TPM informs that there's a breaking story at
ABC.
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.
Spencer Ackerman astutely notes:
... First, Kiriakou's televised confession undermines CIA Director Michael Hayden's stated rationale for the destruction of interrogation videos. Hayden has said the tapes were destroyed to protect the identities of interrogators from al-Qaeda reprisal. Clearly Kiriakou doesn't feel that his life is in danger.
Second, Kiriakou also doesn't think that the torture was right, even if he says it had some intelligence value. It can't possibly be an easy thing for him to admit, and he has conflicting feelings about what he did.
Methinks that we are witnessing the beginning of the crack in the walls of the nuthouse administration. Witnesses on the record re: torture, revised NIE, what else is going to happen this week?
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