Fox News' Angle continues to use false comparison to downplay harsh interrogations

During the April 30 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk, chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle once again falsely compared the harsh techniques used in CIA interrogations of detainees to U.S. military training exercises. He asserted, "[M]ost of these techniques had been used on tens of thousands of American military for training purposes -- and that includes waterboarding -- so officials knew exactly how they worked. And if the methods are torture, it means we have been torturing our own military for years with the approval of Congress." However, as Media Matters for America has noted, officials familiar with both the techniques used in harsh interrogations and those used in military training programs have said that such a comparison is false; those who undergo certain interrogation techniques in such training programs are aware that there are safeguards and know they can stop the training immediately if necessary.

In his report, Angle further stated, "Those familiar with the program say first and foremost the harsh interrogations of just a few high-ranking terrorists yielded information that allowed the U.S. to disrupt a second-wave attack on the U.S. -- that was a plan to fly a plane into the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, a sort of West Coast 9-11, if you will." Angle did not mention, however, that this assertion conflicts with the chronology of events put forth on multiple occasions by the Bush administration, as Slate.com's Timothy Noah has documented. Indeed, as Media Matters has noted, the Bush administration said that the planned attack on the U.S. Bank Tower (then known as the Library Tower) was thwarted in February 2002 -- at least a month before Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee interrogated using the harsh techniques authorized by the Justice Department, was captured on March 28, 2002, and more than a year before Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the other detainee whose harsh interrogation is frequently credited with disrupting the plot, was captured in March 2003.

This is not the first time Angle has falsely equated military training exercises with harsh interrogations of terror suspects. On the April 20 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Angle asserted that "the odd thing ... is that President Obama has decided that waterboarding, which we have done, by the way, to thousands of our own people in the military -- pilots and Special Forces are often trained by being waterboarded. We've done it to thousands of our own people. He has decided it is too harsh to use on terrorists." Similarly, during the April 27 edition of Special Report, Angle asserted that "many of these techniques, including waterboarding, had been used in training for years on tens of thousands of American pilots and Navy SEALs."

From the April 30 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk:

JULIE BANDERAS (co-host): President Obama taking on the controversial issue of how to interrogate suspected terrorists. In his prime-time address, Mr. Obama explaining why the new administration has forbidden certain techniques like waterboarding. Listen.

OBAMA [video clip]: Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion. That's the opinion of many who have examined the topic.

BANDERAS: Jim Angle is live in our Washington bureau with more. You know, Jim, the president got a pretty pointed question last night, whether he had read the documents that Vice President Cheney argues are evidence that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques protected the nation from terrorist attacks and saved American lives.

ANGLE: That's right, Julie. And the president twice seemed to concede that CIA files do indeed contain evidence that the interrogations yielded important information, even as he argued banning the techniques was the best thing to do. Take a listen.

OBAMA [video clip]: I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways.

ANGLE: Now, those familiar with the interrogation program say that is not the case; that interrogators started with friendly persuasion and slowly escalated when high-ranking terrorists didn't cooperate, Julie.

BANDERAS: And Jim, the president didn't offer any examples of what kind of intelligence we got, but I understand that you got some of the information that we did get. What was that?

ANGLE: Well, that's right. Those familiar with the program say first and foremost the harsh interrogations of just a few high-ranking terrorists yielded information that allowed the U.S. to disrupt a second-wave attack on the U.S. -- that was a plan to fly a plane into the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, a sort of West Coast 9-11, if you will.

In addition, the interrogations helped uncover plots to attack U.S. Marines overseas, a U.S. consulate in Pakistan, and a plot to fly hijacked airliners into targets in London, as well as efforts by Al Qaeda to get biological weapons. So, clearly, information that saved many lives, Julie.

BANDERAS: All right, and the president once again also dismissed the legal memos that authorized the enhanced interrogation techniques. He said that he believes waterboarding, for instance, is indeed torture.

ANGLE: He did. If you look at the memos, though, you'll find detailed legal reasoning citing U.S. law and court cases about what constitutes torture and what does not. And, interestingly, those who wrote the memos set very tight controls on how the techniques were used in order to keep them legal in their view.

And remember, Julie, most of these techniques had been used on tens of thousands of American military for training purposes -- and that includes waterboarding -- so officials knew exactly how they worked. And if the methods are torture, it means we have been torturing our own military for years with the approval of Congress.