George Tenet: Terrorist Interrogations Saved Lives

Last September I posted President Bush's statement on how the terrorist interrogation program had saved lives. Now, former CIA Director George Tenet, whose book "At the Center of the Storm..." comes out soon, had this to say during an interview for Sixty Minutes to be broadcast this Sunday:

"I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are going to be blown up, planes that are going to fly into airports all over again, plots that I don't know. I don't know what's going on inside the United States and I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur. Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through — the palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much that we did not know," Tenet said.

One of the most important Al Qaeda operatives to be questioned was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was picked up in March 2003 in Pakistan. According to Tenet, Mohammed wanted to go to New York and get a lawyer before he would talk.

That's right. The same man who would kill innoncent men, women and children expected to be granted the protections of the U.S. Constitution which were extended by the Clinton Administration to his accomplice Ramzi Yousef who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.

Tenet went on to tell his interviewer:

"Here's what I would say to you, to the Congress, to the American people, to the president of the United States: I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," Tenet told CBS' "60 Minutes." "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together, have been able to tell us."

The program for terror suspects uses "enhanced interrogation" techniques that "60 Minutes" reported are said to include sleep deprivation, extreme temperature exposure and "water boarding," in which restrained suspects have water poured on their faces, causing gagging and drowning fears.

Tenet denied that suspects are tortured.

When asked why "enhanced interrogation" techniques were necessary, Tenet said, "Because these are people who will never, ever, ever tell you a thing. These are people who know who's responsible for the next terrorist attack ... (who) wouldn't blink an eyelash about killing you, your family, me and my family and everybody in this town,"

The terrorist interrogation program SAVED LIVES OF AMERICANS. Who would oppose such a policy? WHO?