American lives saved by waterboarding of KSM

Dick Cheney and Marc Thiessen correct the record on the efficacy of CIA interrogation methods used on 9/11 terrorists.


First, Mr. Thiessen in the Washington Post:

In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists "did not make us safer." This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public -- in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media. . . .

Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques "led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' 'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los Angeles." KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that "information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the 'Second Wave.' " In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.

Read the rest for more details.

And corroboration from Dick Cheney speaking with Sean Hannity last night:

"One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," Cheney said.

Cheney said he's asked that the documents be declassified because he has remained silent on the confidential information, but he knows how successful the interrogation process was and wants the rest of the country to understand.

"I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country," Cheney said. "I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was."

It's not surprising to learn that Obama has been selective about which parts of which documents to make public. It takes a high level of arrogance to be so blatantly deceptive. From Mr. Thiessen:

But just as the memo begins to describe previously undisclosed details of what enhanced interrogations achieved, the page is almost entirely blacked out. The Obama administration released pages of unredacted classified information on the techniques used to question captured terrorist leaders but pulled out its black marker when it came to the details of what those interrogations achieved.

More from Gateway Pundit, with Cheney video here. And thoughtful analysis from Rich Lowry here.

Then there's the question of why this information needs to be released at all -- who can believe it's anything but pure partisan politics? And more important is the likelihood that the release of these details will have a deleterious effect on our national security. Mr Thiessen again:

Al-Qaeda will use this information and other details in the memos to train its operatives to resist questioning and withhold information on planned attacks.

*Update: Linked at Memeorandum. :)
*Also read Which City Would You Sacrifice?

Follow-up post here.

Most recent posts here.