Obama: "patently false"

I worried that President Obama's release of the CIA memos would make us less safe. My fears were reinforced this morning when I listened to Marc Thiessen explain his Washington Post Op-Ed this morning on Bill Bennett. President Obama has claimed that his release would make us more safe, when in fact the release was entirely politically motivated. Here's the lead to the article:

In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists "did not make us safer." This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public -- in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media.

In short, the memos described the techniques used. Those were made public, but the results remain largely redacted. The results are that the techniques worked. There's an entire other memo that was not released, but that Mr. Thiessen has read, concerning the effectiveness of the techniques. In his words,

Yet there is more information confirming the program's effectiveness. The Office of Legal Counsel memo states "we discuss only a small fraction of the important intelligence CIA interrogators have obtained from KSM" and notes that "intelligence derived from CIA detainees has resulted in more than 6,000 intelligence reports and, in 2004, accounted for approximately half of the [Counterterrorism Center's] reporting on al Qaeda." The memos refer to other classified documents -- including an "Effectiveness Memo" and an "IG Report," which explain how "the use of enhanced techniques in the interrogations of KSM, Zubaydah and others . . . has yielded critical information." Why didn't Obama officials release this information as well? Because they know that if the public could see the details of the techniques side by side with evidence that the program saved American lives, the vast majority would support continuing it.

I think that addresses the motivation for the release of the reports. Political fodder, pure and simple. The Administration released the parts of the memos that their partisans would like to see in order to call for prosecutions. Mr. Thiessen and VP Dick Cheney have called for more releases, because then the balancing evidence would be presented to the public.

As far as President Obama's claim that there was no harm in releasing the information, consider the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He had claimed to have been thrown head-first into a wall, after which he began producing information. In fact, the interrogators had built a special soft false wall that would absorb any impact, but would create enhanced sound. He was thrown into this false wall (by his shoulder) and was startled by the loud crash and his minor impact. He thought he was being brutalized, but wasn't at all harmed. Pretty cool "enhanced technique", in my book.

But now, our enemies know about this technique. They know that if they seem to be thrown into a wall, that it is only an act. They know that they do not risk being harmed. Practice this a few times in a training camp, and the enhanced technique has no power. Do you not think that al Qaeda is studying these techniques?

I think that clearly, the release of these memos did not serve to make us safer. President Obama claims that our safety is his last thought before he goes to bed, and the first when he wakes. If that is true, what does the release of these memos say about his judgment?