The other day, the Washington Post had a front-page story, “CIA Mistaken on ‘High-Value’ Detainee, Document Shows” — another in the MSM’s efforts to “prove” that Abu Zubaydah was not a top terrorist operative. The Post piece is taken out brilliantly by Tom Jocelyn here.

The Post’s evidence, apparently, is Zubaydah’s own assertion in a newly-released transcripts of GTMO combatant status hearings saying, “They told me, ‘Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter.’” In other words, they take Abu Zubaydah’s assertions that the CIA told him this at face value.

If we’re going to start taking detainee statements at face value, here are some assertions made in the same set of documents by Majid Khan, who was held by the CIA before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006.

Khan, you may recall, was the al-Qaeda operative who, on KSM’s orders, delivered $50,000 on to a southeast Asian terrorist named Zubair — money to fund al-Qaeda’s West Coast plot to hijack a plane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, before it was broken up thanks to KSM’s interrogation.

Apparently, Khan says, he prefers being in CIA custody to his experience at GTMO. Here is what he told the tribunal about his sufferings at GTMO: “I am brought here to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I swear to God this place in some sense worst than CIA jails. I am being mentally tortured here. … On 28 November 2006, I wrote on my walls, ‘Stop torturing me — Stop torturing me, I need newspaper, my lawyer, and my mail, etc.’ I don’t cooperate with them until they would treat me as a human and until they would stop mentally torturing me. … They are … getting even with me here under DoD, and making me suffer by mentally torturing me. They know my weaknesses — what drive me crazy and what doesn’t.”

He describes going on a hunger strike and attempting to cut his own artery. “Until then, they treat me with respect like CIA did in last ten months before my arrival. Later I found out it was camp leadership doing a cover up.” (emphasis added).

Later, after more rantings, he finally admits: “Before I write farther, let me tell you why they do these things to me. It’s not entirely their fault; it just that I don’t cooperate, volunteer, ask for things nor give my things on my own.”

This is the same Guantanamo Bay that Eric Holder has called a model prison.

Something to think about when you hear detainee claims about “torture.”