The Longest War

by Peter L. Bergen

  106 David Hicks: Raymond Bonner, “Australian detainee’s life of wandering ends with plea bargain,” New York Times, March 28, 2007.

  106 Salim Hamdan: Robert Worth, “Bin Laden driver to be sent to Yemen,” New York Times, November 25, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/

  washington/26gitmo.html.

  106 Ali Hamza al-Bahlul: William Glaberson, “Detainee convicted on terrorism charges,” New York Times, November 3, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/

  washington/04gitmo.html.

  107 legal definition of torture: Bob Woodward, “Detainee tortured, says U.S. official,” Washington Post, January 14, 2009.

  107 But he was turned back: Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, “How the 20th hijacker got turned away,” Newsweek, January 26, 2004. http://www.newsweek.com/id/52857.

  107 “extreme psychological trauma”: “Inside the interrogation of Detainee 063,” TIME, June 12, 2005. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/

  0.9171.1071284-1.00.html.

  108 compared it to a gulag: Amnesty International released a report in 2005 calling Guantánamo “the gulag of our time.” Richard Norton-Taylor, “Guantánamo is gulag of our time, says Amnesty,” The Guardian, May 26, 2005.

  108 until April 2006: Ben Fox, “Pentagon releases first list of names of Guantánamo detainees,” Associated Press, April 20, 2006.

  108 accused was not able to see all: Department of Defense, “Military Commission Rules of Evidence, Section I,” www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/

  Part%20III%20-%20MCREs%20(FINAL).pdf.

  108 covered by the Article 3: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al, Supreme Court of the United States, October 2005. Argued March 28, 2006, decided June 29, 2006. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

  opinions/05pdf/05-184.pdf.

  108 “accompanying serious physical injury”: John C. Yoo, Memorandum to Alberto Gonzales, United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, August 1, 2002. http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2008/06/04/14/

  Tab-L.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf; Dana Priest and R. Jeffrey Smith, “Memo offered justification for the use of torture,” Washington Post, June 8, 2004.

  109 hit all of them: Tenet op. cit., p. 241. Scott Shane, “Inside the interrogation of a 9/11 mastermind,” New York Times, June 22, 2008.

  109 Abu Zubaydah was captured: John F. Burns, “In Pakistan’s Interior, A Troubling Victory In Hunt for Al-Qaeda,” New York Times, April 9, 2002; “losing a testicle”: Author interview with Ali Soufan, New York, December 17, 2009.

  109 CIA arranged for a leading surgeon: Tenet op. cit., p. 241.

  110 located in Thailand: Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, “In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Look at Past Use,” New York Times, April 22, 2009.

  110 calling him “Hani”: Soufan interview.

  110 some sort of a plan: Osama bin Laden, December 13, 2001. Transcript available from CNN, translated by Department of Defense. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/

  U.S./12/13/tape.transcript/.

  110 “Who is Mukhtar?”: Soufan interview.

  110 his central role: A longtime CIA al-Qaeda expert said that in early March 2002 the Agency had first learned that ‘KSM’ was behind 9/11 following the arrest of a group of militants in Oman who, when they were interrogated, said that someone who went by the alias of ‘Mukhtar’ was the brains behind the attacks. When they were shown a bunch of photos of al-Qaeda members the arrested militants pointed out KSM to be ‘Mukhtar.’ The CIA official said this took place some weeks before Abu Zubayadah was ever in American custody. (Author interview with CIA official, Washington, D.C., 2006).

  110 “highest ranking members”: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, “Interrogation of al-Qaida operative,” August 1, 2002. http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/

  doj/olc/zubaydah.pdf.

  110 “al-Qaeda’s chief of operations”: George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 6, 2002. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/

  news/releases/2002/06/20020606-8.html; “travel agent”: Daniel Coleman, interview by author, Princeton, New Jersey, December 19, 2009.

  111 White House lawyers authorized: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, May 10, 2005.

  111 James E. Mitchell: Senate Armed Services Committee op. cit., p. xiv.

  111 had never conducted a real interrogation: Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, “In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Look at Past Use,” New York Times, April 22, 2009.

  111 “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”: Central Intelligence Agency, Inspector General, Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities, May 7, 2004, pp. 13–15.

