{"id":264325,"date":"2016-08-28T22:46:56","date_gmt":"2016-08-28T22:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/abu-zubaydah-tortures-poster-child\/"},"modified":"2016-08-28T22:46:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T22:46:56","slug":"abu-zubaydah-tortures-poster-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/abu-zubaydah-tortures-poster-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Abu Zubaydah: Torture\u2019s \u2018Poster Child\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> The ugly legacy of George W. Bush\u2019s torture program continues to haunt U.S. foreign policy as the \u201cposter child\u201d for waterboarding, Abu Zubaydah, makes an appeal for his release from Guantanamo, writes Marjorie Cohn.<\/p>\n<p>By Marjorie Cohn<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Abu Zubaydah, who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for 14 years without being charged with a crime, appeared for the first time before the U.S. military Periodic Review Board, which determines whether Guantanamo detainees will continue to be held as \u201cenemy combatants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zubaydah argued he should be released because he has \u201cno desire or intent to harm the United States or any other country.\u201d\u00a0During his hearing, Zubaydah also said he had been tortured by the CIA, an allegation confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s torture report.\u00a0The U.S. government maintains he is an enemy combatant.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20708\" style=\"width: 270px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1-260x300.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20708\" alt=\"Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Zubaydah\" width=\"260\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1-260x300.jpg 260w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1-160x185.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1.jpg 303w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20708\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1-260x300.jpg\" alt=\"Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Zubaydah\" width=\"260\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1-260x300.jpg 260w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1-160x185.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/abuzubaydah1.jpg 303w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Zubaydah<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>When Zubaydah was apprehended in Pakistan in 2002, the Bush administration characterized him as \u201cchief of operations\u201d for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden\u2019s \u201cnumber three\u201d man. This was untrue, according to John Kiriakou, who led the joint CIA-FBI team that caught Zubaydah. Kiriakou confirmed that Zubaydah did not help plan the September 11, 2001 attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Coleman, a leading FBI expert on Al Qaeda, said Zubaydah \u201cknew very little about real operations, or strategy.\u201d Coleman\u2019s observations were communicated to President George W. Bush. Nevertheless, the President scolded CIA Director George Tenet, saying, \u201cI said [Zubaydah] was important, You\u2019re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zubaydah was tortured repeatedly at the \u201cblack sites,\u201d where the CIA subjected him to waterboarding 83 times. On one occasion, Zubaydah had to be resuscitated. An observer at the scene was quoted in the Senate torture report as saying Zubaydah was \u201ccompletely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2005, after the Abu Ghraib torture photos came to light, the CIA destroyed several hundred hours of videotapes of the interrogations of Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The tapes likely depicted&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/08\/28\/abu-zubaydah-tortures-poster-child\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: The ugly legacy of George W. Bush\u2019s torture program continues to haunt U.S. foreign policy as the \u201cposter child\u201d for waterboarding, Abu Zubaydah, makes an appeal for his release from Guantanamo, writes Marjorie Cohn. By Marjorie Cohn Last week, Abu Zubaydah, who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for 14 years without being charged with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-264325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}