Why We Went To War In Iraq.

NOTE: The Public Law that authorized war against Iraq in 2002 never stated that Iraq had nuclear weapons at that time.  Nonetheless, it was clear, according to intelligence reports at the time, that Iraq had a clear desire to develop a nuclear weapon capability.  Read Public Law 107-243 below for the reasons that we went to war with Iraq. 

PUBLIC LAW 107–243—OCT. 16, 2002

AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY 
FORCE AGAINST IRAQ RESOLUTION OF 2002 


116 STAT. 1498 PUBLIC LAW 107–243—OCT. 16, 2002 

Oct. 16, 2002 

[H.J. Res. 114] 
Public Law 107–243 

107th Congress 
Joint Resolution 

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. 

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq’s war of aggression against 
and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a 
coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order 
to defend the national security of the United States and enforce 
United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq; 

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into 
a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to 
which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate 
its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the 
means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for 
international terrorism; 

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United 
States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery 
that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and 
a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had 
an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was 
much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence 
reporting had previously indicated; 

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, 
attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify 
and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and 
development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal 
of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998; 

Whereas in Public Law 105–235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded 
that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs 
threatened vital United States interests and international 
peace and security, declared Iraq to be in ‘‘material and unacceptable 
breach of its international obligations’’ and urged the President 
‘‘to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution 
and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into 
compliance with its international obligations’’; 

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security 
of the United States and international peace and security in 
the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable 
breach of its international obligations by, among other things, 
continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and 
biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons 
capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations; 

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations 
Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression 
of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace 
and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, 
or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, 
including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property 
wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait; 

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability 
and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other 
nations and its own people; 

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing 
hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, 
including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President 
Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United 
States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the 
resolutions of the United Nations Security Council; 

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility 
for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, 
including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are 
known to be in Iraq; 

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist 
organizations, including organizations that threaten the 
lives and safety of United States citizens; 

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, 
underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition 
of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist 
organizations; 

Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use 
weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi 
regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise 
attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide 
them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme 
magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and 
its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by 
the United States to defend itself; 

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) 
authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United 
Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent 
relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities 
that threaten international peace and security, including the 
development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or 
obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation 
of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression 
of its civilian population in violation of United Nations 
Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors 
or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United 
Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994); 

Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against 
Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1), Congress has authorized 
the President ‘‘to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to 
United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order 
to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 
661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677’’; 

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that 
it ‘‘supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals 
of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent 
with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against 

Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1),’’ that Iraq’s repression of 
its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council 
Resolution 688 and ‘‘constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, 
security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,’’ and that Congress, 
‘‘supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the 
goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688’’; 

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105–338) 
expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy 
of the United States to support efforts to remove from power 
the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic 
government to replace that regime; 

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the 
United States to ‘‘work with the United Nations Security Council 
to meet our common challenge’’ posed by Iraq and to ‘‘work 
for the necessary resolutions,’’ while also making clear that ‘‘the 
Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just 
demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be 
unavoidable’’; 

Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war 
on terrorism and Iraq’s ongoing support for international terrorist 
groups combined with its development of weapons of mass 
destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 
cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions 
make clear that it is in the national security interests of the 
United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that 
all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be 
enforced, including through the use of force if necessary; 

Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war 
on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding 
requested by the President to take the necessary actions against 
international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including 
those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, 
committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 
11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations; 

Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue 
to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists 
and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, 
or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided 
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or 
harbored such persons or organizations; 

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to 
take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international 
terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in 
the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force 
(Public Law 107–40); and 

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States 
to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf 
region: Now, therefore, be it 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Authorization for 
Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002’’. 

SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS. 

The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by 
the President to— 

(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security 
Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq 
and encourages him in those efforts; and 

(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security 
Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, 
evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies 
with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. 

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. 

(a) AUTHORIZATION.—The President is authorized to use the 
Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary 
and appropriate in order to— 

(1) defend the national security of the United States against 
the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and 

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council 
resolutions regarding Iraq. 