  111 a total of twenty-eight detainees in American custody: Stephen G. Bradbury, “Memorandum Re: Application of United States Obligations Under Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture to Certain techniques that May Be used in the Interrogation of High Value al-Qaeda Detainees”, 30 May 2005 (footnote, p. 5), http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/

  clients/aclu/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf.

  111 “Only one person and one person only”: Author interview with Ali Soufan.

  112 allowed to resume their questioning: Ali Soufan, testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., May 13, 2009, http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/

  testimony.cfm?id=3842&wit_id=7906; and Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, “Fresh questions about the CIA’s interrogation tapes,” Newsweek, May 2, 2009.

  112 jibed with Jose Padilla: author interview with Ali Soufan, Manhattan, New York, December 17, 2009.

  112 form of simulated drowning: the number of waterboardings on Abu Zubaydah comes from page 37 of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, May 30, 2005. http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/olc/

  article16.pdf. United States Senate, Committee on Armed Services. Inquiry into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody, November 20, 2008, http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/

  Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf.

  112 did yield information: Scott Shane, “Waterboarding used 266 times on 2 suspects,” New York Times, April 20, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/

  world/20detain.html “subject of a front page story”; David Johnston and Philip Shenon, “Man held since August is charged with a role in Sept. 11 terror plot,” New York Times, December 12, 2001.

  112 no specific leads: Peter Finn and Joby Warrick, “Detainee’s harsh interrogation foiled no plots,” Washington Post, March 29, 2009.

  112 Dozens of videotapes: Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. says CIA destroyed 92 tapes of interrogations,” New York Times, March 2, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/

  washington/03web-intel.html.

  113 had ended, in any event, in 2003: Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen, “Hill briefed on waterboarding in 2002,” Washington Post, December 9, 2007.

  113 held in jails in Poland and Romania: Council of Europe, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, “Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe Member States,” June 7, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/

  bsp/hi/pdfs/marty_08_06_07.pdf.

  113 “constituted torture”: Mark Danner, “U.S. torture: voices from the black sites,” New York Review of Books, April 9, 2009. http://www.nybooks.com/

  articles/22530?email.

  114 “Informed Interrogator” approach: Ali Soufan interview by author December 17, 2009, New York.

  114 “dozens and dozens of people”: Ali Soufan interview by author December 17, 2009, New York.

  114 picked out eight: Ali Soufan interview by author December 17, 2009, New York. Abu Jandal, FD-302, Federal Bureau of Investigation, pp. 59–63 and 74–81. http://judiciary.senate.gov/press/upload/302-Abu-Jandal-Interview

  -Unclassified-Part-3. (Since removed)

  114 waterboarded 183 times: The number of waterboardings on KSM comes from page 37 of Memorandum to J
ohn Rizzo, May 30, 2005 op. cit.

  114 prosecuted a group of police officers: The case in question is U.S. v. Lee, No. 83-2675, United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit, October 12, 1984, described at length by Professor David Luban before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, on May 13, 2009.

  114 2002 interview with Yosri Fouda: Yosri Fouda, interview by author, London 2002.

  114 183 times: Scott Shane, “Waterboarding used 266 times on 2 suspects,” New York Times, April 19, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/

  world/20detain.html; Shane 2008 op. cit., and Tenet op. cit., pp. 253–255, and CIA IG Report op. cit., p. 91.

  115 would be killed: Central Intelligence Agency, Inspector General Report, “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities,” May 7, 2004. http://media. washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/

  nation/documents/cia_report.pdf, p. 43.

  115 “used to take great pride”: Author interview with former senior CIA official Robert Dannenberg, December 17, 2009, New York City.

  115 “If it hadn’t been”: John F. Harris et al, “Cheney warns of new attacks,” Politico.com, February 4, 2009. http://www.politico.com/news/

  stories/0209/18390.html.

  116 “In top secret meetings”: Dick Cheney, Washington, D.C., May 21, 2009. http://www.aei.org/docLib/Vice%20President%20Cheney

  %20Remarks%205%2021%2009.pdf

  116 “reporting from KSM has greatly”: “Khalid Shaykh Mohamed: Preeminent Source On Al-Qa’ida,” July 13, 2004. http://ccrjustice.org/files/CIA%20KSM%20

  Preeminent%20Source.pdf.

