First of all great thanks to Florida's Congressman Vern Buchanan and Congressman Connie Mack for voting against this bill. These two men understand that terrorists wake up every day plotting and carrying out deadly attacks against Americans and our allies.
Our CIA needs every legal tool available to get information about these plots, including the possible future use of waterboarding. My question to those that voted for this bill (and by implication for the terrorists) what would they do if the CIA captured a terrorist who knew where a nuclear bomb was planted in the United States? Would they allow waterboarding then?
Here is an example of how waterboarding, which was used 3 times by the CIA and has not been used since 2003, saved American lives:
In an ABC News interview aired yesterday, retired agent John Kiriakou, who led a CIA team that captured and interrogated al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, said using the "waterboarding'' technique was necessary and yielded crucial information.
Mr Kiriakou said the method broke Zubaydah - one of the first top al-Qaeda suspects captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks - in less than 35 seconds, according to ABC.
"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to co-operate,'' Mr Kiriakou said.
"From that day on, he answered every question,'' he said.
"The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.''
Let's see now, 35 seconds of discomfort for Abu Zubaydah and innocent American lives are saved. I vote for saving the innocent American lives unlike Florida Democrats Kathy Castor and Tim Mahoney.
In the editorial the Herald-Tribune briefly mentions a Washington Post article that said some members of the Congressional Intelligence Committees where briefed on this program in 2002. But who was briefed? Would you believe Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats? Here is an excerpt from that story:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised.
Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said."
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange."
Key Democrat lawmakers were completely briefed on the CIA enhanced interrogation program including Speaker Pelosi, Jane Harmon, D-CA, John D. Rockefeller IV, D-WV and our own former Senator Bob Graham in 2002 which included waterboarding.
Now the Herald-Tribune and some of these same Democrats are concerned about the destruction of two videos of interrogations using techniques they were personally briefed on by the CIA and not only approved but questioned if they were harsh enough.
Isn't it time to stop the hypocrisy and realize that we are fighting an enemy that has no value for human life and makes it a policy to kill innocent men, women and children to push their evil agenda?
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