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.—In connection with the 
exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force 
the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter 
as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising 
such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his 
determination that— 

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic 
or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately 
protect the national security of the United States against the 
continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead 
to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council 
resolutions regarding Iraq; and 

(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent 
with the United States and other countries continuing to take 
the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist 
organizations, including those nations, organizations, or 
persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist 
attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. 

(c) WAR POWERS RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS.— 

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION.—Consistent with 
section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress 
declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory 
authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the 
War Powers Resolution. 

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS.—Nothing in 
this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War 
Powers Resolution. 

SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS. 

(a) REPORTS.—The President shall, at least once every 60 days, President. 
submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint 
resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of 
authority granted in section 3 and the status of planning for efforts 
that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, 
including those actions described in section 7 of the Iraq Liberation 
Act of 1998 (Public Law 105–338). 

(b) SINGLE CONSOLIDATED REPORT.—To the extent that the 
submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with 
the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this 
joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress 
pursuant to the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution 
(Public Law 93–148), all such reports may be submitted as 
a single consolidated report to the Congress. 

(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—To the extent that the information 
required by section 3 of the Authorization for Use of Military 
Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1) is included in 
the report required by this section, such report shall be considered 
as meeting the requirements of section 3 of such resolution. 

Approved October 16, 2002. 

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY—H.J. Res. 114 (S.J. Res. 45) (S.J. Res. 46): 

HOUSE REPORTS: No. 107–721 (Comm. on International Relations). 

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 148 (2002): 

Oct. 8, 9, considered in House. 

Oct. 10, considered and passed House and Senate. 
WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS, Vol. 38 (2002): 

Oct. 16, Presidential remarks and statement. 

The War in Iraq Revisited

War On Terror

Investors Business Daily (editorial)

The Islamic State somehow now possesses the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein never had. If the U.S. had finished the job in Iraq, neither IS nor its WMD would exist.

The New York Times boasts admittedly great reportorial skill, but the Old Gray Lady has a lot of trouble connecting the dots of what she uncovers.

A massive eight-part front-page extravaganza on Iraqi chemical weapons on Tuesday reported that during the Iraq War, U.S. forces found "roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs," sickening numerous soldiers, who were then ordered not to talk.

But in a story dripping in supposed irony, the Times never puts two and two together: If stumbling upon Saddam Hussein's buried WMD made our troops ill, what could he have done had he been allowed to recover what he buried? After all, 5,000 Kurds and thousands of Iranian troops were gassed by Saddam in the mid-1980s during the Iran-Iraq War.

The Times also never notices a particularly weighty gorilla in the room: At the Persian Gulf War's conclusion back in 1991, United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 required Iraq to "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless" of all its chemical and biological weaponry.

In 1997, of course, Saddam began closing down WMD inspections by the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, accusing it of being a U.S. spy agency.

The so-called "rush to war" with Iraq after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that critics of Bush's invasion talk about, charging it was all based on misinformation, actually took place over some 12 years, during which the civilized world patiently stood by amidst 17 U.N. resolutions against Saddam, all of which were based on widely accepted fact and Saddam's documented mischief.

It wasn't George W. Bush or neocon icon Paul Wolfowitz who described the "kind of threat Iraq poses now" as being "a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists." President Bill Clinton did — in 1998.

Nor did Bush say, "Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program," and, "if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." That was then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2002.

Bush didn't say in 1998: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology ... and he has made a mockery of the weapons-inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi did.

No wonder more than 50 countries supported the U.S. liberation of Iraq in 2003, dwarfing the international coalition that went to war to reverse Saddam's invasion of Kuwait more than a decade earlier.

When the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed Res. 1441, "a final opportunity" for Saddam to disarm in November 2002, all it wanted to lift sanctions and avoid war was overflights and unannounced inspections. Saddam refused, knowing WMD would be found.

Now that the chemical weapons that weren't really there are in the hands of the Islamic State monster that has emerged after Obama's premature military withdrawal from Iraq, how many of the Democrats quoted above wish their president had not dismantled the victory Bush left for him?

