Some afternoon news and Open thread.
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Torture doesn’t work… even the FBI knows this. According to the Washington Post, the FBI and CIA disagree on significance of terror suspect.
Al-Qaeda captive Abu Zubaida, whose interrogation videotapes were destroyed by the CIA, remains the subject of a dispute between FBI and CIA officials over his significance as a terrorism suspect and whether his most important revelations came from traditional interrogations or from torture.
While CIA officials have described him as an important insider whose disclosures under intense pressure saved lives, some FBI agents and analysts say he is largely a loudmouthed and mentally troubled hotelier whose credibility dropped as the CIA subjected him to a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding and to other ‘enhanced interrogation’ measures…
FBI officials, including agents who questioned him after his capture or reviewed documents seized from his home, have concluded that even though he knew some al-Qaeda players, he provided interrogators with increasingly dubious information as the CIA’s harsh treatment intensified in late 2002…
A rift nonetheless swiftly developed between FBI agents, who were largely pleased with the progress of the questioning, and CIA officers, who felt Abu Zubaida was holding out on them and providing disinformation. Tensions came to a head after FBI agents witnessed the use of some harsh tactics on Abu Zubaida, including keeping him naked in his cell, subjecting him to extreme cold and bombarding him with loud rock music.
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According to the AP, Judge orders hearing on CIA videos. “A federal judge has ordered a hearing on whether the Bush administration violated a court order by destroying CIA interrogation videos of two al-Qaida suspects. U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter. He ordered lawyers to appear before him Friday morning. In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the administration to safeguard ‘all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.’ Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos.”
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The Bush administration is racing against the deadline to reward the corporate ‘news’ organizations that helped them gain and keep power. The Washington Post reports, FCC’s contested cross-ownership rule set for vote. “The Federal Communications Commission is pushing ahead to pass a rule today that would allow more consolidation of local media ownership in the nation’s largest cities, despite the fresh threat of a legislative rebuke and continued protests from advocacy groups. The rule, proposed by Chairman Kevin J. Martin, a Republican, has been assailed by members of his own commission, denounced by a unanimous vote of the Senate Commerce Committee and called harmful to media diversity by a number of groups who say Martin is rushing it through without adequate public comment… Martin’s action is backed by the White House”.
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This is how our Congress works. Behold! War Pork! The Hill reports Rep. Courtney scores submarine funding win for Connecticut. “Freshman Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) came to Congress this year with one obsession: getting more money for attack submarines, a staple of significant employment in his district… That victory, widely considered a strong boost for the vulnerable Democrat, stemmed in part from a decision of several powerful lawmakers to push Courtney’s cause… Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee; Murtha’s Senate counterpart, Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii); House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.); and Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee.”
A bonus, if you can even call it that, story about Willard Mitt Romney is below the fold.
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