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More from the Post. "In an interview, Kiriakou said he did not witness Abu Zubaida's waterboarding but was part of the interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan for weeks after his capture in that country in the spring of 2002." Observes a correspondent: "That is an extremely clever-sounding interview ... first, he's got the necessity defense down; second, he's got the finger-point, it-was-authorized defense down ( i.e. everything was cleared ...), PLUS he's a perfect spokesperson, because he declined to use the enhanced techniques himself. [...] This entire thing seems to be EXTREMELY carefully and thoughtfully choreographed. I'm sure they've had this plan in mind for years when the time came." Kiriakou, a former counter terrorism officer and interrogator in Pakistan, was a consultant to the film, the Kite Runner. More fromA leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.
In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.
"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline." [...]
Now retired, Kiriakou, who declined to use the enhanced interrogation techniques, says he has come to believe that water boarding is torture but that perhaps the circumstances warranted it. ...