  116 program was a dud: Joby Warrick, “Suspect and a setback in al-Qaeda anthrax case,” Washington Post, October 31, 2006.

  117 Hambali was the mastermind: Department of Defense, Detainee Biographies, Hambali. http://www.defenselink.mil/pdf/detaineebiographies1.pdf, p. 3.

  117 “like a white collar criminal”: Tenet op. cit., pp. 254–255.

  117 “more than a dozen”: Peter Bergen, “Cheney’s Jihad,” ForeignPolicy.com, August 26, 2009. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/

  2009/08/26/cheneys_jihad.

  117 “Second Wave”: Memorandum to John Rizzo op. cit.

  117 “KSM launched several plots”: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Biography, Director of National Intelligence, http://www.defenselink.mil/pdf/detaineebiogra

  phies1.pdf.

  118 “back burner”: Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Department of Justice, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/

  FTRIALS/moussaoui/sheikhstmt.pdf, pp. 39–40.

  118 “did not uncover any evidence”: CIA IG Report op. cit.

  118 someone that the feds had already identified: New York Times topic page, Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, updated May 1, 2009, http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/

  people/m/ali_saleh_kahlah_al_marri/index.html; and Soufan interview op. cit.

  118 only four days after: Combatant Status Review Tribunal Summary, Majid Khan, March 28, 2007, p. 12. http://projects.nytimes.com/Guantánamo

  /detainees/10020-majid-khan/documents/7/pages/203.

  118 many computers and cell phones: NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw, March 3, 2003.

  119 “I don’t believe”: David Rose, “Tortured reasoning,” Vanity Fair, December 16, 2008. http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/

  2008/12/torture200812?currentPage=1; “difficult to determine”: CIA IG Report op. cit.

  119 “These techniques have hurt our image”: Joby Warrick, “Intelligence chief says methods hurt U.S.,” Washington Post, April 22, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/

  wp-dyn/content/article/

  2009/04/21/AR2009042104334_pf.html.

  119 “Clean Team”: Josh White, Dan Eggen, and Joby Warrick, “U.S. to try 6 on capital charges over 9/11 attacks,” Washington Post, February 12, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

  content/story/2008/02/11/ST2008021101227.html.

  119 most well-informed American official: Coleman interview. BBC survey: BBC World Service Poll, “World view of U.S. goes from bad to worse,” January 23, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/

  pdfs/23_01_07_U.S._poll.pdf.

  120 poll the same year: Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Global unease with major world powers,” June 26, 2007. http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/256.pdf.

  Chapter 8

  121 “One by one”: George W. Bush, Camp David, September 14, 2002.

  121 ankle-high hiking boots: United States of America v. Richard Colvin Reid, United States District Court of Massachusetts, Crim. No. 02-10013-WGY, Government’s Sentencing Memorandum, January 17, 2003.

  122 “don’t be angry”: Sentencing memorandum, USA v. Richard Colvin Reid, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts. http://www.investigativeproject.org

  /documents/case_docs/864.pdf.

  122 Three hours into the flight: Sentencing memorandum op. cit.

  122 at least 1,200: David Schanzer, Charles Kurzman, Ebrahim Moosa, “Anti-terror lessons of Muslim-Americans,” Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, p. 7. http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/

  documents/Anti-TerrorLessonsfinal.pdf.

  122 “far exceeds the interest”: Classified declaration of Mr. Jeffery Rapp, Director, Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism from September 9, 2004, declassified on April 5, 2006.

  123 “He was using a payphone”: Ali Soufan, interview by author, December 17, 2009, New York.

  123 plea agreement: USA vs Ali Saleh Khalah al-Marri, Plea Agreement, filed April 3 2009 District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Peoria Division NO. 09-CR-10030.

  123 Ohio trucker: “Ohio trucker joined al-Qaeda jihad,” CNN.com, June 19, 2003; USA vs. Iyman Faris, United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Statement of Facts. http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/

  faris/usfaris603sof.pdf. Christopher Dickey, Securing the City op. cit., pp. 85–87.

