– Former CTC chief, Cofer Black, 60 Minutes last Sunday
Lawfare Blog has a roundup of some of the latest news regarding the “GWoT”:
The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson interviews Ali Soufan, the author of The Black Banners, on former CIA official Jose Rodriguez. And Jane Sutton of Reuters reports that defense counsel for the alleged 9/11 co-conspirators have requested that Rodriguez be called to testify in the military commission case.
Attorney for Abu Zubaydah Joseph Margulies has this op-ed in the LA Times urging the U.S. to charge his client with a crime. And CBS News interviewed Margulies as well.
In a Senate Judiciary Hearing, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the FBI is investigating how details about the Al Qaeda plot that was thwarted was leaked to the Associated Press. Michael Schmidt at the New York Times reports. And Corey Flintoff at NPR attempts to answer the question of why terrorists target planes, collecting responses from a number of analysts and scholars.
I’ve been going through The Black Banners, Courting Disaster, Hard Measures, The Interrogator (by Glen Carle), John Kiriakou’s The Reluctant Spy, The Hunt for KSM, and other related material to try and make sense of the discrepancies, alternate perspectives and accounts. So I’ve looked forward to Ali Soufan’s interview by Amy Davidson in wake of Rodriguez’s book.
Will Rodriguez answer back with a rebuttal?
Recent article co-authored by Glenn Carle. Unfortunately, all this opinion piece seems to do is launch into is the same broad-brushed hyperbole that sees no difference or distinction between the CTC’s EIT program and the Spanish Inquisition’s torture program. Danielle Celermajer and Glenn Carle want to talk in excess about the subject of torture. So…what exactly does their favorite pet peeve topic have to do with enhanced interrogation techniques? It’s like they’re piggybacking the controversy over the CIA’s CTC program to plug Carle’s book and the tortured topic of torture.
On a side note, check out Hank Crumpton’s new book, The Art of Intelligence:
At the heart of Mr. Crumpton’s memoir, “The Art of Intelligence,” is an engrossing tale of how a seasoned CIA officer spearheaded the first campaign in America’s war on terror. Under his direction, in the fall of 2001, small teams of CIA operatives and U.S. Special Forces, together with Afghan allies, came to kill thousands of al Qaeda and Taliban combatants and to break their hold on Afghanistan in less than three months. Even though Osama bin Laden slipped away, and the Taliban eventually returned to foment a new insurgency in Afghanistan, this ground-breaking campaign was a success beyond all reasonable expectations.
Daily Beast has an excerpt, recounting “the full story of the first American to die in combat in Afghanistan—and how his wife responded.”
It’s worth the read…and the remembrance.
Crumpton was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Lara Logan. In case you missed it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdkoqem9s1Y[/youtube]
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Wordsmith
hi,
go I understand that ALI SOUFAN HAS DOUBLE CROSS RODRIGUEZ?
I just heard him debate accusing him of lying.
and RODRIGUEZ answer him back and returned the favor,
I never could trust a double crosser,
bye