The Left is now attempting to use the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report to discredit the effectiveness of the CIA interrogation program. Their latest argument is that the OPR memos vindicate Ali Soufan’s claims that he got the information on Jose Padilla before EITs were employed, and they cite what appears to be a typo in the CIA’s “effectiveness” memo which states that Padilla was arrested in “May 2003.”
A-ha, says Newsweek, citing the OPR report:
“In fact, Padilla was arrested in May 2002, not 2003. . . . The information ‘[leading] to the arrest of Padilla’ could not have been obtained through the authorized use of EITs.” (The use of enhanced interrogations was not authorized until Aug. 1, 2002 and Zubaydah was not waterboarded until later that month.)
Unfortunately for the critics, the OPR memos do not vindicate Soufan in the least. Quite the opposite. On page 33 (footnote 33), the final OPR report states: “Although CIA and DOJ witnesses told us that the CIA was waiting for DOJ approval before initiating the use of the EITs, the DOJ [Inspector General’s] Report indicates that such techniques may have been used on Abu Zubaydah before the CIA received oral or written approval from OLC.”
And what does the DOJ Inspector General’s Report say? In the October 2009 Report [PDF], the other agent involved in Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation (referred to by the alias “Agent Gibson”) explains that it was the CIA — not Soufan — that got the information on Padilla, and did so after applying the first coercive techniques.
According to the Report, before the CIA took over Zubaydah’s interrogation Agent Gibson got Zubaydah to identify “a photography of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as ‘Muktar,’ the mastermind of the September 11 attacks” using non-coercive techniques. (This has never been in dispute.)
After this, the Report states, “Within a few days, CIA personnel assumed control over the interviews, although they asked Gibson and Thomas [Note: “Thomas” is an alias for Soufan] to observe and assist. . . . Thomas described for the OIG the techniques that he saw the CIA interrogators use on Zubaydah after they took control of the interrogation. [REDACTED]. Thomas said he raised objections to these techniques to the CIA and told the CIA it was ‘borderline torture.’”
While the details are redacted, this begs the question: If some form of EITs were not in use at this point, what precisely was Soufan objecting to? The CIA’s approach to rapport-building?
The DOJ Report continues: “During his interview with OIG, Gibson did not express as much concern about the techniques used as Thomas did. Gibson stated, however, that during the period he was working with the CIA, the CIA shaved Zubaydah’s head, sometimes deprived Zubaydah of clothing, and kept the temperatures in his cell cold. [REDACTED]. Gibson said that the CIA personnel assured him that the procedures being used on Zubaydah had been approved ‘at the highest levels’ and Gibson would not get in any trouble. Gibson stated that during the CIA interrogations Zubaydah ‘gave up’ Jose Padilla and indentified several targets for future al-Qaeda attacks, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty [emphasis added].”
So according to Soufan’s own partner, the information on Padilla a) was obtained by the CIA, not Soufan; and b) after the CIA began to apply the coercive techniques.
Thomas/Soufan left in protest over the CIA techniques (which supposedly were not yet in use) around May 2002. But his partner, Agent Gibson, stayed behind and continued to work with the CIA.
According to the Report: “Gibson said he remained at the CIA facility until some time in early June 2002, several weeks after Thomas left, and that he continued to work with the CIA and participate in interviewing Zubaydah. . . . Gibson stated that . . . he did not have a ‘moral objection’ to being present for the CIA techniques because the CIA was acting professionally and Gibson himself had undergone comparable harsh interrogation techniques as part of U.S. Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training.”
So Soufan’s own partner disagreed with him on the need for, and the morality of, enhanced interrogation.
And even the Washington Post, in July 2009, reported that the information on Padilla came after coercive techniques were employed. The Post quotes a former U.S. official declaring: “In two different bits, after sleep deprivation, is when Abu Zubaida gave clues about who Padilla might be. . . . When that was put together with other CIA sources, they were able to identify who he was. . . . The cables will not show that the FBI just asked friendly questions and got information about Padilla.”
The bottom line: According to the Justice Department Inspector General, his own partner, and the Washington Post, Soufan’s claims are flat wrong.