CIA Located Bin Laden Despite Obama's Policies

Ronald Kessler, the veteran journalist and author of several books on the FBI and the CIA, writes in his Newsmax.com column that bin Laden was located by the CIA despite President Obama's policies.

The one clear achievement of the Obama administration was the killing of Osama bin Laden. But while President Obama gave the order to Navy SEALs to take him out, the CIA likely would not have located bin Laden if the agency had been restricted by the policies Obama imposed after he took office.

That’s because Obama opposed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques and banned them when he became president.

Two days after bin Laden was killed, Leon Panetta, President Obama’s choice to head the CIA, gave an interview to NBC’s Brian Williams. On "Nightly News," Panetta confirmed that the CIA obtained some of the intelligence that led to bin Laden from enhanced interrogation, including waterboarding, when George W. Bush was president.

Moreover, by demonizing those who approved the enhanced interrogation program and allowing Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to pursue pointless investigations of them, Obama undermined the intelligence community’s willingness to take risks in the future.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/CIA-bin-Laden-Obama/2012/10/11/id/459565

Ex-CIA Chief Defends Waterboarding Of Al Qaeda Leader

CBSNews.com offers a preview of the 60 Minutes interview with Jose Rodriguez, a former CIA chief  and author of Hard Measures.

Jose Rodriguez has no regrets about using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" - methods that some consider torture -- on al Qaeda detainees questioned after 9/11 and denies charges they didn't work. The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service talks to Lesley Stahl about those methods, including waterboarding, for the first time and defends their use - even comparing them to the current policy of killing al Qaeda leaders with drone strikes. The Rodriguez interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Rodriguez says everything his interrogators did to top-level terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah was legal and effective. "We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days," he tells Stahl. "I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives," says Rodriguez, who has written a book on the subject called "Hard Measures."

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a short preview of the interview via the below link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57422476/ex-cia-chief-defends-waterboarding-of-al-qaeda-leader/