custody. Between 9/11 and the end of April 2003, the Agency produced over 3,000 intelligence reports from detainees. Most of the reports came from intelligence provided by the high value detainees at ...

Section 214, Page 86:

[CounterterroristCenter] frequently uses the information from one detainee, as well as other sources, to vet the information of another detainee. Although lower-level detainees provide less information than the high value detainees, information from these detainees has, on many occasions, supplied the information needed to probe the high value detainees further. ... the triangulation of intelligence provides a fuller knowledge of Al-Qa'ida activities than would be possible from a single detainee. For example, Mustafa Ahmad Adam al-Hawsawi, the Al-Qa'ida financier who was captured with Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, provided the Agency's first intelligence pertaining to ... -- another participant in the 9/11 terrorist plot. ... Hawsawi's information to obtain additional details about ... role from Khalid Shaykh Mahammad ....

Section 215, Page 86:

Detainees have provided information on Al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups. Information of note includes: the modus operandi of Al-Qa'ida, ... terrorists who are capable of mounting attacks in the United States ...

Section 216, Page 87:

Detainee information has assisted in the identification of terrorists. For example, information from Abu Zubaydah helped lead to the identification of Jose Padilla and Binyarn Muhammed -- operatives who had plans to detonate a uranium-topped dirty bomb in either Washington, D.C., or New York City. Riduan "Hambali" Isomuddin provided information that led to the arrest of previously unknown members of an Al-Qa'ida cell in Karachi. They were designated as pilots for an aircraft attack inside the United States. Many other detainees, including lower-level detainees such as Zubayr and Majid Khan, have provided leads to other terrorists, but probably the most prolific has been Khalid Shaykh Muhammad. He provided information that helped lead to the arrests of terrorists including Sayfullah Paracha and his son Uzair Paracha, businessmen whom Khalid Shaykh Muhammad planned to use to smuggle explosives into the United States; Saleh Almari, a sleeper operative in New York; and Majid Khan, an operative who could enter the United States easily and was tasked to research attacks ... Khalid Shaykh Muhammad's information also led to the investigation and prosecution of Iyman Faris, the truck driver arrested in early in 2003 in Ohio.

Section 217, Page 88:

Detainees, both planners and operatives, have also made the Agency aware of several plots planned for the United States and around the world. The plots identify plans to ... attack the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan; hijack aircraft to fly into Heathrow Airport ... loosen track spikes in an attempt to derail a train in the United States; ... blow up several U.S. gas stations to create panic and havoc; hijack and fly an airplane into the tallest building in California in a west coast version of the World Trade Center attack; cut the lines of suspension bridges in New York in an effort to make the collapse; ... This Review did not uncover any evidence that these plots were imminent. Agency senior managers believe that lives have been saved as a result of the capture and interrogation of terrorists who were planning attacks, in particular Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Zubaydah, Hambali, and Al-Nashiri.

Section 218, Pages 88 - 89:

[Opening text not disclosed] judge the reporting from detainees as one of the most important sources for finished intelligence. ... viewed analysts' knowledge of the terrorist target as having much more depth as a result of information from detainees and estimated that detainee reporting is used in all counterterrorism articles produced for the most senior policymakers. ... In an interview, the DCI said he believes the use of [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] has proven to be extremely valuable in obtaining enormous amounts of critical threat information from detainees who had otherwise believed they were safe from harm in the hands of Americans.

Yes, there are sections contained in this report which highlight the trepidations expressed by several interrogators regarding how their activities may be construed by any prospective future investigations into their handiwork, investigations like the one being opened by Eric Holder. There is even a portion of the report which suggests the use of enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding is perhaps an affront to America's stated positions on human rights, and that such is particularly problematic when taking into account the U.S. Department of State's public condemnations of similar tactics commonly used by other countries.

Still, the results speak for themselves, and America cannot afford for CIA to slide back into the risk-averse spell it fell under during the Clinton-era (i.e. the period of time in which Osama bin Laden's network prepared to unleash the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the world).

President Obama seems to be developing a nasty proclivity for self-sabotaging decisions. As William Murchison of Real Clear Politics recently wrote, "Around the presidential neck, this spectacular blunder will dangle, albatross-like -- long after Obama starts to wish he'd never heard of the CIA or, for that matter, the left of the left of the left."

It is time for the Obama administration to remove petty pursuits of partisan political gains from its (mis)management of organizations operating at the center of the American foreign policy process.

Targeting intelligence officers who have kept America safe from terrorist attacks since 9/11 with lawsuits will prove even more costly for our country than the administration's profligate social programs agenda.

What next!

Copyright © 2009 by Michael S. Smith II and The Free Enterprise Foundation. All rights reserved

About the author: Mr. Smith is executive editor of The Ethical Standard: Official Publication of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is also a contributing editor for SCHotline , a Columbia, S.C.-based conservative-oriented news aggregator site.

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