Lying Bastards - Part 3

Isaac Shows Media Bias Of Hurricane Proportions

Posted 08/28/2012
IBD Editorial

School buses that could have evacuated 15,000 people in one trip sat idle in water up to their headlights during Katrina. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Press: As Isaac bore down on New Orleans, the administration's media toadies preferred to talk not about substantive issues, but on how the "shadow of Bush and Katrina" hung over the delayed GOP convention in Tampa.

Those in the press whose legs tingle at every administration utterance apparently share the view that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Isaac, barely making it as a hurricane, was seen as yet another chance to blame George W. Bush for something and resurrect media falsehoods about Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans seven years ago.

The Republican National Convention was pushed back a day by Isaac's threat, and NBC's chief White House correspondent, Chuck Todd, accomplished an amazing feat by managing to insert not only Katrina but also the controversy over GOP Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin into his GOP convention coverage.

On the Sunday broadcast of the NBC Nightly News, Todd noted that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney had garnered "a little bit of momentum after the (Paul) Ryan pick, and then he's interrupted by two storms — one a political storm in Todd Akin, which we just brought up, but now an actual storm."

Todd then opined that "as this storm moves closer to Louisiana, the specter, the sort of shadow of Bush and Katrina does hang over this convention." So does the stench of media bias.

Todd, like the media during their original Katrina Bush-bashing, ignore the fact that much of the Katrina snafus should have been laid at the feet of New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, a Democrat, and the equally clueless Democratic governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

Fact is, President Bush declared the state of Louisiana a disaster area 48 hours before Katrina made landfall and asked Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans on Aug. 27, a full two days before the hurricane hit.

Neither Blanco nor Nagin ordered city buses to help evacuate those residents who couldn't leave on their own even though the city's own emergency plan mandated it and acknowledged there were at least 100,000 people who couldn't make it out without help.

We ran a photo of New Orleans buses sitting in a lot filled with four feet water, buses that could have evacuated 15,000 people in just one trip. Either Blanco or Nagin could have ordered their deployment, but didn't.

After not evacuating the city, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security blocked a convoy of Red Cross trucks filled with water, food, blankets and hygiene items from the New Orleans Superdome after Katrina struck. The rationale: It would have encouraged refugees to stay there.

This, of course, was all Bush's fault. This week, NBC's Andrea Mitchell offered that there was "a political challenge here with this approaching storm, especially for the Republicans. No one here can easily forget the iconic picture of President Bush flying on Air Force One ... looking down at New Orleans during Katrina."

Certainly not the media that ABC's Jake Tapper says "tipped the scales" for Obama in the 2008 campaign. "Sometimes I saw with story selection, magazine covers, photos picked, (the) campaign narrative, that it wasn't always the fairest coverage."

Isaac gives them another chance to tip the scales for Obama.

You will not see many, if any, stories about the economic devastation caused by this administration's economic and fiscal policies, of a jobless America waiting to be rescued from the Category 5 creeping socialism and crushing taxation and regulation caused by a hurricane named Barack.

bin Laden Dead --- Thank Bush

Credit Where Credit Is Also Due

 Posted 05/02/2011 06:44 PM ET

National Security: The decidedly non-multilateral killing of Osama bin Laden came after a long hunt. President Obama took credit, but it was George W. Bush's detainment and interrogation policies that provided the big break.

The courier was the key. He goes into the history books with the prothonotary warbler, the rare bird that exposed Alger Hiss as a communist spy.

And with Iraq's Tikriti tribe, the source of the breakthrough that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein.

And with David Kaczynski, the brother of the Unabomber, whose tip led the FBI to a remote Montana cabin where the convicted mass murderer had a live bomb ready to mail to another unsuspecting victim.

It was in 2007 during the Bush presidency that the U.S. discovered the real name of bin Laden's secret courier. We originally knew of him from captured terrorists held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, who told U.S. interrogators his nom de guerre earlier in Bush's term.

Interrogations revealed the courier to be a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Indeed, it might be that KSM himself, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was the source of the information — perhaps after being waterboarded.

What was Barack Obama doing in 2007? He was complaining in campaign speeches that the Bush administration had failed "to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005."

As it turns out, the Bush administration in 2007 was gathering information that would be used less than four years later to eliminate bin Laden during the Obama presidency.

