³According to accounts by three former intelligence
officials, the C.I.A. understood that the legal foundation
for its role had been spelled out in a sweeping classified
directive signed by Mr. Bush on Sept. 17, 2001. The
directive, known as a memorandum of notification, authorized
the C.I.A. for the first time to capture, detain and
interrogate terrorism suspects, providing the foundation for
what became its secret prison system.²
One thing is clear from this: If 'they' decide to dump Bush, this directive will
hang him.
³As the president has made clear, the fact of the matter is
that Abu Zubaydah was defiant and evasive until the approved
procedures were used,² one government official said. ³He
soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators
to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11
attacks.²
Let's translate this into real-speak... Bush knows very well who is responsible
for the 9/11 attacks: himself and the other neocons. So what he really was
really saying here is that "under torture we can force people like Zubaydah to
make up names and stories to suit our propaganda."
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
Original source URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/washington/10detain.html
September 10, 2006
At a Secret Interrogation, Dispute Flared Over Tactics
By DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 ‹ Abu Zubaydah, the first Osama bin Laden henchman captured
by the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was bloodied
and feverish when a C.I.A. security team delivered him to a secret safe house in
Thailand for interrogation in the early spring of 2002. Bullet fragments had
ripped through his abdomen and groin during a firefight in Pakistan several days
earlier when he had been captured.
The events that unfolded at the safe house over the next few weeks proved to be
fateful for the Bush administration. Within days, Mr. Zubaydah was being
subjected to coercive interrogation techniques ‹ he was stripped, held in an icy
room and jarred by earsplittingly loud music ‹ the genesis of practices later
adopted by some within the military, and widely used by the Central Intelligence
Agency in handling prominent terrorism suspects at secret overseas prisons.
President Bush pointedly cited the capture and interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah in
his speech last Wednesday announcing the transfer of Mr. Zubaydah and 13 others
to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And he used it to call
for ratification of the tough techniques employed in the questioning.
But rather than the smooth process depicted by Mr. Bush, interviews with nearly
a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials briefed on
the process show, the interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah was fraught with sharp
disputes, debates about the legality and utility of harsh interrogation methods,
and a rupture between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the C.I.A. that
has yet to heal.
Some of those interviewed offered sharply contrasting accounts, but all said
that the disagreements were intense. More than four years later, these disputes
are foreshadowing the debate that Mr. Bush¹s new proposals are meeting in
Congress, as lawmakers wrangle about what rules should apply as terrorism
suspects are captured, questioned and, possibly, tried before military
tribunals.
A reconstruction of Mr. Zubaydah¹s initial days of detention and interrogation,
based on accounts by former and current law enforcement and intelligence
officials in a series of recent interviews, provides the first detailed account
of his treatment and the disputes and uncertainties that surrounded it. The
basic chronology of how the capture and interrogation unfolded was described
consistently by sources from a number of government agencies.
The officials spoke on the condition that they not be identified because many
aspects of the handling of Mr. Zubaydah remain classified and because some of
the officials may be witnesses in future prosecutions involving Mr. Zubaydah.
This week, President Bush said that he had not and never would approve the use
of torture. The C.I.A. declined to discuss the specifics of the case on the
record. At F.B.I. headquarters, officials refused to publicly discuss the
interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah, citing what they said were ³operational
sensitivities.²
Some of the officials who were interviewed for this article were briefed on the
events as they occurred. Others were provided with accounts of the interrogation
later.
Before his capture, Mr. Zubaydah was regarded as a top bin Laden logistics chief
who funneled recruits to training bases in Afghanistan and served as a
communications link between Al Qaeda¹s leadership and extremists in other
countries.
As interrogators dug into his activities, however, they scaled back their
assessment somewhat, viewing him more as the terror network¹s personnel director
and hotelier who ran a string of guest houses in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr. Zubaydah¹s whereabouts in Pakistan had been determined in part through
intercepted Internet communications, but for days after his capture his identity
was in doubt. He had surgically altered his appearance and was using an alias.
But when agents used a nickname for Mr. Zubaydah, he acknowledged his true
identity, which was confirmed through analysis of his voice, facial structure
and DNA tests.
By all accounts, Mr. Zubaydah¹s condition was rapidly deteriorating when he
arrived in Thailand. Soon after his capture, Mr. Zubaydah nearly died of his
infected wounds. At one point, he was covertly rushed to a hospital after C.I.A.
medical officers warned that he might not survive if he did not receive more
extensive medical treatment.
According to accounts from five former and current government officials who were
briefed on the case, F.B.I. agents ‹ accompanied by intelligence officers ‹
initially questioned him using standard interview techniques. They bathed Mr.
Zubaydah, changed his bandages, gave him water, urged improved medical care, and
spoke with him in Arabic and English, languages in which he is fluent.
To convince him they knew details of his activities, the agents brought a box of
blank audiotapes which they said contained recordings of his phone
conversations, but were actually empty. As the F.B.I. worked with C.I.A.
officers who were present, Mr. Zubaydah soon began to provide intelligence
insights into Al Qaeda.
