Donald Rumsfeld weighed in on the role waterboarding played in getting to Osama bin Laden.
Video, from FOX News.
This presents a bit of a problem for Obama and the Democrats and their mouthpieces in the media.
They have to reconcile the fact that information gained through interrogation techniques they fought to disallow helped to get bin Laden.
It's very inconvenient for them to admit that reality.
When the truth doesn't fit their agenda, they're forced to ignore it. They don't seem to mind being dishonest.
On Tuesday, NBC's Brian Williams interviewed CIA director Leon Panetta.
Video.
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Transcript
BRIAN WILLIAMS: I'd like to ask you about the sourcing on the intel that ultimately led to this successful attack. Can you confirm that it was as a result of waterboarding that we learned what we needed to learn to go after bin Laden?
LEON PANETTA: You know, Brian, in the intelligence business you work from a lot of sources of information and that was true here. We had a, we had a multiple source, uh, a multiple series of sources that provided information with regards to this situation. Clearly, some of it came from detainees and the interrogation of detainees, but we also had information from other sources as well. So it's, it's a little difficult to say it was due just to one source of information that we got.
WILLIAMS: Turned around the other way, are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?
PANETTA: No, I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I'm also saying that, you know, the debate about whether, whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.
WILLIAMS: So, finer point, one final time, enhanced interrogation techniques, which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years, that includes waterboarding.
PANETTA: That's correct.
It took a while for Panetta to admit it, he obviously tried not to, but he did eventually acknowledge that intelligence gained from detainees who were waterboarded was a factor in the success of the mission to kill bin Laden.
That complicates things for Obama and the Leftists.
What is not an open question is the fact that information obtained via enhanced interrogation techniques played a part in accomplishing the mission.
It is what it is.
Waterboarding worked.
Matthew Boyle, The Daily Caller, writes that the New York Times completely ignores Panetta's admission in a story on the value of harsh interrogation methods.
In a story about the resurrection of the harsh interrogation techniques debate slated to run on The New York Times’ front page Wednesday morning, reporters Scott Shane and Charlie Savage completely ignore CIA director Leon Panetta’s Tuesday evening confirmation that waterboarding played a role in procuring the intelligence that led U.S. forces to terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
“As intelligence officials disclosed the trail of evidence that led to the compound in Pakistan where Bin Laden was hiding, a chorus of Bush administration officials claimed vindication for their policy of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like waterboarding,” Shane and Savage write in their story, accusing Republicans of igniting a debate they thought was long over.
Shane and Savage looked the other way, though, when it came to Panetta’s confirmation that waterboarding was part of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on detainees. “We had multiple series of sources that provided information with regards to this situation… clearly some of it came from detainees [and] they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of those detainees,” Panetta told NBC News anchor Brian Williams.
The New York Times duo also suggested that House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, inflamed the debate by saying he thought the intelligence came from waterboarding. “The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, told Fox News that the success of the hunt for Bin Laden was due to waterboarding,” Shane and Savage wrote.
It turns out King was right.
We don't need spin.
We need facts.
We need the truth.
Intelligence from interrogation methods denounced by Obama and company were part of the mission's success.
1 comment:
Panetta's quote has been widely mis-characterized. The "that's correct" quote was only in reference to the fact that 'enhanced interrogation' = waterboarding. 'Waterboarding led us to Bin Laden' is not what he is saying.
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