José Padilla, who was accused of plotting a radiological dirty bomb attack inside the United States, was one of the first American citizens designated an “enemy combatant.” The Bush administration credited the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah with uncovering the plot and leading investigators to Mr. Padilla. His arrest has been held up for years as proof that waterboarding and other tactics worked.
COMMITTEE’S CONCLUSION
But Abu Zubaydah's information on Mr. Padilla was sketchy, and he provided it well before he was waterboarded. Mr. Padilla, in fact, was arrested in May 2002, three months before the C.I.A. interrogation program began.
For all the publicity the Bush administration gave Mr. Padilla, the committee revealed that the government never took his dirty bomb plot seriously. It was based on a satirical Internet article titled “How to Make an H-Bomb,” and the plot involved swinging a bucket full of uranium over one's head for 45 minutes. One internal C.I.A. email declared that such a plot would most likely kill Mr. Padilla but “would definitely not result in a nuclear explosive device.” Another called Mr. Padilla “a petty criminal” and described the dirty bomb plot as “lore.”