CIA Detainees 'Produced Enormous Amounts of Valuable Intelligence Information' in Decade-Long Manhunt for Osama Bin Laden

Two key updates on the waterboarding controversy.

First, Weasel Zippers has the longer version of the clip below. Secretary Rumsfeld has clarified his messaging: "Part Two: Yes, Waterboarding Helped Get Osama""

Rumsfeld says waterboarding "absolutely" produced enormous amounts of information intelligence. And be sure to check that link to Weasel Zippers, which includes a segment from O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo," smacking down Alan Colmes.

And the Los Angeles Times has a careful analysis and complex analysis of the evidence-gathering process, and credits the coercive interrogations at Guantanamo as providing the initial clues about Bin Laden's courier, "Trail to Bin Laden began with CIA detainee, officials say":

An Al Qaeda suspect who was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques at a secret CIA prison in early 2004 provided a clue, the nom de guerre of a mysterious courier, that ultimately proved crucial to finding Osama bin Laden, officials said Wednesday.

The CIA had approved use of sleep deprivation, slapping, nudity, water dousing and other coercive techniques at the now-closed CIA "black site" in Poland where the Pakistani-born detainee, Hassan Ghul, was held, according to a 2005 Justice Department memo, which cited Ghul by name. Two U.S. officials said Wednesday that some of those now-prohibited practices were directed at Ghul.

Ghul was not waterboarded nor subjected to near-drowning, the most notorious interrogation technique and one that critics describe as torture.

Two other CIA prisoners — Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his successor, Abu Faraj Libbi — gave their interrogators false information about the courier after they were waterboarded repeatedly, U.S. officials said.

Those lies also played a role in the decade-long manhunt, however. Over time, they were viewed as evidence by CIA analysts that Bin Laden's top deputies were trying to shield a figure who might be a link to the Al Qaeda leader's hide-out, according to U.S. officials briefed on the analysis. "The fact that they were covering it up suggested he was important," a U.S. official said.

In the end, intelligence gleaned from interviews with numerous detainees, high-tech eavesdropping and surveillance, and other investigative spadework provided insights on people close to Bin Laden. No one source or bit of intelligence was so decisive or critical that it instantly solved the puzzle or ended the painstaking hunt for the world's most wanted terrorist, officials said. They stressed that none of the three most critical pieces of information — the courier's name, the area of Pakistan in which he operated and the location of the compound in which Bin Laden was living — came from detainees.

The nuances of that complex chain of events were often lost Wednesday amid a renewed public debate about the efficacy and morality of coercive interrogations that the CIA carried out under President George W. Bush.

"I think the issue has been mischaracterized on both sides," said a former CIA official who was involved in internal debate over the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques program at the time. "The people who say 'enhanced interrogation techniques' directly led to catching Bin Laden are wrong, and the people who say they had nothing to do with it are also wrong."

That closing remark there is probably about the best we're gonna get. Waterboarding was a key factor, but not the decisive factor. No one source was crucial; the range of methods and our ability to use them was central.