Marc Thiessen, who from 2001-2004 was Chief Speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld, and from 2004-2009 was a speechwriter for the Bush White House, has since Obama's inauguration, been a vociferous defender of human torture, even going so far as to claim that Americans who tortured are American Heros. More recently, while attempting to discredit a Washington Post article about torture's counter-productive effects in an article published at National Review Online, Thiessen rested on a false allegation previously promoted by the Bush Administration which had been thoroughly discredited.

On March 29, 2009, The Washington Post published an article detailing how the harsh interrogation methods used on Abu Zubaida had resulted in no actionable intelligence, and instead had caused him to give up false leads which tied up CIA resources.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
[. . .]
One connection Abu Zubaida had with al-Qaeda was a long relationship with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said. Mohammed had approached Abu Zubaida in the 1990s about finding financiers to support a suicide mission, involving a small plane, targeting the World Trade Center. Abu Zubaida declined but told him to try bin Laden, according to a law enforcement source.

Abu Zubaida quickly told U.S. interrogators of Mohammed and of others he knew to be in al-Qaeda, and he revealed the plans of the low-level operatives who fled Afghanistan with him. Some were intent on returning to target American forces with bombs; others wanted to strike on American soil again, according to military documents and law enforcement sources.

Such intelligence was significant but not blockbuster material. Frustrated, the Bush administration ratcheted up the pressure -- for the first time approving the use of increasingly harsh interrogations, including waterboarding.

Peter Finn and Joby Warrick, "Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots", Washington Post, March 29, 2009

The Left's assault on the CIA program continues with today's front-page story about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah: "Detainees Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots." The story, like so many on this program, is rife with errors and misinformation.

In fact, what Abu Zubaydah disclosed to the CIA during this period was that the fact that KSM was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and that his code name was "Muktar" -- something Zubaydah thought we already knew, but in fact we did not. Intelligence officials had been trying for months to figure out who "Muktar" was. This information provided by Zubaydah was a critical piece of the puzzle that allowed them to pursue and eventually capture KSM.

The first piece of the puzzle concerned some intriguing information associated with a person known as "Mukhtar" that the CIA had begun analyzing in April 2001.The CIA did not know who Mukhtar was at the time-only that he associated with al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah and that, based on the nature of the information, he was evidently involved in planning possible terrorist activities.

The second piece of the puzzle was some alarming information regarding KSM.On June 12,2001, a CIA report said that "Khaled"was actively recruiting people to travel outside Afghanistan, including to the United States where colleagues were reportedly already in the country to meet them, to carry out terrorist-related activities for Bin Ladin. CIA headquarters presumed from the details of the reporting that this person was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.In July, the same source was shown a series of photographs and identified a photograph of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the Khaled he had previously discussed.

The final piece of the puzzle arrived at the CIA's Bin Ladin unit on August 28 in a cable reporting that KSM's nickname was Mukhtar. No one made the connection to the reports about Mukhtar that had been circulated in the spring. This connection might also have underscored concern about the June reporting that KSM was recruiting terrorists to travel,including to the United States. Only after 9/11 would it be discovered that Muhktar/KSM had communicated with a phone that was used by Binalshibh, and that Binalshibh had used the same phone to communicate with Moussaoui, as discussed in chapter 7. As in the Moussaoui situation already described,the links to Binalshibh might not have been an easy trail to find and would have required substantial cooperation from the German government. But time was short, and running out.

Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Official Government Edition; Chapter 8: The System Was Blinking Red; pg 277

• Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer, "Secret World of Detainees Grows More Public", Washington Post, September 7, 2006
• Mark Mazzetti, "Questions Raised About Bush's Primary Claims in Defense of Secret Detention System", New York Times, September 8, 2006