Boris wasn’t the only person at the location giving [1 word redacted] difficulties. He was in many ways just the front man for powerful backers in Washington. By this time, the Department of Justice was giving verbal permission to Langley to use the coercive interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah. The powers behind Boris in Washington had lots of other minions at the location as well. Every day, the contingent of wisecracking CIA analysts who sided with Boris challenged what [1 word redacted] were doing and lectured [1 word redacted] about how [1 word redacted] were failing to get Abu Zubaydah to cooperate fully. In their minds, Abu Zubaydah was a senior member of al-Qaeda. Based on this assumption, they believed that he should be able to give detailed information on the leadership, down to bin Laden’s hiding places. Therefore, to them, the information [1 word redacted] were getting from Abu Zubaydah wasn’t significant enough, and Boris and his tech-niques were necessary.
To people who knew what they were talking about, the insistence that Abu Zubaydah was the number three or four in al-Qaeda was flatly ridiculous, as were the claims that he wasn’t cooperating. But the analysts kept writing reports that Abu Zubaydah was the number three or four in al-Qaeda, and they managed to get that announced to the American people.
One young CIA analyst, to “prove” to [3 words redacted] that Abu Zubaydah was the number three in al- Qaeda, took to lecturing [1 word redacted] about Abu Zubaydah’s role in the millennium plot in Jordan. [1 word redacted] listened to what he had to say. He had all his facts wrong. As politely as [1 word redacted] could, [1 word redacted] told him: “Listen, you’ve got the millennium plot all wrong, and maybe that’s why you’ve got the wrong idea about Abu Zubaydah.” [1 word redacted] began to list his mistakes.
As [1 word redacted] corrected him, he got increasingly annoyed, his face registering a who-the-hell-are-you look. “How do you know you’re right?” he demanded. “I’ve read all the briefing notes.”
[46 words redacted]
Even on the smallest of things, the CIA analysts would challenge [1 word redacted], to demonstrate their expertise and point out [1 word redacted] “failings.” During one interrogation session, [14 words redacted]. The CIA analysts told [1 word redacted] afterward that Abu Zubaydah was tricking [1 word redacted], and that the [7 words redacted]. Evidence, they said, that Abu Zubaydah wasn’t cooperating.
[1 word redacted] had [1 word redacted] gone through Abu Zubaydah’s personal effects upon his capture. Among the documents was a letter from the [5 words redacted], which clearly indicated that they were [1 word redacted]. Since the document was in Arabic and the CIA analysts couldn’t read it, [1 word redacted] patiently explained to them what the document said.
“You’re wrong,” one of the analysts responded. “Our translators in CTC did not say what you’re saying.”
“Go back and ask them to review it again,” [1 word redacted] told them. For the next few days, even more tension than usual existed between [1 word redacted] and the CIA analysts.
A few days later, their supervisor, Jen, came up to [1 word redacted] and gave [1 word redacted] a hug. [1 word redacted] was shocked. What was this about? “They were [1 word redacted]. I’m sorry, you were right. The linguists back at Langley had it wrong,” she said.
That apology was a rare one, and for the most part the analysts were skeptical of anything [3 words redacted] said. There were one or two exceptions, but their voices were drowned out. The analysts felt they knew it all and had no need for [1 word redacted]. They’d read the briefs. That was enough. But because they had no experience with terrorists beyond reading some memos about them, they really didn’t understand the broader terrorist network. [1 word redacted] put it this way: “These guys read a lot of Tom Clancy novels, but they have no idea about how things work in the real world.”
[6 words redacted] my personal conclusion regarding [1 word redacted] problems with the people running the CIA interrogation program; later, it was confirmed by John L. Helgerson, the inspector general of the CIA. Helgerson investigated the program at the urging of CIA professionals who spoke out against the mistakes being made. His report, published in 2004 and declassified a few years later, details the lack of experience among the CIA people running the program. The report states: “According to a number of those interviewed for this Review, the Agency’s intelligence on Al-Qa’ida was limited prior to the initiation of the CTC Interrogation Program. The Agency lacked adequate linguists or subject matter experts and had very little knowledge of what particular Al-Qa’ida leaders—who later became detainees—knew. This lack of knowledge led analysts to speculate about what a detainee ‘should know,’ [which] information the analyst could objectively demonstrate the detainee did know.”
The report goes on to state: “When a detainee did not respond to a question posed to him, the assumption at Headquarters was that the detainee was holding back and knew more; consequently, Headquarters recommended resumption of EITs.” It was a case of the blind leading the blind. It was because of this lack of knowledge in the CIA that Boris was introduced, because they didn’t understand that Abu Zubaydah was cooperating, and that he wasn’t “twelve feet tall”—a term my friends in the FBI used to refer to the insistence, on the part of Boris’s backers in Washington, that Abu Zubaydah was a senior al-Qaeda member. It was another reference to
The CIA analysts at the location, however, were representative of the views of their masters back at Langley, and soon an order came through that Boris was to be put back in charge. The line taken by experts was the same as before: Abu Zubaydah was not cooperating; he hadn’t given up the information that the number three in al-Qaeda would know, and so Boris was allowed to experiment further.
While Boris in [1 word redacted] first meeting had confidently said that Abu Zubaydah would open up easily and quickly with one or two of his techniques, telling [1 word redacted], “It’s science,” by now his tone and explanations had changed. It was as if he had come to realize that working with terrorists in person was different from classroom theory. He began speaking about how his methods would be “part of a systematic approach to diminish his ability to resist.” He announced that Abu Zubaydah would be deprived of sleep for forty-eight hours now, and that they would reintroduce nudity and loud music at the same time. He had the approval from Langley. [3 words redacted] Abu Zubaydah was stripped naked, loud rock music was blasted into the cell, and he was forcibly kept awake.
[1 word redacted] had assumed that the madness of Boris’s experiments was over. He protested vigorously to his superiors in Langley but got no satisfactory response. Finally, he announced that he was leaving. He packed up his things. As he waited for a car to pick him up, [1 word redacted] sat with him. He told [1 word redacted], “We are almost crossing the line. There are the Geneva Conventions on torture. It’s not worth losing myself for this.” [1 word redacted] was referring to his morals and his license to practice. He returned to the United States.
The CTC polygrapher, Frank, repeatedly voiced his disapproval. Ed, the CTC interrogator who was playing Abu Zubaydah’s “god,” was also worried. Over the weeks that [1 word redacted] were together, Ed and [1 word redacted] had many conversations. [1 word redacted] asked him, “Is this all approved? You do know we could get into trouble for even witnessing it if there is no approval.”
“It has been approved,” Ed replied, “by Gonzalez.” Alberto Gonzalez, George W. Bush’s White House counsel, was the author of a controversial January 2002 memo questioning Geneva Convention protection for al- Qaeda detainees and other terrorists. He went on to serve as Bush’s second attorney general, resigning in 2007 amid allegations of perjury before Congress on a separate matter.
“Who the hell is Gonzalez?” [1 word redacted] asked, as [1 word redacted] had never heard of him before.
“They say he’s Bush’s lawyer,” Ed told [1 word redacted].
“So he’s not from the Department of Justice?”
“No, he’s from the White House.”
“That’s not enough. We need DOJ clearance for these types of things.”
“You’re right.”
A few days later Ed came to [1 word redacted] and said, “Our guys met with the DOJ lawyers and briefed them, and they said there’s no problem with what’s happening.” Ed had apparently demanded a written DOJ clearance from his CIA superiors. He showed [1 word redacted] the cable he had received. The identities of the
