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AEI Event: "CIA Interrogations and the Bin Laden Operation"

Benjamin Wittes
Monday, May 16, 2011, 11:54 AM
I spoke today at this event at AEI--the video for which available below:

The operation that killed Osama bin Laden has reignited the debate over Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogations. Numerous intelligence officials have stated that information from terrorist detainees helped the CIA identify bin Laden's principal courier, who led us to his secret compound in Abbottabad.

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I spoke today at this event at AEI--the video for which available below:

The operation that killed Osama bin Laden has reignited the debate over Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogations. Numerous intelligence officials have stated that information from terrorist detainees helped the CIA identify bin Laden's principal courier, who led us to his secret compound in Abbottabad. Yet on his second day in office, President Barack Obama shut down the very interrogation program that helped find bin Laden--and outside the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, no high-value terrorists have been detained during the Obama administration.

How important were CIA interrogations in the killing of bin Laden? Are critics right that enhanced interrogations do not produce reliable intelligence? In light of recent events, should the Obama administration continue its current policy of killing rather than capturing and interrogating terrorists? And if not, should the United States bring captured terrorists to Guantanamo again? Participants will discuss these and other questions.

Agenda
1:15 PM
Registration
 
1:30 PM
Panelists: ELISA MASSIMINO, Human Rights First
JUDGE MICHAEL B. MUKASEY, Former US Attorney General
JOHN RIZZO, Former Acting General Counsel of the CIA
MARC A. THIESSEN, AEI
BENJAMIN WITTES, Brookings Institution
 
Moderator:
JOHN YOO, AEI
 
Question and Answer
 
3:00 PM
Adjournment

Here is the video:


Topics:
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.

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