Effectiveness of Interrogations Questioned

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - U.S. law enforcement agents at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for terrorism suspects concluded that the military's aggressive questioning yielded information that was "suspect at best," according to newly released portions of an FBI (news - web sites) document.

That conclusion is contained in an internal FBI e-mail message, dated May 10, 2004, that also said the FBI had made it known to Pentagon (news - web sites) officials in 2002 that the FBI "has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques."
...
Another FBI e-mail, also dated May 10, 2004, said that in weekly Justice Department meetings, officials had often discussed the military's interrogation techniques and "how they were not effective or producing intel that was reliable." (The term "intel" is short for intelligence.)
...
"Today we were able to obtain some information that had previously been blacked out in an FBI document critical of DoD (Department of Defense (news - web sites)) interrogation practices," Levin said. "As I suspected, the previously withheld information had nothing to do with protecting intelligence sources or methods, and everything to do with protecting DoD from embarrassment."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20050321/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_interrogations&sid=84439559

[libpunkmom]

1. CIA-Porter Goss

stated on 3/17.."Professional Interrogation has become a very useful and necessary way to obtain information to save innocent lives, to disrupt terrorist schemes and protect our armed forces." Goss's bullshit way of saying that torturing people is a good thing.. But of course he publicly states that the US Gov does not participate in or condone torture. See how much can change in a year when they have the OK to torture people!!

[XemaSab]

2. "Effectiveness of Interrogations Questioned"

gets my vote for ironic headline of the day.

[Auntie Bush]

3. We have EVIL people running our country!

:kick:

[Moderator]

4. kick to combine

[Cocoa]

DOJ redacted memo on detainees (FBI criticism was deleted)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55136-2005Mar21.html

U.S. law enforcement agents working at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concluded that controversial interrogation practices used there by the Defense Department produced intelligence information that was "suspect at best," an FBI agent told a superior in a memo in May last year.

But the Justice Department, which reviewed the memo for national security secrets before releasing it to a civil liberties group in December, redacted the FBI agent's conclusion.

The department, acting after the Defense Department expressed its own views on which portions of the letter should be redacted, also blacked out a separate assertion in the memo that military interrogation practices could undermine future military trials for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.

It also withheld a statement by the memo's author that Justice Department criminal division officials were so concerned about the military interrogation practices that they took their complaints to the office of the Pentagon's chief attorney, William J. Haynes II, whom President Bush has nominated to become a federal appellate judge.

<snip>

Levin, who had pushed the Justice Department to release a version of the memo that included the new disclosures, yesterday sharply criticized the department's initial handling of it. "As I suspected, the previously withheld information had nothing to do with protecting intelligence sources and methods, and everything to do with protecting the DOD from embarrassment," Levin said.

More…

[UpInArms]

5. also from your link

FBI agents and officials had complained about the shackling of detainees to the floor for periods exceeding 24 hours, without food and water; the draping of a detainee in an Israeli flag; and the use of growling dogs to scare detainees.

and this paragraph:

They met, for example, with Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who took over the prison in October 2002, and another Army general to "explain our position (Law Enforcement techniques) vs. DOD," the author wrote in a previously disclosed portion of the memo. "Both agreed the Bureau has their way of doing business and DOD has their marching orders from" Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Rummy the human rights violating war criminal.

[Moderator]

6. kick to combine

[emad]

7. Guantanamo evidence is suspect, admits FBI

The Independent
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
23 March 2005


The value of intelligence obtained from Guantanamo Bay detainees has been cast into further doubt, with the release of new parts of a 2004 FBI memorandum that describe information extracted by coercive means as "suspect at best.

The memo was originally made public last year in response to a Freedom of Information request from the American Civil Liberties Union. But large parts were blacked out. They have now been released after pressure from senior Democratic senators, during confirmation hearings last month for Michael Chertoff, the new head of the Homeland Security Department.

Between 2001 and 2003, Mr Chertoff was the head of the criminal division at the Justice Department. Mr Chertoff insisted he was not involved in deciding interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. But the memo shows that four of his senior aides held regular meetings with FBI officials, who criticised the methods as unproductive.

The latest disclosures will only increase pressure for the release of the 550 inmates still being held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba. But that in turn raises the vexed issue of "rendition" under which the United States has been delivering terror suspects for interrogation in their country of origin. In places such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan the suspects face further imprisonment and torture.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=622742

[confludemocrat]

8. Repub mind: Torture is a political winner

this is what they think regardless of the reality that torturing people dedicated or fanatical enough to have given up their lives to fight for the taliban for example or a plan to suicide bomb other people or hijack and crash planes into buildings is going to get such people having come that far already to suddenly yield to torture and spill the beans. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING! They know it's really bullshit but want to look like they are willing to go to hollywood movie superhero extremes to "save" us from terrorism.