Washington, May 8 (AP) The US government's hunt for Osama bin Laden has left the country questioning whether the tactics used to interrogate suspected terrorists were successful and lawful. With his death, both sides of the debate have regrouped along familiar lines, claiming they were right all along.
But America's greatest counterterrorism success does not represent a victory for either camp. Rather, it paints a clearer picture of the CIA's interrogation and detention program, revealing where it was successful and where its successes have been overstated.
At its core, the hunt for bin Laden evolved into a hunt for his couriers, the few men he trusted to pass his personal messages to his field commanders.
After the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, detainees in the CIA's secret prison network told interrogators about one of al-Qaida's most important couriers, someone known only as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.