NO PROOF torture got KSM to ‘fess up’ to truths

Conservatives are already spinning this “new” story about Khalid Sheik Muhammed coughing up all sorts of information under waterboarding torture. But, it ain’t necessarily so.

Here’s the contradicting details.

John L. Helgerson, the former CIA inspector general who investigated the agency's detention and interrogation program, said his work did not put him in "a position to reach definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of particular interrogation methods."

"Certain of the techniques seemed to have little effect, whereas waterboarding and sleep deprivation were the two most powerful techniques and elicited a lot of information," he said in an interview. "But we didn't have the time or resources to do a careful, systematic analysis of the use of particular techniques with particular individuals and independently confirm the quality of the information that came out."

Beyond that, we already know KSM claimed oversight responsibility for particular al-Qaeda actions that he, in fact, did NOT run.

And, in fact, I think this is why top WaPost reporter Walter Pincus only has an end-of-story “tagline” rather than a byline. I think somebody higher up was pushing an angle on this and he demurred at more detailed involvement.
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