Sunday, April 29, 2012

"60 Minutes" on CIA interrogation techniques on April 29, 2012

In the first story, Lesley Stahl interviews Jose Rodriguez, related to his book "Hard Measures." Rodriguez noted: the dark side, that's what we do.

The topic of "black site" arose. Abu Zubaydah was interrogated first by the FBI, using traditional methods of questioning. Rodriguez felt a ticking time bomb, and proposed an alternative set of interrogation procedures. 9/11 as a failure of imagination. Rodriguez said the CIA did not have a failure of imagination in 2002. Rodriguez got everyone to put on "their big boy pants" and thus no plausible deniability. There was a DoJ memo on 1 August 2002. Rodriguez described waterboarding, giving a sensation of drowning. Nudity was employed. "Cramped confinement box with an insect." Water applied from a height of 12 to 24 inches in water boarding. Insult slap. Sleep deprivation. Rodriguez: this program was not about hurting anyone, rather instilling a feeling of hopelessness and despair.
FBI interrogators say everything important was given up by Abu BEFORE the CIA started with their methods.

In the second portion of the story, Stahl interviews Rodriguez about the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM]. The CIA had access to aircraft to take suspects to a variety of "black sites." KSM was captured in 2003. KSM wanted a lawyer, and to go to New York. KSM was denied sleep for 180 hours in a row. And 183 pourings of water (average 10 sec) in water boarding. KSM knew that the water would stop at about 10 seconds. KSM ate ENSURE. Lesley: this is Orwellian stuff; the United States doesn't do that. Lesley asked if the plots could have been stopped WITHOUT waterboarding. The CIA inspector general said the water boarding did NOT stop any imminent attack. Lesley said the truth is you didn't break KSM.

Rodriguez retired from the CIA in January 2008. His book is published by Simon & Shuster, an affiliate of CBS. Rodriguez talked about the pointy end of the sphere. McCain: it's killing us that America is stooping to the level of our worst enemies.

Morley Safer did the story "Hooked" on analysis of addiction with an interview with Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA]. Release of dopamine. Research on receptors. In addicts, the number of dopamine receptors is diminished. Frontal cortex is related to free will. Marijuana use among high school students: 1 in 3. And prescriptions for vicodin, oxycontin are on the rise. Overdoses from pain pills killed 15,000 people in a year's time.

Volkow's great grandfather was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky arrived in Mexico in 1936. Esteban Volkow, the father of Nora, is the grandson of Trotsky. August 20, 1940: Trotsky killed with an ice axe.

Volkow is working on vaccines to keep drugs from entering the brain.

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