Notes
[1] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
[2] Brent Mickum, The truth about Abu Zubaydah, The Guardian, March 30, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/30/guantanamo-abu-zubaydah-torture
[3] Brent Mickum, The truth about Abu Zubaydah
[4] Zayn al Abidin Muhammad Husayn v. Robert Gates, Respondents Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to Petitioner’s Motion for Discover and Petitioner’s Motion for Sanctions. Civil Action No. 08-cv-1360 (RWR), September 2009.
[5] NEWS SUMMARY: Arrest May Deter Attacks. New York Times, April 4, 2002
[6] World: United States Western Mail, April 3, 2002
[7] Donald Rumsfeld News Transcript, Department of Defense, April 3, 2002
[8] Report: Insider May Testify On Zubaydah April 2, 2002, Highbeam News Database
[9] United States Helsinki Commission Briefing Transcript Political/Congressional Transcript Wire, June 22, 2007
[10] Transcript of Video News Story on Guantanamo Bay with Kelli Arena Reporting CNN, September 24, 2006
[11] Department of Defense News Briefing April 2, 2002
[12] Gerry Gilmore, Rumsfeld Confirms Capture of Senior Al Qaeda Leader Department of Defense, April 2, 2002
[13] Profile: Abu Zubaydah BBC News, April 2, 2002
[14] Remarks by the President at Connecticut Republican Committee Luncheon White House website, April 9, 2002
[15] George W. Bush’s Remarks at the Virginia Military Institute, April 17, 2002
[16] George W. Bush (June 6, 2002). “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation,” The White House, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020606-8.html
[17] George W. Bush, Remarks by the President at Thaddeus McCotter for Congress Dinner, White House website, October 14, 2002
[18] Jeff Bliss and Tony Capaccio, Iraq Group May Attack Outside Nation, McConnell Says Bloomberg.com, February 5, 2008, and Richard Esposito and Jason Ryan, CIA Chief: “We Waterboarded”. ABC News, February 5, 2008
[19] Philip Shenon, MIDEAST TURMOIL: INTELLIGENCE; Officials Say Qaeda Suspect Has Given Useful Information, New York Times, April 26, 2002
[20] Terrorism Notebook, More attacks have been prevented, officials say, The Seattle Times, January 11, 2003
[21] David A. Vise and Lorraine Adams, Bin Laden Weakened, Officials Say The Washington Post. March 11, 2000
[22] Ibid
[23] Ibid
[24] Massimo Calabresi and Romesh Ratnesar, Can we stop the next attack? CNN News, March 4, 2002
[25] Ibid
[26] Who’s Who in al-Qaeda? BBC News
[27] Nick Schou, One Degree of Separation, Orange County Weekly, October 11, 2001
[28] Marlise Simons, A NATION CHALLENGED: FRANCE; Ninth Man Held in Suspected Plot Against Paris Embassy, New York Times, October 4, 2001
[29] Bin Laden Videos Suggest Location, The Cincinnati Post, December 5,
[30] Philip Shenon A NATION CHALLENGED: BALKAN TRAIL; U.S. Labels an Arab Captive a Planner of Qaeda Attacks. New York Times, January 23, 2002
[31] Global Impact News Alert. U.S. Seeks New Head of Al Qaida Anti-American Operations, United Press International, February 15, 2002
[32] Ibid
[33] Ibid
[34] Profile: Abu Zubaydah BBC News, April 2, 2002
[35] Bank Terror Attack Fear; Warning issued after interview, Birmingham Evening Mail, April 20, 2002
[36] John J. Lumpkin, Al-Qaida Captive Talks Of Terror, AP News, April 24, 2002
[37] Bush Faces Dissent on European Trip, CNN News Transcripts, May 23, 2002, and Bush: ‘No war plans on my desk’ for Iraq, CNN.com, May 23, 2002
[38] George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: The CIA During America’s Time of Crisis, Harper Perennial, 2007
[39] Peter Finn and Julie Tate, CIA Says It Misjudged Role of High-Value Detainee Abu Zubaida, Transcript Shows, The Washington Post, June 16, 2009
[40] George Washington, The Reason for the Cover-up Goes Right to the White House, Washington’s Blog, March 18, 2010, http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/03/did-government-warn-911-commission.html
[41] 9/11 Commission Report, page 146
[42] Jane Meyer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, First Anchor Books, May 2009
[43] The 9/11 Commission Report sourced eleven of its claims to the torture of Zubaydah: footnotes 18, 43 and 75 in chapter 2, footnotes 19, 31, 35 and 106 in chapter 5, footnotes 8 and 125 in chapter 6, and footnotes 90 and 108 in chapter 7.
