Bush Ordered Torture Of Mentally Ill Man To Avoid Losing Face
"I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you? ... Do some of these harsh methods really work?" ... Interrogators ... strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board ... threatened him with certain death ... withheld medication ... bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so ... "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."