Then-Sen. Obama promised that "if we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and (then-Pakistani) President Musharraf won't act, we will."

But it was Bush's policies that facilitated the gathering of the actionable intelligence President Obama used.

Gitmo — which candidate Obama vowed to close within a year of taking office — came in pretty handy. So have the much-condemned interrogation methods authorized during the Bush administration — methods for which Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, was all set to prosecute U.S. personnel.

Bush used an executive order to allow broad legal boundaries for tough interrogations; Obama on his first day in office revoked that order and restricted interrogators to outdated Army Field Manual procedures.

Bush suspended terrorist detainees' habeas corpus rights; the Obama administration read the Christmas Day underwear bomber his Miranda rights.

Turning to the spectacular Navy SEALs operation itself, Obama administration officials made a point of saying that the U.S. didn't share intelligence with any other country, and alerted the Pakistani government only after the operation was completed — no multilateralism here.

Candidate Obama might have promised in his much-celebrated 2007 Foreign Affairs magazine article that "I will join with our allies in insisting — not simply requesting — that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups."

But getting bin Laden ended up having nothing to do with cooperation with Pakistan and everything to do with the U.S. doing things its own way, and alone — from the Gitmo interrogation condemned by much of the world to unleashing the SEALs and letting them work unilaterally, and without interference.

Democrats, Obama chief among them, for years blasted Bush for not bagging bin Laden.

"We cannot finish the fight in Afghanistan and focus on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida's core leadership unless we end this war that should've never been authorized," candidate Obama said.

But the Bush administration was conducting the surge in Iraq at the time the bin Laden courier's identity was discovered. So much for that theory.

As well as uncovering the information that led to bin Laden's capture, Bush presided over two-thirds of al-Qaida's leaders being captured or killed within three years after 9/11. Just as winning World War II didn't entail capturing or killing Hitler or Tojo, winning the global war on terrorism hasn't been accomplished by the killing of a man who for years has functioned as a seldom-seen figurehead.

In announcing bin Laden's demise — in which he inexcusably failed to thank Bush — Obama said "America can do whatever we set our mind to."

This great victory for U.S. military and intelligence personnel happened because we let them set their minds to it. We let them do their jobs over the course of years — without other countries or Justice Department lawyers interfering.

In other words, America did it Bush's way.

Why Obama Should Be Impeached Now!

Stop Blaming the CIA

by Marc Thiessen

The president is wrong to scapegoat the intelligence agency for failing to connect the dots on the Christmas bomber. Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen on why Obama’s early moves tied our hands in the war on terror.

The report released by the White House Thursday into the failure to stop al Qaeda’s attempt to blow up a passenger plane over Detroit found a number of mistakes were made—including the misspelling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s name and the failure to put him on the no-fly list. But the ultimate failure was much larger. According to the New York Times, “The report concluded that the government’s counterterrorism operations had been caught off guard by the sophistication and strength of a Qaeda cell in Yemen, where officials say the plot against the United States originated.”

President Obama laid blame for this failure on the agency he has put under siege since his second day in office: the CIA. “This was not a failure to collect intelligence,” he declared this week, “it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence we had …. That’s not acceptable and I will not tolerate it.” But the President’s chief counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, told a different story, acknowledging that we did not, in fact, have all the intelligence we needed: “We did have the information throughout the course of the summer and fall about … plans to carry out attacks,” Brennan said. “We had snippets of information …. We may have had a partial name. We might have had an indication of a Nigerian. But there was nothing that brought it all together.”

The ability to detain and question senior terrorist operatives is not a luxury we can do without; it is essential to preventing new attacks on our country.

The question is: why did we have nothing that brought all the “snippets” of information together? Because within 48 hours after taking office, President Obama eliminated the only tool that would allow the intelligence community to do so: the CIA program to interrogate senior terrorist leaders. Thanks to Obama, America no longer have the capability to detain and question the only individuals who know how the information fits together—the terrorists themselves.

In the age of terror, our enemies do not have large armies or flotillas of warships that can be observed by spies or tracked by satellites. Instead, the terrorists conspire in secret, hide among civilians, and attack us from within. Their plans to kill innocent men, women, and children are known only to a handful of cruel men.

