Topic: Newsmax
Fred Fleitz writes in an April 12 Newsmax column headlined "Here's What CIA's Brennan Forgets About Waterboarding":
CIA Director John Brennan is in the news lately because of comments he made over the weekend that he will not permit CIA officers under the next president to use "waterboarding," a controversial enhanced interrogation technique that has been successfully used to extract information about potential terrorist attacks from al-Qaida members.
Brennan's comments came in response to statements by Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump that they may use waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods against terrorist suspects to protect the American people and the U.S. homeland.
Actually, waterboarding was not "successful" against al-Qaida members. A Senate report found that the waterboarding used against three al-Qaida captives in the wake of 9/11 yielded no useful intelligence and lots of fabricated information. One captive, Abu Zubaydah, was waterboarded 83 times in one month, and the Senate report disputes CIA claims that he was a senior al-Qaida official and that he provided actionable information as a result of the waterboarding.
But never mind the facts: Fleitz goes on to sneer that Brennan is "partisan tool of the Obama administration" and his comments that he would not permit waterboarding again "are an obvious attempt to keep his job if Hillary Clinton wins in November."
Fleitz used to be managing editor for LIGNET, a "global intelligence and forecasting" service operated by Newsmax that appears to have gone defunct; the group's website is currently inaccesible.
