Had Myers understood what had been decided? Did he appreciate the consequences for interrogation techniques?
If the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was confused, then inevitably soldiers in the field would also be confused. As one seasoned observer of military affairs put it to me, Myers was "well and truly hoodwinked".
So what did Myers think about the new techniques? "We thought, OK, all the techniques came out of the book, there weren't any techniques invented." I stopped him. "Out of which book?" I asked. "Out of 34-52," he replied. "I think all of these are in the manual."
They were not - not one of them.
"They aren't?" he asked, surprised. Not only that, but most of them violated Geneva's Common Article 3.
Such an answer from the chairman of the joint chiefs surprised me. As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled. At forced grooming and dogs he became defensive. "Dogs were only to be present, never to be..." his words tailed off. "When you see this, you say, holy mackerel," he exclaimed. "We never authorised torture, we just didn't. Not what we would do."
Little by little, my understanding of Myers's role was becoming more focused. He hadn't pushed for these new techniques, but he didn't resist them, either. He didn't inquire too deeply.
With Rumsfeld's verbal approval and Haynes's support, the interrogation of al-Qahtani began. The interrogation log for November 23 2002 recorded the first moment. "The detainee arrives at the interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. His hood is removed and he is bolted to the floor."
Meanwhile alarm bells were ringing with the FBI. One of the FBI's behavioural psychologists called headquarters in Washington. Concerns were raised by an FBI special agent who arrived to find al-Qahtani already "incarcerated in a darkened cell in the naval Brig". He was interrogated by the FBI, and the plan was for military personnel to continue for 24 hours straight. The FBI agent objected, but was told that this technique was approved by "the Secretary", meaning Rumsfeld.
The agent described how "the reservists yelled and screamed" at al-Qahtani, and "a German shepherd was positioned at the door of the interrogation hut and made to growl and bark at the detainee". At one point, a copy of the Qur'an was placed in front of al-Qahtani while he was handcuffed to a chair, and an interrogator "straddled the Qur'an". The detainee became very angry, but still refused to provide any information.
The FBI agent was not the only one with concerns. Mike Gelles, a clinical forensic psychologist, had worked since 1990 for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the primary law enforcement and intelligence arm of the US Navy. He first visited Guantánamo in February 2002, and had concerns from the outset.
By June, the numbers at Guantánamo had grown to more than 500 detainees and interrogations were underway. Were they getting any useful information? The expression on Gelles's face suggested not. Even assuming that they had the right people, nobody discovered what they knew. "I remember being down in Camp X-Ray and wandering around," Gelles recalled, "and seeing a couple of very psychotic folks, and thinking, 'What's going on here, why would you fly a guy who's flagrantly psychotic from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay?' It didn't make any sense."
Gelles thought that Beaver had tried to rein in some of the greater excesses. "She tried to cool it, but basically she was so immersed and so lost..." Gelles' words trailed off. "She drank the Kool-Aid."
His chief doubts were that the new techniques would produce "unreliable information" - unusable in any court case against al-Qahtani - that they were immoral and they'd "set a pattern that was clearly going to impact our folks overseas when they were captured".
It was because of sustained pressure from dissenters at Guantánamo, such as Gelles and the FBI agent, and in particular Alberto Mora, the navy's top counsel at the Pentagon, that Rumsfeld rescinded the new interrogation techniques on January 15 2003.
Subsequently a working group was set up; it approved a revised set of interrogation techniques, which were less harsh than those rescinded but which nevertheless contributed to a climate that was tolerant of abuse.After 54 days of interrogation using the new aggressive techniques, what information did al-Qahtani give up?
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