In the Washington Post about the six Gitmo prisoners to be tried over 9/11:
The Bush administration announced yesterday that it intends to bring capital murder charges against half a dozen men allegedly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, based partly on information the men disclosed to FBI and military questioners without the use of coercive interrogation tactics.
The admissions made by the men — who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — played a key role in the government’s decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.
FBI and military interrogators who began work with the suspects in late 2006 called themselves the "Clean Team" and set as their goal the collection of virtually the same information the CIA had obtained from five of the six through duress at secret prisons.
To ensure that the data would not be tainted by allegations of torture or illegal coercion, the FBI and military team won the suspects’ trust over the past 16 months by using time-tested rapport-building techniques, the officials said.
Such decadence. No wonder people fear us.
H/T Noah
I would argue that the following excerpt from that same Washington Post article is critical to this whole thing:An unanswered question is whether the FBI and military interrogators could have extracted the same information without a road map from the CIA indicating what they might say. It also remains unknowable whether the detainees would have responded to a friendly approach without first receiving more aggressive treatment.
The process here seems a bit perverse, no? It’s like stealing a paper, and then throwing together some notes and outlines to make it look like you actually did the work. The FBI knew the answers they were looking for. That’s not investigative work.
Whether or not these guys are guilty is beside the point. The process was screwed up, and, accordingly, those outside the United States (and many INSIDE the United States) are not going to trust the results. That’s unfortunate.
I’d spill my guts too if I were forced to drink Starbucks coffee, and if they forced me to eat (NON-SHARIA) food from McD’s, Cinnibon, or BK, I’d even turn my own mother in!
i think that all this mess was created by some persons, bullshit. peace&love everybody