This means there are essentially three ways to gain information about terrorist attacks:

The first, and hardest, is to penetrate the enemy. This can be done, but it is no easy task. Al Qaeda is a small, secretive network of Arab extremists that is extremely suspicious of outsiders. And we saw this week just how difficult it is to penetrate their ranks. The terrorist who blew up a CIA base in Afghanistan—killing seven operatives—turns out to have been a double agent, a trusted source who was really working for the enemy.

The second method is “signals intelligence”—using advanced technology to intercept and monitor the enemy’s electronic communications. Signals intelligence has been essential to the fight against terror, but it has inherent limitations. When intelligence officials monitor terrorist communications, they are passive listeners to the conversations of others. They cannot ask questions, probe for additional information, or sometimes even identify voices or email addresses in intercepted communications. Moreover, the terrorists know they are being monitored, so they are careful to speak codes that are difficult to break without inside information.

This leaves only one other human intelligence tool: interrogation. The interrogation of senior terrorist leaders has distinct advantages over other forms human intelligence. It allows our intelligence professionals to ask the terrorists direct questions. Because terrorists are held in secret and cut off from the outside world, CIA officials can expose sensitive intelligence to them during questioning without fear it will get back to terrorists at large. CIA officials can use information gained from one detainee to question other detainees—and then go back and confront the first detainee with what they learned. Captured terrorists can also help the CIA verify whether the sources we recruit inside al Qaeda are trustworthy, and providing reliable information. They can identify voices in phone calls and email addresses, and decipher enemy codes that would otherwise remain a mystery. No other tool provides our intelligence community with this kind of dynamic flexibility.

Moreover, while signals intelligence or sources can give us the “snippets of information” Brennan says we had about the Detroit attack, only the interrogation of captured terrorists can give us the full picture we were lacking in this case—the information needed to prevent attacks. As former CIA Director Mike Hayden explained in an interview for my book, Courting Disaster, “Intelligence is like putting a puzzle together and never being allowed to see the picture on the cover of the box. The people who got into the CIA program were, by definition, senior leaders. They had seen the cover. And so, they were valued for more than the fact that they knew data. They knew what the final picture roughly looked like.”

In other words, a captured terrorist can do more than give the CIA additional pieces of the puzzle; he can tell the agency how all the various pieces of the puzzle fit together. He can show us the cover of the box.

According to recently declassified CIA documents, after 9/11, there were two terrorist networks at large that were planning new attacks on America: the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed network that planned the 9/11 attacks (and had set in motion plots to fly planes in to Heathrow airport and blow up the U.S. consulate in Karachi), and the “Hambali network” which KSM had tasked to hijack an airplane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles. We knew virtually nothing about these two networks or their plans—until KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders provided information under CIA questioning that allowed us to dismantle them. (I can already hear the howls of protest from liberals who argue that no useful intel ever came from an enhanced interrogation technique. But they apparently never bothered to read theevidence to the contrary).

Now, eight years after 9/11, we face a new terror network—a mysterious branch of al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula that almost succeeded in bringing down a commercial airliner over one of America’s largest cities. By the Obama administration’s own admission, we know very little about this network or its plans to attack America. The reason is because we are not trying to capture the leaders of this network alive, and bring them in for interrogation so they can show us to cover of the box.

The ability to detain and question senior terrorist operatives is not a luxury we can do without; it is essential to preventing new attacks on our country. This is something John Brennan once understood. Asked in a 2007 interview if enhanced interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, Brennan replied: “Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes.”

On his second day in office Obama eliminated this capability—and this, in his own advisor’s assessment, handicapped our country in the fight against terror. Indeed, President Obama has admitted as much. Speaking at the CIA soon after shutting down the CIA interrogation program, Obama told officials, “I’m sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back … So yes, you’ve got a harder job. And so do I. And that’s okay.”

It’s not okay, Mr. President. It almost caused another attack.

Marc Thiessen’s new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack, will be published by Regnery on January 18th.

Bush Got It Right - Obama Gets It Wrong! And It Just Might Kill You!

January 18, 2010, 4:00 a.m.

Meet the Real Jack Bauers
In Courting Disaster, the real CIA interrogators explain why their methods bear no resemblance to what you see on Fox’s 24.

