More facts on the ground that contradict theory

On Sunday this blogger pointed to a report claiming that regardless of what experts say about the unreliabilty of information obtained using torture, Iraqi soldiers maintain that after they beat up suspects they often get accurate intelligence.

Now CBS reports that former CIA director George Tenet is making a similar claim. He apparently told the broadcaster that the intelligence obtained using "enhanced interrogation techniques" was "more valuable than all the other terror intelligence gathered by the FBI, the National Security Agency and the CIA.

As Tenet reportedly told 60 Minutes: "the program saved lives and allowed the government to foil terror plots."

As whether these "enhanced techniques" included torture, this is what Tenet is reported to have told CBS:

"We don't torture people," he says. "I want you to listen to me. The context is it's post-9/11. I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are gonna be blown up, planes that are gonna fly into airports all over again, plot lines that I don't know. I don't know what's going on inside the United States, and I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur. Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through: the palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much we did not know."

Tenet also tells CBS some details I didn't know:

When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in a raid in Pakistan, the "enhanced interrogations" apparently were a surprise to him. According to Tenet, the captured terrorist told CIA interrogators, "I'll talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer." Instead, he reportedly was flown around the world, kept in secret prisons and water-boarded. Tenet repeated his denial again and again: "Let me say that again to you. We don't torture people. OK?" But when asked by Pelley why the "enhanced interrogation" techniques were necessary, Tenet says, "Because these are people who will never, ever, ever tell you a thing. These are people who know who's responsible for the
next terrorist attack … [who] wouldn't blink an eyelash about killing you, your family, me and my family and everybody in this town."

When Pelley presses, asking whether he lost sleep over the interrogations, Tenet says, "Of course you lose sleep over it. You're on new territory."

The show will air this Sunday, April 29 at 7 PM on CBS.