[PAA-Discuss] Panetta on bin Laden and torture

[Lee Loe]

Exclusive: Private letter from CIA chief undercuts claim torture was key to
killing Bin Laden

By Greg Sargent

CIA chief Leon Panetta has written a private letter to Senator John McCain
that offers the most detailed answer yet to questions about the relationship
between torture and Osama Bin Laden's death - and undercuts the claim by
former Bush administration officials that torture was key to Bin Laden's
killing.

The letter has not been released publicly but was sent my way by a source.
Marie Harf, a CIA spokesperson, confirmed the letter's authenticity to me,
but declined further comment.

Last week, Senator McCain published a widely discussed
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bin-ladens-death-and-the-debate-over
-torture/2011/05/11/AFd1mdsG_story.html> Op ed in the Washington Post
calling into question claims that torture was instrumental in tracking down
Bin Laden. McCain cited Panetta as a source for his information, but didn't
release any material provided to him by Panetta, and conservatives like
former Bush attorney general Michael Mukasey
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/mukasey-responds-to-
mccains-op-ed/2011/05/12/AFhhVO1G_blog.html> subsequently dismissed McCain's
account. The CIA has not publicly taken sides in the dispute. 

But Panetta's letter, dated May 9th, bears out McCain's version of events.

To be sure, there are a couple of lines in the letter that conservatives
will seize on to bolster their case. But the overall thrust of the letter
clearly undercuts their larger version of events.

The case being made by conservatives - that Bin Laden's death vindicates
torture - was spelled out last week by former Bush 
AG Mukasey in an
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859304576305023876506348.h
tml> Op ed in the Wall Street Journal. Mukasey argued that the trail to Bin
Laden "began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who broke like a
dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included
waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information - including eventually the
nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden." 

The account in Panetta's letter clearly contradicts this. Here are the
operative three paragraphs from the letter, which represents a response from
Panetta to McCain's earler request for information about torture and Bin
Laden's death: 

Nearly 10 years of intensive intelligence work led the CIA to conclude that
Bin Ladin was likely hiding at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. there
was no one "essential and indispensible" key piece of information that led
us to this conclusion. Rather, the intelligence picture was developed via
painstaking collection and analysis. Multiple streams of intelligence -
including from detainees, but also from multiple other sources - led CIA
analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was at this compound. Some of the
detainees who provided useful information about the facilitator/courier's
role had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Whether those
techniques were the "only timely and effective way" to obtain such
information is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively.
What is definitive is that that information was only a part of multiple
streams of intelligence that led us to Bin Ladin.

Let me further point out that we first learned about the
facilitator/courier's nom de guerre from a detainee not in CIA custody in
2002. It is also important to note that some detainees who were subjected to
enhanced interrogation techniques attempted to provide false or misleading
information about the facilitator/courier. These attempts to falsify the
facilitator/courier's role were alerting. 

In the end, no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier's
full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered
through other intelligence means. 

Emphasis mine. Panetta's account contradicts Mukasey's claim that the trail
to Bin Laden "began" with disclosures from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed that were
achieved through the "pressure" of torture.

Panetta's account also represents public, on-the-record confirmation from
the CIA of - and adds new detail to - a
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/politics/04torture.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=
scott%20shane%20torture&st=cse> careful and thorough investigation by Scott
Shane and Charlie Savage of the New York Times, which was based on anonymous
sources and concluded that torture "played a small role at most in
identifying Bin Laden's trusted courier and exposing his hide-out." Shane
and Savage also quoted unnamed sources claiming torture resulted in bad
information - also confirmed in Panetta's letter.

Conservatives will argue that little is known about the "other intelligence
means" used to secure the courier's name or whereabouts. They will also
point out that Panetta's letter also indicates that some detainees who
"provided useful information about the facilitator/courier's role" had been
subjected to torture. In saying this, Panetta is expanding on
<http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42880435/ns/today-today_news/t/cia-chief-wate
rboarding-aided-bin-laden-raid/> an earlier claim in an interview that
torture, waterboarding included, produced info that played some kind of role
at some point in tracking Bin Laden.

But if anything, Panetta's letter actually downplays the info achieved
through torture, is inconclusive on how useful it was in the end, and states
that we can't know if that info would have been achievable through other
means. While the emphasis of Panetta's account may be intended to be in line
with the administration's anti-torture position, his downplaying of the role
of torture is an important addition to the public record. 

In the end, we may never be able to establish with total certainty the
precise nature of the relationship between torture and the killing of Bin
Laden. But for now, Panetta's account - the most extensive public accounting
we now have - simply doesn't square with claims that torture was key to
getting him, which would vindicate Bush's torture policies.

By Greg Sargent  |  12:21 PM ET, 05/16/2011 



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