By Marc A. Thiessen

National Review Online

This week saw the premiere of a new season of 24, with CTU agent Jack Bauer preparing to leave the world of counterterrorism for a quiet life as a grandfather in Los Angeles. But he is pulled back into the fight to stop the attempted assassination of a Middle Eastern leader in New York. As he questions an informant, he thrusts a gun into the man’s neck but then pulls back, telling him, “You’re lucky I’m retired.” In another time, the man would have suffered far worse.

The public view of interrogations had been shaped by the fictional Bauer, who captures a terrorist and proceeds to torture him — holding down his head in a bathtub full of water, using a Taser to shock him, lopping off his fingers with a cigar cutter — while screaming questions until the terrorist finally breaks and gives up the location of the nuclear bomb that is about to go off.

For some critics of U.S. interrogation policy, this is not fiction, but a depiction of reality. In Newsweek, Dahlia Lithwick has written that “high-ranking lawyers in the Bush administration erected an entire torture policy around the fictional edifice of Jack Bauer.” And Philippe Sands, author of the book Torture Team, has written that the show has been the “midwife” for torture’s “actual use on real, living human beings.” None of this is true.

Unlike these critics, I have had the chance to actually meet the real Jack Bauers — the CIA officials who questioned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other senior terrorist leaders and got them to reveal their plans for new terrorist attacks. They explained to me why their approach has nothing in common with the methods used by Bauer on the fictional 24.

On July 31, 2006, I walked up the winding stairs of the Eisenhower Building to a secure conference room in the offices of the National Security Council’s intelligence directorate. I had been assigned to write a speech for President Bush acknowledging the existence of what was then the most highly classified program in the war on terror: the CIA program to detain and question captured terrorists. To write this speech, I was given access to some of the most sensitive intelligence our country possessed on the interrogation of senior al-Qaeda terrorists, as well as to intelligence officers who could explain to me how the program worked and why it had been successful in stopping new terrorist attacks.

Sitting across the table from me were several CIA officials, including two men I will call Harry and Sam (not their real names), I didn’t know anything about the individuals before me except that they were with the CIA and knowledgeable about the interrogation program.

As we began our discussion, I told them I believed the key to the success of the speech was to demonstrate the effectiveness of CIA interrogations with real, concrete examples of how the program saved lives. If Americans knew that CIA interrogations were effective, most would have no problem with the techniques the agency had employed. Some might even be shocked at how restrained they had been. Many Americans, I said, imagined that what went on at the CIA “black sites” mirrored what they saw on 24.


They began by clarifying precisely how the program actually worked. While 24 depicts violent scenes where interrogators inflict severe pain to get time-sensitive intelligence on terrorist dangers, in the real world, they told me, this is not how interrogations take place.

They explained, for example, that there is a difference between “interrogation” and “de-briefing.” Interrogation is not how we got information from the terrorists; it is the process by which we overcome the terrorists’ resistance and secure their cooperation — sometimes with the help of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Once the terrorist agreed to cooperate, I was told, the interrogation stopped and “de-briefing” began, as the terrorists were questioned by CIA analysts, using non-aggressive techniques to extract information that could help disrupt attacks.

The interrogation process was usually brief, they said. According to declassified documents, on average “the actual use of interrogation techniques covers a period of three to seven days, but can vary upwards to 15 days based on the resilience” of the terrorist in custody.

Most detainees, they told me, did not undergo it at all. Two-thirds of those brought into the CIA program did not require the use of any enhanced interrogation techniques. Just the experience of being brought into CIA custody — the “capture shock,” arrival at a sterile location, the isolation, the fact that they did not know where they were, and that no one else knew they were there — was enough to convince most of them to cooperate.

Others, like KSM, demonstrated extraordinary resistance. But even KSM’s interrogation did not take long before he moved into debriefing. He had been captured in early March, they said, and before the end of the month he had already provided information on a plot to fly airplanes into London’s Heathrow airport.

As they described the information the CIA had gotten from KSM and others, I slowly realized that these men were not simply describing what others in the agency had done; I was sitting face to face with the individuals who had actually questioned terrorists at the CIA’s black sites and gotten the information they were describing to me themselves.

