Kondracke repeated false claim that ABC News reported waterboarding produced useful intelligence

Roll Call executive editor Morton M. Kondracke misrepresented an ABC News report on CIA interrogations in his December 15 column (subscription required), claiming the network reported that, according to CIA officials, the waterboarding interrogation technique extracted "valuable information" from Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In fact, the November 18 ABC News report Kondracke cited indicated that the CIA officials reported "debatable results" from that interrogation. Kondracke referred to the ABC report in arguing against passage of Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) amendment that would prohibit cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations. Media Matters for America previously noted that a Wall Street Journal editorial similarly misrepresented ABC's reporting on CIA interrogations and waterboarding in arguing against passage of McCain's amendment.

Kondracke wrote, "According to ABC News, CIA officers said that the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative yet captured, Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, held out for two and a half minutes before begging to talk. The CIA claims it got valuable information from him."

However during the November 18 broadcast of ABC's World News Tonight, chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross reported that "CIA officers say 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk, with debatable results."

In a written report on its website discussing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, ABC cited "Two experienced officers [who] have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation."

Kondracke claimed that ABC News reported the CIA's success with the waterboarding technique as an argument against McCain's amendment, which "surely would fall under most definitions of 'cruel' or 'degrading' and would therefore be banned."

A segment on the December 5 edition of World News Tonight reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the claim that the use of six interrogation methods sanctioned by a presidential finding -- including waterboarding -- had extracted useful information from detainees. That report offered no indication that ABC News had done any independent reporting to verify or refute her claim.

In a similar argument against the McCain amendment published on December 13, a Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that ABC News reported that "11 of 12 captured al Qaeda kingpins who have talked only did so after being waterboarded." The Journal continued, "This would appear to contradict so many glib suggestions ... that such techniques 'just plain don't work.' The truth is that sometimes they do work." However as Media Matters noted, neither the December 5 nor November 18 ABC News segments reported that 11 out of 12 detainees talked after waterboarding. While the December 5 broadcast reported Rice's statement that the interrogation methods in question had extracted useable intelligence, it did not indicate that she was referring to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's waterboarding, nor did it verify her claim independently.

From the December 15 edition of Roll Call:

There's a question about whether waterboarding constitutes "torture" -- McCain says it does, while the administration apparently thinks it doesn't -- but it surely would fall under most definitions of "cruel" or "degrading" and would therefore be banned.

Waterboarding consists of tying a prisoner to an inclined board, wrapping his face with cellophane and pouring water on him, stimulating a gagging reflex and convincing the victim that he's drowning.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a reserve Naval Intelligence officer who's been subjected to the technique himself, told me that "everyone breaks" when waterboarded, usually in less than a minute, and that U.S. combat troops, pilots and others who might be captured routinely undergo the procedure as part of their training.

According to ABC News, CIA officers said that the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative yet captured, Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, held out for two and a half minutes before begging to talk. The CIA claims it got valuable information from him.

Clearly, the House and Senate Intelligence committees should determine whether waterboarding and other coercive techniques produce good information and should speak out if they don't.

From the November 18 broadcast of ABC's World News Tonight:

ROSS: The CIA sources say the sixth, and harshest, technique is called "waterboarding," in which a prisoner's face is covered with cellophane, and water is poured over it -- meant to trigger an unbearable gag reflex.

JOHN SIFTON (terrorism and counterterrorism researcher for Human Rights Watch): The person believes they're being killed, and as such, the thing really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.

ROSS: The CIA officers say 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk, with debatable results.

ROBERT BAER (former CIA case officer): You can get anybody to confess to anything, if the torture's bad enough.