I would have posted yesterday or earlier today about the Navy Seals killing Osama Bin Laden and then dumping his body off an aircraft carrier but I was on leave in Washington and was busy catching up with friends so I put this blog to the side. Since half my readers are the friends I was visiting I'm sure you all will forgive me.
The primary thing I want to say about this comes from one of my usual information sites, Wired.com. It discusses the intelligence work that went into getting OBL and how it was an operation that took years, which doesn't surprise me. Catching the big fish normally takes a lot of time and effort. Some of the intelligence gathered came from interrogations that had started back in 2003 of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and in 2005 of aide to former Al Qaida #3 Abu Faraj al-Libbi. The key bit of intel on OBL gotten from these two was the name of one of OBL's couriers.
The article points out that the only bit of information obtained prior to 2007 on OBL's courier was his "abu" name, or in other words, the guy's nickname. Meaning that it is possible some of the information that led to OBL was obtained through torture. The CIA didn't get the courier's full name until 2007...after "harsh interrogation" techniques had ceased. So yes, a tiny piece of the puzzle was obtained through torture, however, anyone who as served in Iraq or Afghanistan will likely tell you that while an Abu name is nice, the real name is better and gets you farther.
Basically what I'm trying to say, and this article is saying, is that it wasn't torture that got us the boogeyman, it was damn good intel work.
More on the Osama situation tomorrow...or the day after, depends on how lazy I am.
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