[44] Jane Meyer, The Dark Side
[45] George W. Bush, Speech in September 2006, and Bush Concedes CIA Held Suspects in Secret Prisons, NPR, September 6, 2006
[46] Ron Hutcheson and James Kuhnhenn, Iraq deal with Congress nears Bush says, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 26, 2002, and Bush Says He and Congress Will Band Together on Iraq; Capitol Hill Still Sour, Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, September 27, 2002, and Andrew Sullivan, One tortured lie: that’s all it took for war, The Sunday Times, April 26, 2009
[47] Warren Richey ‘Alternative’ CIA tactics complicate Padilla case Christian Science Monitor, September 15, 2006
[48] Neil A. Lewis A NATION CHALLENGED: THE DETAINEES; U.S. Is Seeking Basis to Charge War Detainees. New York Times, April 21, 2002
[49] James Risen and Eric Lichtblau Bush altered rules on spying. International Herald Tribune, December 17, 2005
[50] Amanda L. Jacobsen, Why hasn’t Abu Zubaida been tried?, The Washington Post, March 28, 2012
[51] Peter Finn, Judge’s Order Could Keep Public From Hearing Details of 9/11 Trials, The Washington Post, January 7, 2009
This suffers from a few major flaws:
– Neither the Justice Department nor any other agency of the USG has ever “agreed that Zubaydah was never an al Qaeda operative”, saying you had “not contended [something] in this proceeding” is not the same as ‘agreeing’ that it is not true.
– Despite Ryan’s huffing and puffing the 9/11 Commission, FBI etc. never made Zubaydah a key part of the 9/11 narrative. As a matter of fact neither accused him of involvement with the plot.
– Any possible inaccuracies in independent press accounts are not directly relevant to the accuracy government’s narrative.
It is nevertheless a tacit acknowledgment that they have no evidence that it is true.
You aren’t actually challenging anything Ryan wrote.
Ditto.
“It is nevertheless a tacit acknowledgment that they have no evidence that it is true.”
Either that or a legal manuver not to comply with a discovery motion.
“You aren’t actually challenging anything Ryan wrote.”
Really? Even you acknowleded that he overstated his case. And even IF it’s true that Zubaydah was never part AQ that doesn’t change the basic narrative of the attacks as spelled out by the 9/11 Commission. They never claimed he was directly involved in the planning or execution of the attacks.
You are speculating that they have evidence, they just aren’t willing to share it. The point is that they’ve presented no evidence to support their original contentions and are no longer contesting them. As Mickum wrote: “These facts really are no longer contested: Zayn was not, and never had been, a member of either the Taliban or al-Qaida.”
I was referring to that specific comment. You repeat “They never claimed he was directly involved in the planning or execution of the attacks.” Ryan didn’t say they claimed he was “directly involved in planning or execution of the attacks.” So, like I said, you aren’t actually challenging anything Ryan wrote with such comments.
After all that U.S. government officials have claimed about Zubaydah over the years, it is amazing that the government now claims it does not contend he “was a member of al-Qaida or otherwise formally identified with al-Qaida” and that he does not even view himself as part of al Qaeda.
As his attorneys have pointed out several times, the fact that he was never associated with al Qaeda is no longer contested.
