I watched the
Book TV interview with John Kiriakou and also read his book. He claims that Zubaydah was an al Qaeda bigshot. He suggests he was as high as the number three man in al Qaeda. In the Book TV interview he lowers his ranking a few slots. Kiriakou has conflicting accounts about the intelligence attained by interrogating Zubaydah. It seems he wants to have it both ways--torture is not the way to go about interrogation but nevertheless it was effective to some degree in regards to Zubaydah.
Other accounts (Zubaydah's legal counsel and FBI agent Dan Coleman by way of Suskind's book The One Percent Doctrine) note Zubaydah's mental problems due to brain injury. The implication being that his brain issue contradicts the notion that he was an al Qaeda bigshot who had extensive knowledge of al Qaeda operations.