CIA man: Nevermind about that ‘waterboarding works’ thing

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John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who gained international fame by affirming the Neo-Conservative wet dream that waterboarding quickly unloosens the tongues of hard-core terrorists, now says he didn’t know what he was talking about. In fact, he wasn’t even in the room during the Zubaydah torture sessions.

Ya see, the information he provided wasn’t so much first-hand experience as water cooler gossip. Kiriakou first claimed waterboarding worked in “thirty to thirty-five seconds,” which is a lie. Zubaydah was waterboarded over 83 times, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times.

Then, Kiriakou reveals on the next-to-last page of his new memoir that he wasn’t even in the room when these interrogations took place.

“Now we know,” Kiriakou says, “that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied.”

Gee, thanks John. Glad to know you’re on-board. He calls this realization that torture doesn’t work a valuable lesson in how the “CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.” Unless the CIA told Kiriakou to lie about Zubaydah, we will (for now) have to assume these were the acts of an immoral, lying CIA operative.

The CIA was quick to dismiss Kiriakou’s accusation. Spokesman Paul Gimigliano:

“While I haven’t read John’s book, the line about deception doesn’t make any sense,” Gimigliano told FP’s Jeff Stein. “He apparently didn’t know as much as he thought he did. That’s a very different matter.”

FP adds:

After Kiriakou repeated his waterboarding-efficiency claims to the Washington Post, the New York Times, National Public Radio, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and other media organizations last year, a CNN anchor called him “the man of the hour.”

Turns out, the Man Of The Hour is a liar. And torture still doesn’t work. Add this latest revelation to the testimonies of senior interrogators, neurobiologists, military, intelligence, and law enforcement officers, the former number two terrorism expert at the State Department, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the CIA’s own Inspector General, and even the military agency that provides advice on harsh interrogation techniques i.e. torture, that torture doesn’t work. At best, it bolsters anti-American sentiment and may provide unreliable information.

Those that defend the use of torture are lying CIA agents, blowhard Conservative radio and television personalities, or fans of 24. But in the real world, torture does not work. Period. Short of the “ticking time bomb scenario,” a fictitious event that adult babies think is real because Jack Bauer lives the lie and tortures everyone within arm’s reach on their television screens, and if Jack does it — it must really work.

In the extremely rare event that a terrorist was captured before a bomb detonated, and the interrogators somehow had foreknowledge about a bomb existing (yet they’re missing some critical detail that only the captured terrorist possesses,) the interrogators would still be remiss to torture. Under duress, victims of torture tell their torturer what they want to hear — not accurate information.

Torture is the act of the myopic coward. It is a regressive response to a complicated situation. Children freak out in the face of fear and lash out unthinkingly. Their first instinct is to hit, bite, and punch, but experienced interrogators know better. They know that building rapport and trust with detainees is a much better way — not only to secure reliable information — but to secure America’s reputation in the world.

Now, even John Kiriakou admits torture may not be useful. Sorry, Jack.