Times confirms doubts about '9/11 mastermind'

Confessions sweated out of al Qaeda chieftain Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are exaggerated and contradictory, intelligence sources told the New York Times.

Though some operatives claimed to have obtained "good intelligence" from Mohhamed through use of torment tactics, others are doubtful, the Times reports today.

The report by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen on a secret reauthorization of harsh interrogation methods, confirms a New Yorker claim that intelligence community professionals had serious reservations about the reliability of Mohammed's statements. The Aug. 13 New Yorker carried Jane Mayer's chilling report on the CIA's "black sites."

Though the Times report, in a clause, calls Mohammed the "chief planner" of the 9/11 attacks, the substance of the Times report raises doubts about such an unqualified assertion. The 9/11 commission relied on what Mohammed purportedly told the CIA about those attacks without being able to question him or listen to interrogation tapes.