Harsh Interrogation of Videotaped Suspect Yielded Little, FBI Official Says

Terrorism

Harsh Interrogation of Videotaped Suspect Yielded Little, FBI Official Says

December 18, 2007, 11:26 am CST

FBI officials are disputing CIA accounts that harsh interrogation techniques helped pry information from al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaida.

Siding with the CIA, President Bush has said the “alternative set of procedures” used in the interrogation led to the capture of Sept. 11 suspect Ramzi Binalshibh. But former FBI officials told the Washington Post that Abu Zubaida provided “increasingly dubious information” as his treatment became more harsh. Videotapes of that harsh interrogation have been destroyed.

Early questioning of Abu Zubaida helped confirm Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s role as the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and led to the arrest of al-Qaida member Jose Padilla, the Post story says. But FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III became increasingly concerned as treatment of the captive worsened, and he ordered the agency to withdraw from the interrogations largely because of that concern.

Retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman believes Abu Zubaida had mental problems and claimed to know more about al-Qaida than he really did. Coleman told the newspaper that the harsh methods used on Abu Zubaida made later information suspect.

“Once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted,” he said. “He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn’t believe him. The problem is they didn’t realize he didn’t know all that much.”