Has anyone learned .... anything?
Posted on 12/07/2007 9:27:58 AM PST by Callahan
The prevailing assumption is that the tapes were destroyed to conceal harsh CIA interrogation methods. Gerald Posner suggests another possible explanation:
Re the breaking news that the CIA destroyed the videotapes of interrogations with 2 terror suspects, you might have seen that the tapes of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah were destroyed.
You might also recall that in my 2003 NYT bestseller (reached #2), Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, my last chapter was titled, "The Interrogation." Based on two active US intelligence sources, I was the first to disclose Zubaydah's interrogation. To date, I am the only reporter to have printed the info about what happened to him.
Zubaydah, wounded when he was captured in Pakistan, was fooled in a fake flag operation to believe that the Saudis held him. Instead of being afraid of the ‘Saudis,’ he demanded to talk to three Saudi princes (one, the nephew of the King, who happened to be in the U.S. on 9/11). He gave his interrogators the private cell phone numbers of all 3. He did the same regarding the chief of Pakistan's air force.
After the U.S. told the Saudis and Pakistanis of Zubaydah's finger pointing, all four men had tragic 'accidents.' The King's nephew died of complications from liposuction at the age of 43. A day later, the 41 year old Prince named by Zubaydah died in a one-car accident on his way to the funeral of the King’s nephew. The third named prince, age 25, died a week later of "thirst," according to the Saudi Royal Court. And shortly after that, the chief of Pakistan’s air force died when his plane exploded with his wife and 15 of his top aides on board
When my book was published, CIA officials trashed it 'off the record,' but made no public comment. I have always held the same position. There is (or was) firm evidence of what transpired, of whether my reporting was accurate or not. Make the interrogation tapes public and then we'll know whether one of the top al Qaeda operatives accused leading Saudi royals and a top Pakistani military man - now all dead - of being his sponsors. And accused two of them – the King’s nephew and the Pakistani air force chief – of having advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Now, suddenly coincidence of coincidence, the CIA says the Zubaydah interrogation tapes are destroyed. How convenient.
I hadn’t seen this before. Even the bloggers have ignored it, and if it appeared earlier in FR I missed it. Thanks for the post.
Interesting indeed. Thanks for the post.
interesting stuff. Wonder what Laurie Mylroie would say?
The House of Saud is an interesting house.
So did the Saudis take these guys out or did we? Looks to me like the the sheiks cleaned house in a hurry.
Has anyone learned .... anything?
That a lot of different people pre-emptivate?
A rehash that explains why we would destroy the tapes, so it seems pretty relevant.
Can’t wait for the movie!
bttt
Nice post!
We’ve always known there was Saudi money going to the terrorists.
Looks like appropriate corrective action has been taken by our “allies”.
bump
HEY ! wait a minute !
How ‘bout Iraq ??!!?!?!?!
BTTT
Bingo. The one intelligence operative that has had things right on Saddam and Islamo-Fascism ever since 1995! Some of the stuff she wrote before 9/11 are stunning in their accuracy about what was to come.
Who Was ramzi Yousef - and why it matters" - 19951996 byLaurie Mylroie
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm
Yes, very interesting article. It starts out by saying that the author is a conspiracy theorist, but it goes on to lay out all the important details, and says the book is likely to raise a diplomatic firestorm.
Of course, it didn’t. The whole business was ignored, and it disappeared. The Saudi connection presumably was buried not only by the Democrat terrorist enablers but by the Bush administration. Indeed, its remarkable that Time ever published this much information at all.
I enjoy looking into these conspiracy theories, and I missed this one. I never read Time, but I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this elsewhere. The whole business must have vanished pretty quickly. I did think at the time that the Saudis were involved, but I don’t remember seeing this.
I notice that it was published at the end of August, and I don’t pay much attention to news during summer vacation. By the time I returned to normal life after Labor Day, the story must have basically died, killed by both left and right, working in tandem.
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