by Mark Fallon
On November 14, XXX XXXXXXX received an e-mail from Diane Beaver. Beaver advised it was her “understanding” that the National Security Counsel had weighed in and stated that the intelligence from al-Qahtani was an “utmost matter of national security,” adding, “We are driving forward with the support of SOUTHCOM.” The apparent support of the National Security Counsel and SOUTHCOM was finally enough to stop JTF-GTMO’s obsessive approval seeking. Miller planned to begin interrogating al-Qahtani at midnight on November 15, 2002.
Our last option to prevent these abusive practices at Gitmo was to go on the offensive with Miller. Britt Mallow and I crafted an e-mail that would go straight to Miller. Our message needed to be direct yet not threatening. We tried to reach him on his responsibilities as a leader, mentioning that the use of such techniques could “open any military member up for potential criminal charges.” We thought if we could impress upon Miller that there might be consequences for his decision to use more abusive techniques on al-Qahtani, he might pause and research the matter more thoroughly. After all, he had just assumed command there. We thought we might convince him he was going down a path, or being led down a path, that had unintended outcomes.
We also wanted to leave Miller a way out, so it would be his decision, not something forced upon him. We proposed the JTF-GTMO and CITF create a “joint working group,” where JTF-GTMO, CITF, FBI, and CIA could all participate in the development of a detailed interrogation plan for al-Qahtani. At a minimum, we hoped we could buy more time so we could engage the issue.
We wordsmithed the e-mail a few times, going back and forth about the tone and wanting to be indirectly direct. But even if we got the tone correct, the truth is, in the command-and-control structure of the military, colonels don’t write letters like this to major generals. Finally, Britt sat at his desk, with me looking over his shoulder, staring at the unsent e-mail.
“Should I send it?” he asked.
“Go for it!”
“Are you sure?”
“Hit SEND, Britt.”
He took a deep breath and hit the send button. The moment his finger left the keyboard I yelled, “No, I was just kidding! Don’t send it!” I burst out laughing. So did Britt, once the horror left his face.
For once, our efforts paid off. Al-Qahtani’s interrogation did not commence at midnight. Miller had blinked. Maybe he was coming around.
• • •
The first sign that our hopes were misplaced came just three days later. On November 18, 2002, JTF-GTMO implemented what they called a Rewards and Penalties program that wasn’t aimed just at al-Qahtani but was Gitmo-wide. If interrogators felt the detainees were uncooperative or untruthful, they would order them into isolation cells, where they could choose to blast the air-conditioning or leave the detainees baking in the tropical heat. These tactics were part of XXXX and Burney’s descriptions of creating “controlled chaos” throughout the camp.
• • •
If there was any doubt Miller was still hell-bent on using the EITs at Gitmo, it disappeared during a November 21 senior-level secure video teleconference. Miller used the meeting to pitch his program to the Pentagon. The general said his staff felt the EITs were necessary to obtain the intelligence that was essential to our national security.
Miller then made a series of questionable claims. First, he said his pseudo-BSCT was on board. From the discussions he’d had with the psychologist XXXX and psychiatrist Burney, Mike Gelles wasn’t sure this was true. In fact, he had become convinced these key members of Miller’s pseudo-BSCT knew the EITs were wrong and ineffective—they just couldn’t stand up to their general. Miller also cited the positive legal opinion from his own staff judge advocate. He failed to mention that every other lawyer who reviewed Diane Beaver’s October cover letter felt her legal reasoning was way off base. Finally, Miller claimed the FBI supported his interrogation plan for al-Qahtani. This was an outright lie, but Miller was an artillery officer—relentlessly pounding to achieve his objective.
To push back against Miller’s arguments, we had Mike Gelles patched in from Guantanamo and XXXXXX XXXXXX and Sam McCahon at the Pentagon, along with the FBI Guantanamo unit chief. I watched from the CITF conference room with my senior staff. We put everything on the line. We made clear that the EITs were illegal, immoral, ineffective, and unconstitutional. Our orders—from the president—were to treat detainees humanely. It was the CITF on one side of the issue and the new field general on the other. Miller, with less than a month in place as the JTF-GTMO commander, didn’t have a clue what an effective interrogation technique might be. He just opposed anything that wasn’t under his direct command and control. He was dead set on using SERE in interrogations, and he didn’t care what anybody else said.
After the meeting, the FBI was incensed Miller had lied about their support of the plan, but they were also concerned that if they made a stink about it, they could be asked to leave Gitmo altogether, potentially missing out on intel. However, XXXXXX XXXX, an FBI agent with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, XXX XXXX XXX XXXX XX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXX. The FBI counsel responded that, absent human rights violations, “such as physical torture, rape, starvation and murder,” the military’s authority was not the FBI’s concern. The techniques were “apparently lawful” for the military. However, FBI agents should not be “involved in” such interrogations. If FBI agents were uncomfortable in such a situation, they should leave.
Unsatisfied with the response, Neer sent official correspondence to FBI headquarters with concerns that FBI personnel were witnessing sleep deprivation, duct tape on detainees’ mouths, loud music, bright lights, and growling dogs being used in JTF-GTMO’s interrogations, putting FBI personnel in a tenuous situation. That official correspondence was never responded to.
