The young lawyer from Pittsburgh was also glad to speak more to Carl Higbie, the iron man from Connecticut who was also deeply respected in the Special Forces community. “At first, you could have thought Carl a bit of a wild card because he did have an eccentric side to his nature, at least intellectually,” said Reschenthaler. “But he was rock solid when it mattered, a totally dependable member of the platoon in the times when it really counted. The guys thought the world of him.”
Paul Franco, the ex-firefighter, also made a major impression on Reschenthaler. “He was one of our witnesses, and I knew right from the start he intended to speak of Westinson’s unstable nature and occasional breakdowns,” he said. “Paul was smaller than the Team guys, but all personality, light blond hair and blue eyes, looked like a member of a boy band!
“But the SEALs really liked him, and that was the acid test. I’d trust their judgment any time. As I got to know him more, sometimes had a beer with him, I knew it would be a blast to have on the stand one of the proven top sailors in the US Navy speaking of Westinson’s shortcomings. Because when Paul Franco spoke, the jury would listen. It was terrific to have him on our side.”
Back in Qatar the various lawyers had been flung together. It was not unusual to find Threatt and Reschenthaler in company with Matt’s legal observers, Kevin Shea and Kristen Anastos, plus Drew Carmichael, having a beer with an important government witness, whom I shall refer to as “the Major,” a man who was intensely proud of rising from enlisted soldier in the first Gulf War to his present commissioned rank in the second.
The Major turned out to be the man who first reported the alleged “beating” of Al-Isawi to the chain of command. “Looking around at this enormous group of people assembled seven thousand miles from home to fight this court-martial,” said Reschenthaler, “I guess he had a lot to answer for, discretion-wise. If he had only just weighed the evidence, this all might never have happened.”
To the lawyer, the Major was an anathema. “It was he who made that report that Hashim had ‘bruising’ and a ‘bloody lip.’ We were all here because of him. And he was a real dinosaur. His heroes were guys like Genghis Khan. He even lent me a book about that old Mongolian conqueror.
“Ironic, right? He admires the most bloodthirsty warriors in history yet makes an unfounded claim of abuse on this terrorist for fear of running up against the politically correct military culture.”
Anyhow, as the days went by, with McCormack still grounded beneath the ash cloud, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the two trials were probably going to reverse order. If the ash, which was falling all over Europe’s mountains, would not billow its way out of the stratosphere, then McCormack might be seriously late.
And at this point Reschenthaler, with Carmichael and Lombardi, began to make plans to go first on the basis that the judge could not possibly waste everyone’s time waiting for McCormack. This huge circus was costing sufficiently already, without court time being sacrificed.
Carmichael convinced Lombardi that Reschenthaler should handle the terrorist. The younger defense JAG had easily the most experience with litigation through an interpreter, and he knew the most about terrorists and how they would act on the stand. Reschenthaler had, after all, prosecuted those ninety-two cases in Baghdad the previous year.
Lombardi quickly grasped the sense of this and gave the green light to the junior. The government then made Al-Isawi available in a small building on Camp Cropper, Baghdad’s top-secret military holding prison, which was surrounded by razor-wire and concrete and was where Saddam Hussein spent his final days.
Reschenthaler noticed a photograph of the late Iraqi dictator still on the wall of the room where he would conduct his first interview with the wanted al-Qaeda terrorist, the man who had caused this gigantic upheaval—indeed, fracture—in the US military.
Shea and Anastos, on behalf of Matthew McCabe, went into the room first, because their task was to prove that the leader of Objective Amber had not laid a glove on Al-Isawi. They were in there for about a half-hour, and when they emerged, Reschenthaler was waiting.
“Get anything?” he asked, hoping that the prisoner had cracked and admitted that Matt had never touched him.
“A little, not much,” replied Shea. “But c’mon, the photos tell us all we need to know.”
Threatt, who was still officially scheduled to go first if McCormack could get there in time, went next and stayed with Al-Isawi for almost an hour.
“Get anything?” asked Reschenthaler when Threatt emerged.
“Oh, boy. You gotta get in there, Resch.”
As it happened, the junior JAG was not quite ready. For the past half-hour he had been busy with a pair of nail scissors, cutting and picking out the threads that held all of his military insignia, patches, medals, and decorations.
“One thing you must understand,” he said later. “These terrorists are not stupid—at least, not their commanders, like this Al-Isawi character. He’d have taken one look at my uniform and known I’d served in Iraq previously, and that would have put him on his guard.
“They know our insignia. They can ‘read’ a uniform. And I needed it to be stripped of all clues before I faced him.”
Immediately Al-Isawi was at a disadvantage, facing an American lawyer who knew his kind well, understood the almost-irresistible Iraqi inclination to exaggerate, sometimes wildly, and to lie about something so often they end up believing it to be true.
Reschenthaler had one overriding aim through this impending interview: not to dominate the prisoner nor intimidate him but, rather, to make the Iraqi terrorist like and trust him. That way he could coax him into exaggerating his injuries and making some attempt to elicit sympathy from the American attorney, lulling him into the sense he was dealing with a friend.