I wrote above that the 9/11 Commission did not buy CIA agent John Kiriakou’s claim that “Zubaydah openly admitted his role in the September 11 attacks and claimed to regret having killed so many Americans.” But the 9/11 Commission did refer to Zubaydah’s torture a number of times throughout its report, and used its own claims that Zubaydah was a “Bin Ladin lieutenant” to support the idea that Zubaydah could provide so much detail about al Qaeda and the 9/11 plot.
Most people don’t realize that the 9/11 Commisison Report is very short on details about what happened on 9/11. Only two short chapters (90 pages) cover what happened that day. The rest is an historical myth about al Qaeda, largely built on the torture testimony of Zubaydah and the people he fingered.
Agent Kiriakou has since been charged with espionage and faces life in prison. So Zubaydah will not face trial despite being touted as al Qaeda’s operations manager, but the CIA agent who first interrogated him will.
“As his attorneys have pointed out several times, the fact that he was never associated with al Qaeda is no longer contested.”
Not contesting something in a legal brief in response to a discovery motion is not the same as saying it is not true. You claim the DoJ did the latter was false
“The rest is an historical myth about al Qaeda, largely built on the torture testimony of Zubaydah and the people he fingered.”
Many of them continued to sing the same tune after the waterboarding stopped, Zubaydah many important details before he was tortured. Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed even admitted their roles before they were captured. A similar narative was told by Lawrence Wright who spoke to various jihadists.
“…the 9/11 Commission did refer to Zubaydah’s torture a number of times throughout its report, and used its own claims that Zubaydah was a “Bin Ladin lieutenant” to support the idea that Zubaydah could provide so much detail about al Qaeda and the 9/11 plot. ”
He was not a crucial source out of a total of 1742 footnotes most of which cited various sources his diary was cited in one and his interrogation in about 16. Few if any of those refered directly to the plot.
“Agent Kiriakou has since been charged with espionage and faces life in prison.”
A lame and dishonest stab at poisoning the well, he is facing charges for speaking to the NYT, ABC News and other media outlets about the waterboarding program. His most serious “offense” was “divulging” the name of an EX-CIA agent who according to the Times “had never worked undercover”. For this Kiriakou won the “Joe A. Callaway Awards for Civic Courage” and was applauded by the “Government Accountability Project”.
And speaking of Ryan’s dishonesty his original article contained the following quote as a supposed example of the USG’s accusations against Zubaydah, ‘“extremely dangerous” and a planner of 9/11. – State Department legal advisor John B. Bellinger III in a June 2007 briefing.’ Except that the quote in question referred to “many of the people we have captured in this conflict” not specifically to Zubaydah.
Ryan also does not belive in the free exchange of ideas I tried to post the text of my first post above to his site Friday night but he refused to approve it. Ironic that truthers who complain their views are “censored” by the MSM censor those who disagree with them.
Len, if you’re going to continue making unsupported ad hominem arguments, lets’ examine your level of honesty.
First, when you say “the 9/11 Commission, FBI etc. never made Zubaydah a key part of the 9/11 narrative” when you know that CIA agent John Kiriakou said exactly that, isn’t that dishonesty? Your implication that I claimed the government made Zubaydah a key part of the 9/11 narrative is definitely dishonest.
You assert that “IF it’s true that Zubaydah was never part AQ that doesn’t change the basic narrative of the attacks as spelled out by the 9/11 Commission.” But Zubaydah was widely promoted as someone who knew everything about al Qaeda and its leaders. His continued torture and that of others was said to be able to reveal those details. Zubaydah fingered KSM as the mastermind of the attacks, and according to George Tenet, Zubaydah led them to Bin Alshibh. It was the subsequent capture and torture of KSM and Bin Alshibh, and the Commission’s 294 references to those torture sessions (along with the torture of Zubaydah), upon which the official account was built. So you appear to be dishonest on this point as well.
And according to people who would know, “Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/26/cia_man_retracts_claim_on_waterboarding
There is no doubt that many people in government were being dishonest re: Zubaydah, and you appear to be defending those people. Isn’t that dishonest?
Maybe you should visit this site more often so that your own website “Lies of the truth movement” can benefit from a little honesty.