  123 Always dreaming up: Kevin Mayhood, “Man linked to al-Qaeda wants to void plea deal,” Columbus Dispatch, February 27, 2005. February 2003: Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Material Support: A Midwest Al-Qaida Case and the U.S. War on Homegrown Terror (Ohio University Press, 2011).

  124 three North African Muslim men: David Johnston and Paul Zielbauer, “3 held in Detroit after aircraft diagrams are found,” New York Times, September 20, 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/U.S./nation-challenged

  -investigation-3-held-detroit-after-aircraft-diagrams-are-found.html;

  “suspected of having knowledge”: John Ashcroft, October 31, 2001, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

  124 known con man: Bennett L. Gershman, “How Juries Get it Wrong—Anatomy of the Detroit Terror Case,” Washburn Law Journal, Vol. 44, 2005. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1292894. “Ex-cabbie to help in terrorism case,” Chicago Tribune, April 5, 2003. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-04-05/news

  /0304050295_1_terrorism-case-youssef-hmimssa-terrorists.

  124 “What a lovely view!”: Danny Hakim, “Final Arguments Start in Trial Of 4 Arabs in Terrorism Case,” New York Times, May 20, 2003.

  124 “just like a tourist tape”: Ron Hansen quoted in Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares, BBC, October 20–November 3, 2004.

  124 Yemen’s minister of defense: This section is based on Bennett L. Gershman, “How Juries Get it Wrong—Anatomy of the Detroit Terror Case” (October 31, 2008). Washburn Law Journal, Vol. 44, 2005. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1292894.

  125 the supposed al-Qaeda spy at Guantánamo: Laura Parker, “The ordeal of Chaplain Yee,” USA Today, May 16, 2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/

  nation/2004-05-16-yee-cover_x.htm.

  125 his son’s homework: “FBI apologizes to lawyer held in Madrid bombings,” Associated Press, May 25, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5053007/.

  125 “American Taliban”: CNN, “People in the news,” Profile of
John Walker Lindh, http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/

  walker/profile.html.

  125 tried for treason: Evan Thomas, “A long, strange trip to the Taliban,” Newsweek, December 17, 2001. http://www.newsweek.com/id/75261.

  125 enough to convict: Jane Mayer, “Lost in the Jihad,” New Yorker, March 10, 2003. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/03/

  10/030310fa_fact2.

  126 Lackawanna: For more details on the Lackawanna case, see Ravi Satkalmi, “Material Support: The United States v. the Lackawanna Six,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 28 issue 3, May/June 2005, and “The Al-Qaeda Documents,” Intel-Center ed. Ben Venzke (Tempest Publishing, 2002), p. 160.

  126 married a high school cheerleader: Ian Brown, “And justice for all,” Globe and Mail, September 6, 2003.

  126 fueled by pizza: Dina Temple-Raston, The Jihad Next Door (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), pp. 30–39.

  126 spring and summer of 2001: PBS Frontline, “Chasing the sleeper cell: chronology: the Lackawanna investigation,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline

  /shows/sleeper/inside/cron.html.

  126 “We don’t even think”: Matthew Purdy and Lowell Bergman, “Unclear danger,” New York Times, October 12, 2003, is an authoritative account of the Lackawanna case.

  126 faked an ankle injury: Temple-Raston op. cit., p. 120; kept their training a secret: Temple-Raston op. cit., pp. 184–185. washed out: Mitchell Silber and Arvin Bhatt, “Radicalization in the West,” New York Police Department, http://www.nypdshield.org/public/SiteFiles/documents/

  NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf, p. 62.

  126 “for recruiting the Yemenite youth”: Temple-Raston op. cit., p. 24.

  127 “Big Meal”: Purdy and Bergman op. cit.

  127 tender caresses: Purdy and Bergman op. cit.

  127 recently broken up in Buffalo: George W. Bush, State of the Union, Washington, D.C., January 28, 2003. “There was never any evidence”: Silber et al. op. cit., p. 62.

  127 between seven and ten years: Dina Temple-Raston, “Member of Lackawanna Six released from prison,” NPR, May 6, 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story

  .php?storyId=90235086.