Ex-FBI agent criticizes harsh terrorism tactics

[Steve James]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used during the Bush administration on terrorism suspects produced unreliable evidence and were ineffective, a former FBI agent told Congress on Wednesday.

Ali Soufan made the charge before a Senate Judiciary panel in the first congressional hearing since the release last month of Justice Department memos that authorized tactics such as waterboarding, sleep and food deprivation and forced nudity.

"These techniques ... are ineffective, slow and unreliable and as a result harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda," said Soufan, who noted that he obtained valuable intelligence from al Qaeda suspects without using harsh methods.

He said he objected to the practices of CIA interrogators.



"I could not stand by quietly while our country's safety was endangered and our moral standing damaged," he said.

The hearing occurred amid increasing calls by human rights groups for more investigation and perhaps even criminal prosecutions of Bush administration officials for the techniques denounced by critics as illegal torture.

Soufan also interrogated prisoners at Guantanamo and was a key prosecution witness last year during the only two trials completed in the special tribunals at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. His testimony helped convict Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, and al Qaeda videographer Ali Hamza al Bahlul.

Soufan, born in Lebanon, was one of a handful of native Arabic speakers at the FBI before the September 11 attacks and was one of the bureau's top experts on al Qaeda.

...

During the hearing, a Democratic senator said former Vice President Dick Cheney had been misleading the American people by saying the harsh interrogation methods had produced valuable intelligence.

"Nothing I have seen, including the two documents to which ... Cheney has repeatedly referred, indicates that the torture techniques authorized by the last administration were necessary or that they were the best way to get information out of detainees," Senator Russ Feingold said.

[Brady]

I'm glad there are a few in the know and in the profession who are standing against this . . . It seems no evidence points to the torture being effective for interrogation, but only for false bravado. I have yet to meet one person who agrees with "harsh interrogation" who wasn't so stuck in his own shit to make his opinion in any way worthwhile, Cheney included.

[Darthwing Teorist]

I'm glad there are a few in the know and in the profession who are standing against this . . . It seems no evidence points to the torture being effective for interrogation, but only for false bravado. I have yet to meet one person who agrees with "harsh interrogation" who wasn't so stuck in his own shit to make his opinion in any way worthwhile, Cheney included.

Same here. Congratulations to those standing up for principles. Things like these will give the USA back the moral standing that it lost during Dubya's regime.

[Michael]

Torture is not effective in gathering reliable information and is almost never used for that purpose.