British deny George Bush's claims that torture helped foil terror plots

[Vekseid]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/09/british-deny-bush-claims-foil-terror

...

British counter-terrorism officials distanced themselves from Bush's claims. They said Mohammed provided "extremely valuable" information which was passed on to security and intelligence agencies, but that it mainly related to al-Qaida's structure and was not known to have been extracted through torture. Eliza Manningham-Buller,head of MI5 at the time, said earlier this year that the government protested to the US over the torture of terror suspects, but that the Americans concealed Mohammed's waterboarding from Britain. Officials said today the US still had not officially told the British government about the conditions in which Mohammed was held.

Kim Howells, former chairman of the Commons intelligence and security committee and Labour foreign minister, told the BBC that, while he did not doubt the existence of plots, he doubted whether waterboarding provided information instrumental in preventing them coming to fruition.

David Davis, the Conservative former shadow home secretary, said: "For [Bush] to demonstrate the use of torture saved British lives he has to demonstrate you can't get information any other way." He added: "We know from Iraq that whenever brains rather than brutality was involved, you get better results." Davis pointed to claims made by one detainee, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, after he was tortured that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, both of which have proved not to be true.

Bush also mentioned Abu Zubaydah, waterboarded after his capture in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaydah told his interrogators that al-Qaida had links with Saddam Hussein and that there was a plot to attack Washington with a "dirty bomb". Both claims are now recognised by the CIA to be false.

...

Bush admitting to authorizing torture may come to haunt him. Probably not during a weaker administration, but still.

[Callie Del Noire]

I think there are a lot of things that could come back to haunt the Bush administration. My personal wish is that the real people who outed Valerie Plame come to light. (Sorry not buying that 'Scooter' Libby did it on his own. Someone higher up decided to do her dirty. I want them to get what is coming to them.)

[mystictiger]

It was a rare thing to see politicians from all three main parties as well as serving and former security heads say "You know what George? Yer wrong". It's extremely rare to have that kind of tripartisan support, and also having backing from our spooks.

This would be like... Hm. Palin, Wolfowitz, and Jesse Jackson agreeing on something.