If he could just get the terrorist to trust him and describe the fantasy of his wounds and how he received them, then Reschenthaler could spring the photographs on the jury, the medical snapshots that showed not a mark except for the cold sore.
“I knew if I could just pull that off, the government’s case against Sam Gonzales could implode right there,” he said.
“Look,” he told Carmichael, “I’m going to say some things in there to get this guy to open up. Don’t think that I believe what I’m saying. I have a plan. Trust me.”
Carmichael nodded. And Reschenthaler walked through the door of the interview room, wearing the widest, least sincere smile of his entire career. He was Al-Isawi’s friend, not his enemy, and he just wanted him to tell his own truthful side of story. Yeah, right.
But as he opened the door, almost before he uttered a lighthearted greeting to Al-Isawi, he saw a pretty bad strike against him. Sitting there and scowling at him was someone who, in Reschenthaler’s opinion, was just about the world’s worst Arab translator.
“You gotta be kidding me,” muttered the lieutenant attorney.
Reschenthaler was acquainted with an excellent linguist in Iraq, an American citizen who had advanced degrees in the United States. This man was a true international Arab—raised in several countries, several capitals, from Somalia to Saudi Arabia, with his father a global financier, a senior banker.
Reschenthaler had requested the government, through the formal channels, to make this friend available because he was the best he’d ever seen in Iraq. But right now, at this very moment, Reschenthaler knew his request had been refused, and for no reason that he could see.
“Must have been out of spite, anything to get an advantage over the defense,” he said. “There could have been no other reason. We were all now at the mercy of whatever linguists were around. And I had this guy.”
Reschenthaler was familiar with the translator assigned to help him interrogate the jihadist and thought he was a slacker. And now here he was, slouching in his chair, mumbling his words, and acting as though he were doing everyone a favor by translating. The lieutenant was furious, even more so because it had become increasingly obvious to him that
the government would do anything to roadblock the accused SEALs’ defense.
Reschenthaler had to think quickly. He immediately tested the mumbling translator and thought to himself that he had either been born profoundly dumb or he was pretending. After testing his interpreter a couple of times, noting the slowness of his replies, he turned his attention to the silent Al-Isawi, who was just sitting there.
Reschenthaler tried his level best to look pious, which was not a natural expression for any former wrestler. And then he started in on the terrorist: “I want first to say, sorry. What happened to you pains me. This is not the American way. Please forgive us. I am here to get your story straight. Justice must be done.”
Reschenthaler spoke in short sentences, using small words, making sure nothing got muddled in translation. But Carmichael was looking uneasy, and Reschenthaler could not help feeling ashamed at what he was saying. But he had a plan, and he understood the components of that plan. And the main one was to get this darned terrorist on his side.
Al-Isawi muttered in Arabic, “Na’am, na’am”—that’s “Yes, yes.” And he placed his hand on his chest and bowed his head, a Bedouin gesture of honesty and submission.
Reschenthaler did his best to pretend he did not understand the translation, asking for a repeat, feigning noncomprehension, yet another of the morning’s great American falsehoods. Reschenthaler had an excellent grasp of Arabic, the result of six months working in Baghdad’s Central Criminal Court.
He turned to Al-Isawi and told him, “Please tell us your story.” Which, again, was part of the plan, avoiding the appearance that the American was “pushing the envelope,” leading the witness, steering him into areas he did not wish to go.
No need for that. Reschenthaler had already done his work. Now he sat back and waited for the handcuffed terrorist to give a graphic account of his vicious beating and shocking wounds, a blow-by-blow description of the demonic SEALs, the very incarnation of the American Satan.
“I was trying to look deadly serious,” said the attorney. “But inside I was smiling. This character was about to give me all the rope I needed to tie a noose.”
Al-Isawi said the SEAL Team broke into his house and smashed jars, pottery, and dishes. He said they stole his money, a claim that Reschenthaler understood as referring to the $6,000, which Matthew McCabe had confiscated and immediately handed over to the authorities when they arrived back at Camp Schwedler. In Iraq this was a king’s ransom.
“How did you get the money?” asked Reschenthaler.
“My mother saved for years and years, to send me on the Haj,” he replied.
BA ... BAM! Reschenthaler had the sentence that would shred Al-Isawi on cross-examination. Because he knew that each one of those bills was consecutively numbered, which meant they were either stolen or forged.
They were certainly not the pittance earnings of an Arab woman in war-torn Fallujah, carefully stored to send her son to the Haj, the Fifth Pillar of Islam, the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, when hundreds of thousands of Muslims converge on Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Not even a maestro of untruths like Al-Isawi could duck his way out of that one.
“Please, go on.”
“The Americans then ...” And he talked about how they captured him and escorted him to the helicopter, and his story more or less matched that of the video tape, recorded on one of the SEALs’ mini-night vision cameras attached to his helmet and that had been shown to the defense lawyers.
Al-Isawi’s account was solid. Which Reschenthaler regarded as bad news, because it meant the prisoner was getting credible. So he swiftly switched the interview to the events in the holding cell.
“I was blindfolded, with no water,” he said. “Then I was struck from behind, falling from my chair to the floor, then kicked swiftly.”
