McCain said in his speech that the “best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to Osama bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means, not through any ‘enhanced interrogation technique.’ ” Note again, the careful wording: McCain did not say that this detainee did not undergo enhanced interrogation (he did) – only that he did not provide the information “through” enhanced interrogation. This is deceptive. McCain was briefed in detail more than once on enhanced interrogation, so he knows full well that enhanced techniques were not used to gain intelligence from detainees — they were used to compel their cooperation.
While applying enhanced techniques, interrogators would ask detainees questions to which the interrogators already knew the answers, so they could judge when the detainees had made the decision to begin cooperating. Once they did so, the techniques stopped and the detainees moved into noncoercive debriefing.
Marc A. Thiessen
A fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Post.
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McCain knows that Hassan Ghul — the detainee who provided “the best intelligence” on al-Kuwaiti — resisted during his initial questioning, was put through enhanced techniques and subsequently became cooperative. When Ghul began cooperating, the enhanced techniques stopped and he moved into debriefing, where he provided vital information about al-Kuwaiti. The fact that Ghul provided this information “through standard, noncoercive means” simply shows that he provided it after the enhanced process was complete.
In fact, two-thirds of detainees underwent no enhanced techniques at all. This is because during their initial “neutral assessment,” the alternative was made clear to them. The story of one senior al-Qaeda terrorist, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, illustrates the point. When Abd al-Hadi was brought to a CIA black site, agency officials told him, “We’re the CIA.” He replied, “I’ve heard of you guys. I’ll tell you anything you need to know.” And he did. Detainees like Abd al-Hadi cooperated without enhanced techniques because they feared enhanced techniques.
Here’s the big question McCain needs to answer: If his claims are true, and enhanced interrogation really did not play an important role in producing “the major leads that ultimately enabled our intelligence community to find Osama bin Laden,” why isn’t CIA Director Leon Panetta making these same claims? After all, who has a bigger interest in discounting the role of enhanced interrogation than the Obama administration? If administration officials could make this argument, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. They are not doing so, because they know the truth: Enhanced interrogation worked.
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