Former CIA Operative Regrets Waterboarding Suspected Terrorists

SPECIAL REPORT

He is known among family and friends as Stephen, but after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks he went to work for the CIA as a deep cover operative even going so far as to change his name to “Steve”. He served in the front lines in the Global War on Terrorism in such hotspots as Al Khandahar and Herat. Whenever Special Forces or intelligence agents brought a suspected terrorist to Steve it was his job to break them…FAST.

“We were pretty sure they had follow-on operations in the works,” Steve tells this reporter. “They had a strategic momentum they had to keep-up if they didn’t want to be seen as a one trick pony. Lives were at stake and we were desperate.”

And it was in this climate of fear and desperation that Steve admits “mistakes were made.” Among the many techniques employed by Steve and his fellow CIA operatives–from sleep deprivation to blaring Swedish death metal music and unusually cold rooms–waterboarding has received the widest criticism. Some even go so far as to call it torture.

“Yeah, we did it,” he admits with a trembling in his voice. “but now I look back and I think, how could we have been so blind?”

Steve goes into lengths–as if speaking to a priest from within a confessional–talking about how the controversial interrogation method yielded a vast treasure trove of intelligence about an Al Qaeda operation moving into its execution phase. “There’s no doubt about it; they were going to hit Los Angeles.”

Indeed that is the damning spiritual indictment Steve wrestles with everyday, “We stopped [Al Qaeda] from blowing-up a city that is selling tickets to see a doped-up pedophile buried in a gold coffin. Everyday I have to live with that fact and I’m ashamed of it.

“We risked our lives, our reputations and legal prosecution for this? I don’t know what the president was selling to the American people at the time but that’s not why I joined.”

Former Prosecutor’s Statement on Iraq War Crimes Leaves WH ‘Deeply Troubled’

The worst crime? Cheney once visited the ICC, got a cup of coffee and didn't leave money in the kitty.

The Hague, Netherlands – In a recent interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide former chief international war crimes prosecutor and international law expert Richard Goldstone told the studio audience that allegations of war crimes perpetrated by the former Bush administration and its officials, “just doesn’t add up.”

The White House immediately released a statement saying the president was “deeply troubled” and “saddened by this development.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the president was meeting with a team of his top advisers to discuss the crisis. “I would describe the president as fully engaged in this situation,” Gibbs said while taking questions from reporters. “The president is not about to allow America to suffer such a devastating blow to its sense of shame and self-loathing if he has anything to say about it.”

At the Department of Justice, US Attorney General Eric Holder was not so reserved with his choice of words. “Aw, damn it!”

Rep. John Conyers (D – MI) chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which had held a mock impeachment trial of former president Bush, was said by friends to be “inconsolable.”

“He hasn’t been this despondent since they cancelled Dawson’s Creek,” said a senior aide standing outside the coat closet.

Professional war protester Cindy Sheehan dismissed the report saying, “I suppose next he’ll try and tell us the Jews had nothing to do with the Iraq war.” Sheehan’s close political confidant, Medea Benjamin was overheard lamenting, “What the hell am I supposed to do with all these t-shirts!”

In Other News:

Obama Swats Fly

"I won."

Advcocates of the president’s national defense policies cited the action as a manifest projection of “smart power” and a decisive refutation of critics’ claims that the president doesn’t “get tough.”

The fly was expected to make a full recovery.

 

Michelle Obama Spruces Up Gitmo

Mary, Mary quite contrary...

The International Committee for the Red Cross calls it, “Good enough for us.”