Harry, it turned out, had interrogated KSM. He explained that interrogations involved strict oversight. There was no freelancing allowed — every technique had to be approved in advance by headquarters, and any deviation from the meticulously developed interrogation plan would lead to the immediate removal of the interrogator.

Harry said the average age of CIA interrogators was 43 and that each interrogator received 250 hours of training before being allowed to come in contact with a terrorist. And even after that, he said, they had to complete another 20 hours working together with an experienced interrogator before they could lead an interrogation on their own. Contrary to the claims later made by some critics, such as FBI agent Ali Soufan, the CIA did not send a bunch of inexperienced people to question high-value detainees.

Harry explained that the interrogations were not violent, as some imagined. He said that the interrogators’ credo was to use “the least coercive method necessary” and that “each of us is put through the measures so we can feel it.” He added: “It is very respectful. The detainee knows that we are not there to gratuitously inflict pain. He knows what he needs to do to stop. We see each other as professional adversaries in war.” (Indeed, Mike Hayden told me years later that KSM referred to Harry as “emir” — a title of great respect in the jihadist ranks.)

Critics have charged that enhanced interrogation techniques are not effective because those undergoing them will say anything to get them to stop. Soufan, the FBI agent and CIA critic, has written: “When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. . . . That means the information you’re getting is useless.”

What this statement reveals is that Soufan knows nothing about how the CIA actually employed enhanced interrogation techniques. In an interview for my book, former national-security adviser Steve Hadley explained to me, “The interrogation techniques were not to elicit information. So the whole argument that people tell you lies under torture misses the point.” Hadley said the purpose of the techniques was to “bring them to the point where they are willing to cooperate, and once they are willing to cooperate, then the techniques stop and you do all the things the FBI agents say you ought to do to build trust and all the rest.”


Former CIA director Mike Hayden explained to me that, as enhanced techniques are applied, CIA interrogators like Harry would ask detainees questions to which the interrogators already know the answers — allowing them to judge whether the detainees were being truthful and determine when the terrorists had reached a level of compliance. Hayden said, “They are designed to create a state of cooperation, not to get specific truthful answers to a specific question.”

Indeed, the first terrorist to be subjected to enhanced techniques, Zubaydah, told his interrogators something stunning. According to the Justice Department memos released by the Obama administration, Zubaydah explained that “brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.” In other words, the terrorists are called by their religious ideology to resist as far as they can — and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know.

Several senior officials told me that, after undergoing waterboarding, Zubaydah actually thanked his interrogators and said, “You must do this for all the brothers.” The enhanced interrogation techniques were a relief for Zubaydah, they said, because they lifted a moral burden from his shoulders — the responsibility to continue resisting.

The importance of this revelation cannot be overstated: Zubaydah had given the CIA the secret code for breaking al-Qaeda detainees. CIA officials now understood that the job of the interrogator was to give the captured terrorist something to resist, so he could do his duty to Allah and then feel liberated to speak. So they developed techniques that would allow terrorists to resist safely, without any lasting harm. Indeed, they specifically designed techniques to give the terrorists the false perception that what they were enduring was far worse than what was actually taking place.

Once interrogators like Harry had secured a detainee’s cooperation, the enhanced techniques stopped, and the de-briefers entered the picture. Sam was a de-briefer — a subject matter expert with years of experience studying and tracking al-Qaeda members. His expertise had contributed to the capture of the terrorists he was now questioning — and now he put that expertise to work to find out what they knew.

Like the interrogators, de-briefers were carefully selected and trained before coming into contact with a detainee. They knew each detainee’s personal history, and what information they should know — allowing them to hone in on key details, maintain a fast pace of questions, and verify the truthfulness of the terrorists’ responses.

Sam had spent countless hours with KSM and the other terrorists held by the agency. When he elicited new information, he and the other de-briefers did not simply take the terrorists at their word. They checked their statements against other forms of intelligence and information from other captured terrorists — and confronted the detainees with evidence when they were holding information back or trying to mislead them.

