I hear both sides dispute this. I want a definable answer with a trusted source (no partisan blogs!)
(you may prefer “enhance interrogation” if you prefer. I wanted brevity). This may be more suitable for GD, it so by all means move it, mods.
From what I have read on the issue there is no reliable way to answer this for certain. Those that have the most to gain from it being true are the ones making the claim. And there obviously isn’t anybody to corroborate many of the claims.
A somewhat detailed account is here: Bin Laden Raid Revives Debate on Value of Torture - The New York Times
Thanks jas09. That article hones right in on it.
The people who actually obtained the information say that they didn’t use torture, and the people who used the torture actually got information that was false.
From what I recall reading, and a discussion with someone in the technical field:
The name came up on some back-and-forth stuff. One person identified the fellow as Bin Laden’s driver or something. When everyone else in the know was interrogated, they denied knowing of any such person. Apparently, this was peculiar, because you would think they would all say “oh, he’s just the a driver”.
The fellow’s fancy satellite mobile phone was identified from calls he had made, especially to family back home. The phone he used had a built-in GPS (to allow the satellite to aim transmissions), so they knew exactly where he was when he made the calls, but he always turned it off again.
The incredible thing is that then, he ass-dialled bin Laden’s location to the NSA. Apparently one day the phone appears to have accidentally powered on and gone online for a short time, supposedly by accident, then turned off, at a location a long way from where it normally appeared. When the GPS coordinates were checked, they identified the house that turned out to be the bin Laden compound.
So yes, torture did help identify bin Laden’s courier and location, but only in a negative way - even under torture, people refused to admit the existence of what should have been an minor inconsequential player, thus emphasizing his importance.
The article says that they got the name of the courier from two sources, one of whom (Khalid Shaikh Mohammed) was waterboarded more than anybody. The other (Abu Faraj al-Libbi) received no waterboarding or other “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Faraj’s information appears to have been the key piece that led to bin Laden. If you look at the interrogation reports from 2008 (released by WikiLeaks), you’l see it even identifies the town where Bin Laden was eventually found.
Hmmmm…
That’s a great fact (if true) about ass-calling; this what some people call butt-calling, right?
At first I read your phrase as “telephoned like some dumb-fuck asshole.”
I’m sure that’s been done a lot too a fighter’s detriment.
I don’t know the exact model of phone, I suspect satellite phones are too big to butt-call (ass-dial), but it’s a cute story; but apparently the phone was (probably accidentally) switched on for a short time while at the bin Laden compound although the fellow had habitually driven a long long way from there whenever he meant to turn it on. It told the satellite its GPS coordinates. The rest, like bin Laden, is history.
Am I being asked to believe that prisoners who had been held incommunicado for up to 8 years had information on bin Laden’s current whereabouts?
“Ah, Watson, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time…”
Neither of them gave the CIA the name; the CIA already had it and the name was put to them in questioning. KSM denied knowing the courier (which, apparently, was good evidence of the courier’s importance because it was suspicious). Faraj named him as potentially close to the leaders of al-Qaeda and said he hadn’t been seen in some time.
From the accounts I’ve read, including that NY Times one, the argument that torture techniques used in Guantanamo were crucial in Osama bin Laden’s sounds pretty thin. The CIA already had the courier’s name. Most of the people they put the name to under questioning either denied knowing him or downplayed his importance, often contradicting each other. Only Faraj commented on the name with positive information, but even then it took another 6 years for the CIA to find and kill bin Laden, which suggests Faraj’s information was not exactly the silver bullet, and the CIA denies torturing Faraj anyway.
I think it’s entirely possible that torture could glean perfect, silver-bullet style information from prisoners, and I find opponents of torture much less convincing when they refuse to even countenance that possibility. But in this case it sounds like the torture evidence was thin, contradictory and borderline useless overall, and that may not be a coincidence.
Well, sure, it’s a possibility. It’s also a possibility that you’ll get silver-bullet information from reading chicken entrails. That doesn’t mean we should do either.
hahaha, *butt-dialing *is how we finally nailed Osama? Technology rocks!
The guy must have known the phone generated GPS coordinates, he drove an hundred miles or more before using it every time. In a life or death situation (as it turned out to be) prudence would dictate keeping the battery completely out of the device when not at the phone zone point. How it managed to turn on accidentally back home is a matter of speculation…
… but butt-dialing is too good a story to pass up.
Finding Bin Laden is a noble goal, but in my mind it does not fall in the category of “a bomb is about to go off so that justifies torture”. It took 10 years and it probably did not take torture, and we found him. What bothers me too, is who wants a job torturing people? Do we really want people in the armed forces or intelligence who enjoy that line of work?
The only real value in torture is that you torture the person over and over again and ensure that the story told is consistent. However, this does not mean it is true, and it means you have to torture a lot.
The other danger, learned from Nuremburg, the Hague, Bosnia, Central Africa, and General Pinochet, is that no matter what the current governments say, those people who authorized torture may have to answer to a completely different world in 30 years.
Is there any reason to think they enjoy it? Personally I hope that our regular armed forces who kill others quickly with guns and bombs don’t *enjoy that either. I’m not opposed to killing in every circumstance, as I am with torture. War and national defense are an unfortunately required function of a county; but I still don’t want people in the armed forces toenjoy *their killing.
Good point. Maybe the torturer was really, really good at his job. They should be asking for next weeks winning lottery numbers.
Except where it was explained already that this didn’t happen.
If torture had contributed at all to finding Bin Laden, the torturers would have come out and said we tortured X and he gave us the information. Instead, they’re providing convoluted and fallacious logic to try and convince us that torture had to be used unsuccessfully before actually looking for him.