After the recent stay of al-Qahtani’s enhanced interrogation, I had felt a ray of hope. Now I could feel the darkness encroaching. We kept advocating for proven techniques. Few people ever directly disputed our arguments, but the treatment of detainees kept getting harsher. The way everything at Gitmo was tracking, I could see congressional committee hearings on the horizon. I began to worry not just about preventing detainee abuse but protecting my staff and myself. When we registered concerns, I sent messages to other CITF staff, as well as to Ralph Blincoe at NCIS headquarters. “Ralph: Please ensure you save a copy of this. . . . I may need it in the future. I’ll keep you posted.”
By now I had realized whoever was behind this push to torture was powerful. I began e-mailing key documents to trusted friends and told them to save them. If things went sideways, I could be relieved of command and denied access to my office and e-mails. I needed to stash documentary evidence of everyone’s actions at Guantanamo at safe locations. I felt like I was undercover again, working within a criminal enterprise planning a heist.
I also told our legal counsel, Sam, to take notes and document every contact he had with the DOD Office of General Counsel. The mission to bring bad guys to justice was being subverted by forces beyond my level. I would add it to my list of failures. I had to protect the CITF personnel. I had to fulfill my promise to Donald Ryder to protect my people.
• • •
Al-Qahtani’s fate was sealed on November 27, 2002, when Department of Defense lawyer Jim Haynes signed an action memo for Donald Rumsfeld on the counterresistance techniques, with the memos from Phifer, Beaver, Dunlavey, and Hill attached.
Five days later, Secretary Rumsfeld signed the request that Dunlavey had originally initiated, authorizing eighteen of the interrogation techniques that emanated from Guantanamo. In reference to the request for forcing detainees to stand in stress positions for four hours at a time, Rumsfeld added a handwritten note: “However, I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
The CITF had been cut out of any decision making, but we still had access to an electronic interrogation log recording al-Qahtani’s t
reatment. At the earlier meetings, XXXXXXX XXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX So I had our analyst send the logbook’s entries up to me every day. Miller’s team had no idea we had access to them.
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• • •
Al-Qahtani’s extreme reaction to the female interrogator was calculated. The interrogators knew that many of the detainees were brought up in a culture where women dressed very modestly. In some cases, they may have grown up never seeing a women in public without her whole body covered. Certainly, open sexuality or nudity were shocking taboos. For Americans and Europeans, this taboo might only be imaginable if they inserted their cousins or siblings in the role of female interrogators, and imagined them stripping and rubbing up against them.
Reading the logbook, it was striking to me how, as with so many other things, JTF-GTMO’s use of females was the polar opposite of CITF and NCIS’s. In fact, when I put together my interrogation team for Guantanamo, I purposefully selected more men than women. Given strict Arab Muslims’ very different attitudes toward sexuality and women—how they dress, behave, etc.—I thought I would be setting up even the most experienced female interrogators to fail. I was wrong. It turned out that a number of women were among our most successful, but it was because they acted professional, not through sexual exploitation.
My best guess on this unexpected twist is that, because most Middle Eastern men revere their mothers, these females became a sort of surrogate. I have no research to validate this, but CITF female interrogators seemed to listen better, have more sympathy, and didn’t make the detainees uncomfortable by getting too close. Whatever the case, it was a lot more effective than just trying to freak out detainees with women’s bodies.
• • •
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• • •
Medical professionals—including XXXX XXXX and Paul Burney—were direct participants in this treatment. Begrudgingly at times, they had helped develop, recommend, and implement practices that were cruel, inhumane, and degrading. XXXX was actually in the room giving interrogators advice. He would tell interrogators to spin al-Qahtani around in a chair so he could not focus his eyes on an object. He would also assess al-Qahtani to determine if his abuse could continue.
Burney was also present for parts of al-Qahtani’s interrogation, including when he was stripped, when he was forcibly groomed, when a female interrogator invaded his personal space, when he was threatened with a military working dog, and when he was treated like an animal—forced to wear a leash or act like a dog. They were testing Seligman’s theory on humans. And in the most twisted sense, they were successful.
• • •
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• • •
Reading the logbooks on a daily basis in my office at Fort Belvoir, I became an
gry at myself for feeling sympathy for a terrorist as well as frustrated by my inability to stop the torture and by the dwindling options in front of me. Dave Brant had authorized me to pull the NCIS agents from the CITF if I saw the situation deteriorate to an untenable level. However, if we withdrew from the CITF, we wouldn’t have access to the torture logs.
I decided to get in touch with John Pistole, the FBI’s assistant director for counterterrorism, to try to see if the FBI could help. They couldn’t. While the FBI didn’t agree with the aggressive techniques, their official position was that it was a DOD matter and out of their hands.
Then I called Ralph Blincoe to discuss my reflections about Gitmo and the risks I associated with NCIS being involved in any way with interrogations. Ralph was not only my reporting senior within NCIS but one of my closest friends. Over the many years, when we’d asked each other for support, the response was either “Anything for you, buddy” or “As long as it’s not a felony!” But there was little Ralph could do at that point. He encouraged me to hang in there, just like a contact agent does with an undercover agent.
• • •
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