Indeed, one reason the program was so effective, Sam told me, is that the de-briefers had 24/7 access to the detainees, many of whom were held in the same location. This allowed de-briefers to play one terrorist against the other. If KSM told them something about another terrorist in their custody, they could immediately confront the other terrorist with KSM’s revelations and get him to provide more details — and then go back with that information to get more from KSM.

They did this to great effect — confronting KSM and others with the statements of other terrorists in CIA custody, and getting information that helped them unravel planned attacks. Harry and Sam walked me through specific examples of how the interrogations had helped disrupt a series of terrorist plots in this way, showing me how information from a particular terrorist custody had led to the capture of other specific individuals, who in turn led us to other individuals, until the plots had been disrupted. These disrupted plots are detailed in Courting Disaster.


For example, information from detainees in CIA custody led to the arrest of an al-Qaeda terrorist named Jose Padilla, who was sent to America on a mission to blow up high-rise apartment buildings in the United States.

Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of a cell of Southeast Asian terrorists which had been tasked by KSM to hijack a passenger jet and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles.

Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, KSM’s right-hand-man in the 9/11 attacks, just as he was finalizing plans for a plot to hijack airplanes in Europe and fly them into Heathrow airport and buildings in downtown London.

Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ammar al-Baluchi and Walid bin Attash, just as they were completing plans to replicate the destruction of our embassies in East Africa by blowing up the U.S. consulate and Western residences in Karachi, Pakistan.

Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the disruption of an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, in an attack that could have rivaled the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Information from detainees in CIA custody helped break up an al-Qaeda cell that was developing anthrax for terrorist attacks inside the United States.

In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al-Qaeda — giving U.S. officials a picture of the terrorist organization as seen from the inside, at a time when we knew almost nothing about the enemy who had attacked us on 9/11.

In addition, CIA detainees helped identify some 86 individuals whom al-Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations — most of whom we had never heard of before. According to the intelligence community, about half of these individuals were subsequently tracked down and taken off the battlefield. Without CIA questioning, many of these terrorists could still be unknown to us and at large — and may well have carried out attacks against the West by now.

Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, well over half of the information our government had about al-Qaeda — how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks — came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.

Another reason the program was so effective, Harry and Sam explained, was that because the terrorists were in a secure location, CIA officials could also expose sensitive information to them — asking them to explain the meaning of materials captured in terrorist raids, and to indentify phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and voices in recordings of intercepted communications. This could never be done if the terrorists were being held in a facility where they had regular contact with the outside world. The danger of this information getting out would have been far too great.

Harry and Sam told me that the agency believed without the program the terrorists would have succeeded in striking our country again.

Harry put it bluntly: “It is the reason we have not had another 9/11.”


Their work was vital, but it was not easy. They took great care to stay within the confines of the law and to ensure the safety of those in their custody. For their efforts, they have been vilified as torturers by critics who know next to nothing about what went on at the “black sites” where they worked. In 2005, CIA director Porter Goss tapped two outside officials to conduct a review of the effectiveness of the CIA interrogation program: Gardner Peckham, the former national-security adviser to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and John Hamre, former deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. Both spent several months at CIA headquarters studying the program and meeting with officials involved.

Peckham recalls having a long conversation late one night with one of the interrogators when he was conducting his review. This was “a very dedicated, capable guy who told me that he had been in with KSM one day, and KSM had basically said to him matter-of-factly, ‘If I ever get out of this hole, I’m going to kill you and your entire family.’ We were sitting there at nine o’clock at night or something, and he said to me, ‘You know, I work long days; this is hard. When I get down about it, I just think back to the film footage of the two people standing on the window of the World Trade Center on the 90-something floor, grasping each other by the hand and stepping out into space.’ He said, ‘I think of those two people, and I just go back to work.’”

Peckham says, “That really got to me. That level of dedication. These guys knew they were, in a lot of ways, limiting their futures by doing this kind of work, I think.They were risking something. But they knew a lot of other people were risking things too. And they knew it was important work, and I just have an enormous amount of respect for the people who are in this program. And I have such profound disrespect for those who ran for the tall grass when it started to become exposed, and even less regard for those who now seek to take political advantage of it.”

— Marc Thiessen is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. This article is adapted from his new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, released this week by Regnery. For more information visit: www.courtingdisaster.net