As of March 26, we're $27,100 in the red for the quarter. Donate here to support this vital work
Subscribe here and join over 13,000 subscribers to our free weekly newsletter

Senate Report Rejects Claim on Hunt for Bin Laden
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times


New York Times, December 9, 2014
Posted: December 15th, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-report-raises...

Months before the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly prepared a public-relations plan that would stress that information gathered from its disputed interrogation program had played a critical role in the hunt. Starting the day after the raid, agency officials in classified briefings made that point to Congress. But in page after page of previously classified evidence, the Senate Intelligence Committee report on C.I.A. torture, released Tuesday, rejects the notion that torturing detainees contributed to finding Bin Laden. The crucial breakthrough in the hunt was the identification of ... Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. The United States had started wiretapping a phone number associated with Mr. Kuwaiti by late 2001. It was in 2004 that the C.I.A. came to realize that it should focus on finding Mr. Kuwaiti as part of the hunt for Bin Laden. [A man named] Hassan Ghul, who had been captured in Iraqi Kurdistan ... provided the most accurate intelligence that the agency produced about Mr. Kuwaitis role and ties to Bin Laden. Mr. Ghul provided all the important information about [Mr. Kuwaiti] before he was subjected to any torture techniques. During that [initial] two-day period in January 2004, He opened up right away and was cooperative from the outset. Nevertheless, the C.I.A. then decided to torture Mr. Ghul. During and after that treatment, he provided no actionable threat information.

Note: Read revealing excerpts from this most disturbing report.


Latest News


Key News Articles from Years Past