The New York Times reports that Dennis Blair issued a memo last week confirming that the interrogation techniques banned by the the president resulted in “significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.”
“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.
Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.
Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
One wonders how the administration thought it was going to get away with this bit of deceit — revealing the interrogation techniques yet concealing their benefit from the American people. It is bad enough to have provided terrorists with a road map to our methods and to have thrown our own national security officials to the “truth commission” wolves; it is quite another to mislead all concerned that we did this “for nothing.”
This has been at the heart of the public argument raging for some time now. Most recently, Vice President Cheney, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA chief Michael Hayden made the case that very tough methods were used, but for the noble and successful end of saving lives. At this, the White House spinners rolled their eyes. Well, Admiral Blair says Cheney, Mukasey, and Hayden were right on this. But his words didn’t see the light of day — until someone could bear the charade no longer and leaked them to the Times. (I wonder if one of the targets of Obama’s CIA damage control visit on Monday did it; if so, it would be worst rebuke of the president since the North Korean missile launch on disarmament speech day.)
Which group — Cheney/Mukasey/Hayden or the Obama administration has more credibility now? And which is acting like truth-skirting ideologues? Let the public judge. Let the truth hearings commence, if they must. Let it all come out. The first witness I would suggest: Admiral Blair.