Darn, thought Reschenthaler. That matches Weston’s story.
“Hear any voices?”
“Yes, yes. I heard one loud voice.”
Could be Higbie, could have been Weston, taking out his frustrations ...
“See any feet, or anyone’s face?”
“No faces, but I could see a set of boots.”
BA ... BAM! The SEALs were wearing flip-flops. They always do when they’re off duty in the desert. No one was wearing boots. Except for one man—Brian Westinson.
“Tell me about the beating.”
“I got kicked hard, so hard. I then was punched over and over.”
“How hard was the kick?”
“So hard. I could tell they wanted to hurt me.”
“I bet they had steel-capped boots, huh?”
“Yes, yes. Steel boots. So hard.”
Reschenthaler almost burst out laughing as he thought, Steel-capped flip-flops, right? Way to go, Hashim!
“Now, what about the punches?”
“So hard.” And from here on, Reschenthaler kept coaxing him to reveal all. And the terrorist quickly warmed to the task, describing how he could not eat for two days because his mouth was so swollen from the beating that he puked blood, he lost a tooth, and his shoulder was so badly damaged during the beating that he still could not raise his arm, more than seven months later.
Al-Isawi did not have the slightest clue that the SEALs’ defense teams all had the pictures that showed him virtually unmarked.
Reschenthaler allowed him to continue to embellish the beating out of all proportion. He supported him, looked suitably pained at strategic moments. And at all times looked concerned over the savage treatment the terrorist claimed had been inflicted on him.
It all took about an hour. And at the conclusion Reschenthaler asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Yes, yes,” said Hashim. “Can you please, sir, get me my money back, or give it to my mother? She worked so hard for it, selling jewelry for all those years.”
Reschenthaler told him he would contact the prison JAG on his behalf. And he told him: “Yes, I’ll help. Stealing is stealing, and Americans do not do that. Also I’m going to bring you back to show you the courtroom the day before the trial. I know the American system and the Iraqi system differ greatly. But I want you to be comfortable, so you can do a good job as a witness. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes, yes. Thank you,” he replied, and he again placed his hand on his chest and lowered his head in that polite and, well, pious way.
Reschenthaler thought, Am I actually outfoxing this fox? Is he actually buying this ...?
The American picked his words carefully. And he chose: Astad—an Arabic term for “Sir,” one that conveys respect, and to his joy, the translator picked up on it.
“With your help, sir, I want to see justice done,” said Reschenthaler.
“Na’am, na’am. Shukran [Yes, yes. Thank you],” said the Butcher of Fallujah.
Reschenthaler’s own thoughts were more along the lines of: I’ll give you “thank you,” you little sonofabitch, once I get you on the witness stand.
Meanwhile Carmichael had very possibly lost his nerve. He was disgusted with Reschenthaler’s performance and saw it as unpatriotic, somewhere on the south side of treason, and he encouraged the junior JAG to apologize to the American soldiers.
The two men stepped outside the interview room, and Reschenthaler shook his head at the sudden emergence of the literal mind and responded, “No way. I’m doing my job and I have a plan. You’ll all have to trust me. The soldiers are here to guard the killers. I’m here to get my man Sam acquitted.”
Carmichael came back with: “Look, I know you’ve got your plan. But you made us look bad.”
“We’ll look great once we win this case,” said Reschenthaler. “What do you care what the guards think?”
Carmichael, however, thought otherwise, and he said again, “Please, Guy. They think we’re a bunch of leftie attorneys.”
And Reschenthaler could tell he was genuinely troubled. “Okay, okay. I’ll talk with the guards’ sergeant.”
And he walked over to the senior man on g
uard duty at this US Alcatraz of the desert and said, “Look, my colleague and I want you to know we were putting on a show in there. We don’t like the guy ...”
But the sergeant cut him off. “We know who he is,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, “and we know who you are.” This referred to the fact that many of his crew had seen Reschenthaler prosecuting in Baghdad before.
“Keep up the good work, sir. You got this bastard right where you want him.”
This demonstrated, even in a private conversation, that the sentiments of the regular US military were totally out of step with the establishment. Even this hard-eyed sergeant of the guard, on duty in a viciously dangerous Iraqi environment, thought precisely nothing of the word of a terrorist who was trying to discredit US Navy SEALs.
And the fight went on, with McCormack still stuck fast in Amsterdam. The worst of the ash cloud was now about a thousand miles across and threatening to cast the northern hemisphere into semidarkness. Fresh eruptions were hurling even more volcanic debris into the sky, with ash and dust blasting out of the crater, the color of spent fire.
This was the highest level of air travel disruption since World War II. And McCormack was spending half the day on his cell phone talking to Jon’s JAG, Paul Threatt, and more or less accepting that his plan to be the first to nail Westinson and the prisoner in the witness box was going up in smoke, as it were.
There was, of course, nothing anyone could do about it. Even a fast boat would not have solved the problem. McCormack was stuck in the land of windmills and tulips. And unless there were imminent gale-force winds in the European weather forecast, that was where he’d remain.
Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the Butcher of Fallujah -and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091) Page 31