On that basis the interrogators wrote a report about “the anthrax program.” As for el-Sawah’s being the mastermind of any shoe bombing operation, I found out that the military interrogators had said to him: “You’re an explosives expert. If you were to build a shoe bomb, how would you do it?” He had drawn them a diagram. That diagram constituted their “proof.” It turned out that it was a bad drawing, unrepresentative of the shoe bomb Richard Reid used.
I went with FBI colleagues to the interrogators who had extracted the “confession” and told them that, based upon my interrogation, their claims didn’t add up. They were novice interrogators and didn’t understand that you can’t just jump to those kinds of conclusions. They admitted that they had messed up.
Around the time I was interrogating el-Sawah, Matrafi—the head of al-Wafa, whom I had interrogated in the early days at Gitmo with Ed and Andre—was taken by the same specialized military team to a black site (a secret location) and interrogated. Apparently they didn’t get much intelligence from him, so they asked me to come and talk to him again. A member of the team told me, “We know he knows about a threat, but he’s not cooperating. Can you get through to him and tell him to talk to us?” I didn’t have much faith in that specialized military interrogation team after the el-Sawah incident, but I felt that if there really was a threat that Matrafi knew about, I should help.
When I went in he was very angry, and before I could say anything, he said: “I told you everything I knew right at the start. I confessed everything. Why am I here? Why should I talk to you again?”
“I can’t explain Guantanamo. I don’t understand how it’s being run,” I told him. By this time the detainees knew exactly where they were. “But I can tell you that cooperation is always the best tactic, so I recommend you tell them everything.”
“But I already told you everything. Why should I repeat it again? Didn’t you write everything down?”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“The other interrogators just told me to repeat to them everything I told you when you interrogated me, so they can put it in their file.”
“I’m sorry that I wasted your time,” I told him, and walked out. It wasn’t the only time that these inexperienced interrogators tried to “reinterrogate” detainees, telling them simply to repeat what they had told the seasoned interrogators. The point was that they could then claim that their techniques were successful and that they had gotten “intelligence.”
On August 31, 2003, General Miller flew to Iraq to advise those running a prison in Baghdad called Abu Ghraib. Mark Fallon sent a CITF agent along with him, with instructions to warn the officials meeting Miller that use of the techniques he would advocate were not the only way to run interrogations. The general wouldn’t allow the agent into any of his meetings. In April 2004, General Miller became head of all prisons in Iraq that were under U.S. control.
In 2004, pictures of U.S. army personnel abusing detainees in Abu Ghraib were shown around the world. One of the photographs that went around the world was an image of one soldier, Lynndie England, holding a leash attached to the neck of a naked prisoner. Qahtani had endured the same treatment at Gitmo, also under General Miller’s command.
Instructors from the JPRA SERE school also went to Iraq and participated in interrogations using SERE techniques. Col. Steven Kleinman, an air force reservist who is a highly decorated veteran of three major military campaigns (Operations Just Cause, Desert Storm, and Iraqi Freedom) and who is recognized as having been one of the most prolific interrogators during the first Gulf War, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2008 that in Iraq he had witnessed abusive interrogations and had intervened to stop them. In one instance the JPRA team “took a hooded detainee to a bunker at the Task Force facility, forcibly stripped him naked and left him, shackled by the wrist and ankles, to stand for 12 hours.”
In November 2005 Secretary Rumsfeld and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, gave a press conference during which a UPI reporter asked them about allegations of torture by Iraqi authorities in prisons under Iraqi control. General Pace told the reporter: “It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it.”
Secretary Rumsfeld interrupted him and said: “I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.”
“If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it,” General Pace responded.
24. 45 Minutes
“From the [1 word redacted] al-Qaeda guys you let [1 word redacted] interrogate,” [1 word redacted] replied, referring to a group of terrorists captured in a September 11, 2002, raid on apartments in Karachi that had also, and more importantly, netted Ramzi Binalshibh and [1 word redacted]. The CIA had let [1 word redacted] and [1 word redacted] FBI colleagues [2 words redacted] and [2 words redacted] question the [1 word redacted], but had barred [1 word redacted]—on orders from Langley—from interrogating Binalshibh and [1 word redacted].
The Pakistani authorities had found the group based mainly on intelligence an FBI colleague got from the Saudi al-Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Darbi, whom he had interrogated at Bagram Airfield. We had learned about Darbi from his father-in-law, Ahmed al-Hada, and from Abu Jandal. Following the raid, the FBI had identified the terrorists, photographed them, and searched the apartments for evidence. One of the raids had resulted in a bloody gun battle, in which a number of al-Qaeda operatives were killed. In the apartment where Binalshibh and [1 word redacted] were found there was a standoff, Binalshibh holding a knife to his own throat.
“If any of you step any closer,” Binalshibh had declared, “I’m going to slit my own throat.” He apparently didn’t realize that in a hostage situation you need a hostage other than yourself, and that the Pakistanis were happy to take him dead or alive. There was no way they’d let him escape. He was soon subdued, and after the detainees were processed by an FBI team in Karachi, they were handed over to the CIA, by order of the Bush administration.
“Very impressive,” Samantha said, referring to the memo we had written based on intelligence the [1 word redacted] terrorists had given [1 word redacted]. “This is some of the best intelligence I’ve read in a while. That’s amazing that they gave it to you.”
With that she was gone. [1 word redacted], who was in the office with [1 word redacted], whispered, “Think they’ll now realize they are being stupid not letting us have access to the other two?”
“Let’s hope so,” [1 word redacted] replied.
A few hours later Samantha again appeared in the doorway. “Can we talk?” she asked.
“Sure.” [1 word redacted] followed her into the hallway. “What’s going on?”
“As you know, we’re not allowed to give you access to Binalshibh and [1 word redacted],” she said, “because they want them to be interrogated by ———.” She named two foreign countries—the names of which are classified—and then her voice trailed off. From her facial expression [1 word redacted] could tell that she disagreed with the policy of barring [1 word redacted] from interrogating them, and that she wanted [1 word redacted] opinion.
“That’s pathetic,” [1 word redacted] told her. “Why have other countries do the interrogating, when we have people who can do the job better?”
“And they have American blood on their hands. I don’t want them to do our job. I know we can do it here, and we can do it right.”
“I agree completely. So do you have a plan to give us access?”
“I do. I’m going to go against the instructions I’ve been given from Washington, and I’m going to give you access to them for forty-five minutes each, and we’ll see what happens. If they cooperate, then maybe the whole idea of rendition will be scrapped and we can continue interrogating them here.”