For the C.I.A., Mr. Zubaydah was a test case for an evolving new role, conceived
after Sept. 11, in which the agency was to act as jailer and interrogator for
terrorism suspects.
According to accounts by three former intelligence officials, the C.I.A.
understood that the legal foundation for its role had been spelled out in a
sweeping classified directive signed by Mr. Bush on Sept. 17, 2001. The
directive, known as a memorandum of notification, authorized the C.I.A. for the
first time to capture, detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, providing the
foundation for what became its secret prison system.
That 2001 directive did not spell out specific guidelines for interrogations,
however, and senior C.I.A. officials began in late 2001 and early 2002 to draw
up a list of aggressive interrogation procedures that might be used against
terrorism suspects. They consulted agency psychiatrists and foreign governments
to identify effective techniques beyond standard interview practices.
After Mr. Zubaydah¹s capture, a C.I.A. interrogation team was dispatched from
the agency¹s counterterrorism center to take the lead in his questioning, former
law enforcement and intelligence officials said, and F.B.I. agents were
withdrawn. The group included an agency consultant schooled in the harsher
interrogation procedures to which American special forces are subjected in their
training. Three former intelligence officials said the techniques had been drawn
up on the basis of legal guidance from the Justice Department, but were not yet
supported by a formal legal opinion.
In Thailand, the new C.I.A. team concluded that under standard questioning Mr.
Zubaydah was revealing only a small fraction of what he knew, and decided that
more aggressive techniques were warranted.
At times, Mr. Zubaydah, still weak from his wounds, was stripped and placed in a
cell without a bunk or blankets. He stood or lay on the bare floor, sometimes
with air-conditioning adjusted so that, one official said, Mr. Zubaydah seemed
to turn blue. At other times, the interrogators piped in deafening blasts of
music by groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sometimes, the interrogator
would use simpler techniques, entering his cell to ask him to confess.
³You know what I want,² the interrogator would say to him, according to one
official¹s account, departing leaving Mr. Zubaydah to brood over his answer.
F.B.I. agents on the scene angrily protested the more aggressive approach,
arguing that persuasion rather than coercion had succeeded. But leaders of the
C.I.A. interrogation team were convinced that tougher tactics were warranted and
said that the methods had been authorized by senior lawyers at the White House.
The agents appealed to their superiors but were told that the intelligence
agency was in charge, the officials said. One law enforcement official who was
aware of events as they occurred reacted with chagrin. ³When you rough these
guys up, all you do is fulfill their fantasies about what to expect from us,²
the official said.
Mr. Bush on Wednesday acknowledged the use of aggressive interview techniques,
but only in the most general terms. ³We knew that Zubaydah had more information
that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking,² Mr. Bush said. He said
the C.I.A. had used ³an alternative set of procedures¹¹ after it became clear
that Mr. Zubaydah ³had received training on how to resist interrogation.
³These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our
Constitution and our treaty obligations,¹¹ Mr. Bush said. ³The Department of
Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be
lawful.¹¹
In his early interviews, Mr. Zubaydah had revealed what turned out to be
important information, identifying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ‹ from a photo on a
hand-held computer ‹ as the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Zubaydah
also identified Jose Padilla, an American citizen who has been charged with
terrorism-related crimes.
But Mr. Zubaydah dismissed Mr. Padilla as a maladroit extremist whose hope to
construct a dirty bomb, using conventional explosives to disperse radioactive
materials, was far-fetched. He told his questioners that Mr. Padilla was
ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate
plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket
filled with fissionable material.
Crucial aspects of what happened during Mr. Zubaydah¹s interrogation are sharply
disputed. Some former and current government officials briefed on the case, who
were more closely allied with law enforcement, said Mr. Zubaydah cooperated with
F.B.I. interviewers until the C.I.A. interrogation team arrived. They said that
Mr. Zubaydah¹s resistance began after the agency interrogators began using more
stringent tactics.
Other officials, more closely tied to intelligence agencies, dismissed that
account, saying that the C.I.A. had supervised all interviews with Mr. Zubaydah,
including those in which F.B.I. agents asked questions. These officials said
that he proved a wily adversary. ³He was lying, and things were going nowhere,²
one official briefed on the matter said of the early interviews. ³It was clear
that he had information about an imminent attack and time was of the essence.²
Several officials said the belief that Mr. Zubaydah might have possessed
critical information about a coming terrorist operation figured significantly in
the decision to employ tougher tactics, even though it later became apparent he
had no such knowledge.
³As the president has made clear, the fact of the matter is that Abu Zubaydah
was defiant and evasive until the approved procedures were used,² one government
official said. ³He soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators
to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.²
This official added, ³When you are concerned that a hard-core terrorist has
information about an imminent threat that could put innocent lives at risk,
rapport-building and stroking aren¹t the top things on your agenda.²
Douglas Jehl contributed reporting.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
--
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