Update I just realized the date stamp from that story is
Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 7:50 PM ET
This is hardly surprising. Except that it is. The 9/11 Commission was never credible, and has even been sharply criticized by those who ran it. Even they don't believe their own bullshit. Now, we find out that about one quarter of all of the footnotes for the final report were based on harsh interrogations, aka "torture."
Specifically, the NBC News analysis shows 441 of the more than 1,700 footnotes in the Commission’s Final Report refer to the CIA interrogations. Moreover, most of the information in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Report came from the interrogations. Those chapters cover the initial planning for the attack, the assembling of terrorist cells, and the arrival of the hijackers in the U.S. In total, the Commission relied on more than 100 interrogation reports produced by the CIA. The second round of interrogations sought by the Commission involved more than 30 separate interrogation sessions.
The harshest techniques were employed, including physical and mental abuse, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and waterboarding.
9/11 Commission staffers say they "guessed" but did not know for certain that harsh techniques had been used, and they were concerned that the techniques had affected the operatives’ credibility. At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "tortured." The claims came during their hearings last spring at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"We were not aware, but we guessed, that things like that were going on," Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission executive director, told NBC News. "We were wary...we tried to find different sources to enhance our credibility."
So, not only was the evidence obtained from the CIA about the events of 9/11 utterly tainted, the Commission asked the CIA to go back and re-interrogate detainees, even while suspecting that torture was being used. I think they cal that "don't ask, don't tell."
In addition, officials of both the 9/11 Commission and CIA confirm the Commission specifically asked the agency to push the operatives on a new round of interrogations months after their first interrogations. The Commission, in fact, supplied specific questions for the operatives to the agency. This new round took place in early 2004, when the agency was still engaged in the full range of harsh techniques. The agency suspended the techniques in mid-2004. Agency spokesmen have refused to identify what techniques were used, when they were used or the names of those who were harshly questioned.
How NBC knows what techniques were used when the CIA won't say is anybody's guess, but the bottom line is that the narrative about Al Qaeda's "plot" was gleaned from torture sessions, that endless font of false confessions.
According to Zelikow, "quite a bit, if not most" of its information on the 9/11 conspiracy "did come from the interrogations."
But if the 9/11 Commission really didn't know that torture was being employed to fill their report with lies, why does that report essentially recommend that the US should end the torture program?
"The US government must define what the message is, what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors."
Of course they flipping knew torture was happenning. And they went back to that well intentionally. But Zelikow is spinning to keep a firewall in place between the Commissioners and the interrogators:
"A whole lot needed to be kept from us," he [Zelikow} said he now realizes. "It would have revealed a lot of things that it was not in the government’s interest to reveal. They might have worried what we would have learned about the interrogation techniques."
But here's the kicker. Here's one example of how the interrogators operated, as reported by the torture victim's father in court filings.
"The Americans tortured him for eight hours at a time, tying him tightly in stressful positions in a small chair until his hands feet and mind went numb. They retied him in a chair every hour, tightening the bonds on his hands and feet each time so that it was more painful. He was often hooded and had difficulty breathing. They also beat him repeatedly, slapping him in the face, and deprived him of sleep.
"When he was not being interrogated, the Americans put Majid in a small cell that was totally dark and too small for him to lie down in or sit in with legs stretched out. He had to crouch. The room was also infested with mosquitoes. This torture only stopped when Majid agreed to sign a statement that he wasn’t even allowed to read. But then it continued when Majid was unable to identify certain streets and neighborhoods in Karachi that he did not know."
That by definition is a false confession. How deep is this rabbit hole?