THE KILLING of Osama Bin Laden has sparked a fierce debate over whether the Bush administration’s use of torture began the process that led to his death.
It also pits the CIA – both anonymous intelligence officers and at least one identified former agent — against the White House.
Jose Rodriguez, who ran the CIA's counter-terrorism centre in the early 2000s and was investigated and cleared of destroying videos of interrogations, told Timemagazine that "information provided by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi about bin Laden's courier was the lead information that eventually led ... to his death".
President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee Dianne Feinsten, the National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor and press secretary Jay Carney have all rejected the idea that torture made it possible to track down and kill bin Laden.
Former vice-president Dick Cheney started the torture debate when he told ABC television that “it wouldn’t be surprising if in fact that enhanced interrogation techniques [water boarding and other forms of torture] programme produced results that ultimately contributed to the success of this venture”. Mr Cheney, like John Yoo, the Bush-era justice department official who drew up legal justification, says bin Laden’s killing proves the US should resume torture.
"President George W Bush, not his successor, constructed the interrogation and warrantless surveillance programmes that produced this week's actionable intelligence," Mr Yoo wrote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.
Noting that Mr Obama has given up closing Guantánamo or trying terrorism suspects in civilian courts, Mr Yoo said: “Mr Obama’s policies now differ from their Bush counterparts mainly on the issue of interrogation.”
The US should have captured bin Laden alive to extract information from him, Mr Yoo wrote.