500 Days

by Kurt Eichenwald

  • • •

  A group of American diplomats and generals strutted into the Sarajevo office of Alija Behmen, the prime minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  A secretary greeted the visitors—Christopher Hoh, the deputy United States ambassador, and three others from the embassy; General John Sylvester, the American commander for the NATO-led Stabilization Force, known as SFOR, which was tasked to serve as a peacekeeper in the war-ravaged country; and General David Petraeus, assistant chief of staff with SFOR. Seconds later, Behmen emerged from his office, an expression of cautious cordiality on his face.

  “Please, come in,” he said, inviting the group to a meeting room.

  The prime minister felt apprehensive as everyone found their seats. He had heard that the Americans were about to pressure him to do something bordering on illegality—maybe even crossing that border. Three months earlier, they had demanded that Behmen order the arrests of six Algerians; they were, the Americans said, cooking up a plot to bomb the United States embassy in Sarajevo. While the Americans gave no information supporting the allegation, they repeatedly assured Behmen that it existed.

  Over the past three months, Federation authorities had gathered all of the evidence they could find. They searched the men’s homes and offices, downloaded and analyzed data on their computer, took the machines apart and examined the pieces, checked phone records, interviewed witnesses, and sought information from agencies such as INTERPOL, the FBI, and NATO security forces. They turned up—nothing. Federation officials begged the Bush administration to give them access to the proof that the United States found so convincing, to no avail. The men must stay locked up, the Americans insisted, but neither the police nor the courts could be told why.

  There was a piece of paper found in one search that listed a phone number and a name similar to that of a senior al-Qaeda operative. But there were problems with the document, and members of the Federation police whispered among themselves that it might have been manufactured by the Americans to ensure these men were taken off the street.

  Any defendant in the country could be held without charge for only ninety days, and that time was almost up for the Algerians. With the men’s release looming, the embassy called Behmen and asked for this urgent meeting.

  Hoh opened the gathering, discussing the status of the case and the Americans’ knowledge about the likely outcome.

  “I’m here to inform you,” Hoh said, “that senior United States officials—including the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense—have been briefed about the status of the investigation of these six men and the likelihood that they are about to be released because of a lack of evidence.”

  Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld were directly involved in this? Behmen’s anxiety was turning into outright fear.

  “Mr. Prime Minister,” General Sylvester said, “I have a direct order from the top level of my command to use SFOR troops to rearrest these men, if necessary.”

  Behmen sat back in his chair, lifting up his overturned hands. The Americans might use their troops against Federation law enforcement?

  “What am I supposed to do?” Behmen asked. “I can’t order for these men to be held in prison when we have no evidence.”

  Behmen needed to think this through, Sylvester said. “In my view, the direct involvement of SFOR in this case would be a serious mistake. This problem needs to be resolved by the authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, without that direct involvement.”

  If the Algerians could not be held, then the Federation needed to immediately turn them over to the SFOR after their release. If not, the American military would be forced to act. Sylvester would not ignore an order from the president.

  This wasn’t much of a choice. If Bosnia refused to turn over the Algerians, Behmen knew, the United States would make good on its threat. The Americans would launch a military operation in central Sarajevo and use every means at their disposal to take custody of these suspects. Innocent people might be killed in the upheaval. All for six men.

  The Federation could sidestep the law or take a stand on principle. Either way, the Americans would seize the Algerians. There could be violence and danger, or safety and security.

  The Americans gave Behmen and his ministers less than a week to decide.

  • • •

  The ferry churned slowly toward the dock on the windward side of Guantanamo Bay. On board were about ten interrogators from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Army Criminal Investigation Command, better known as CID. They had traveled to the island under orders from General Donald Ryder of Southern Command to form a joint criminal task force to conduct law enforcement interrogations of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.

  The ferry docked and the agents hurried off. They were met by a colleague, there to show them around the place. Countless numbers of uniform-clad soldiers bustled about, readying the naval station for its new role. The colleague mentioned that military jets were arriving every day with army and marine personnel, assigned to Guantanamo by Southern Command as part of a troop buildup.

  Blaine Thomas, an assistant special agent in charge for the NCIS, decided that the group should check in with the detention center’s chief of staff. He and Ray Romano, a senior agent from CID, walked up a hill toward the main building. Thomas saw Marines everywhere, a good sign; as a former marine himself, he expected to be readily accepted by the troops.

  The two men stepped inside the building and wandered through some hallways. When they reached the office, the chief of staff signaled for them to wait outside while he handled another matter. Minutes passed. Finally, they were called in. Thomas reached out to shake hands.

  The chief ignored him. “Who are you, what the fuck are you doing on my island, and why the fuck are you eating my food?”

  Okay, Thomas thought. That’s how it’s going to be.

  “We’re here representing General Ryder, who was tasked by Secretary Rumsfeld to set up this task force,” Thomas said. “I’m a special agent with NCIS, and I’m a former marine.”

  The chief shrugged. “Yeah? So what?”

  His priority was detention, the chief said. Everything else—intelligence, criminal investigations—was secondary to him.

  “If you get a chance to do interviews, that’s fine,” he said. “If you don’t, don’t come complaining to me.”

  Romano cleared his throat and decided to try the personal touch. He held out a hat, emblazoned with the CID letters. “I thought you might like to have this,” he said.

  The chief glanced down at the offering with a look of contempt.

  “I don’t wear hats,” he snapped.

  With that, Thomas and Romano left the office, already certain that this would be a very unpleasant assignment.

  • • •

  The office at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan was bitter cold despite the brazier of burning coal. Two American law enforcement officials sat in silence across from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the al-Qaeda military commander who the Americans officials believed was the highest-ranking member of the terrorist group in their custody.

  Al-Libi had been captured near Tora Bora after two guides lured him and some young al-Qaeda fighters into a trap, turning them over to Shiite tribes in Pakistan for money. The Shiites gave al-Libi to the Pakistani military, which then surrendered him to American troops on December 19.

  Army interrogators gladly yielded the task of questioning al-Libi to law enforcement. The job fell to Russell Fincher, a special agent from the FBI’s antiterrorism unit at the New York Field Office, and Marty Mahon, a New York City detective who had been part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force for years. They knew how to conduct an effective interrogation and were moving slowly through the paces.

  Some time had passed since the two had walked into the room. They had read al-Libi his rights but had said nothing else. Al-Libi was being given some time to relax, to understand he was safe—but was also being thrown off balance by Americans who were not
saying or doing anything.

  “Hello,” Fincher said finally. He offered al-Libi some coffee.

  He pointed southwest. “Mecca is in that direction,” he said. All devout Muslims, no matter where they are in the world, pray while facing the Kaaba, a building in Mecca that is the most sacred site in Islam. Fincher had just helped al-Libi meet his Islamic duties.

  Fincher explained that he was a devout Christian and joined with al-Libi in prayer sessions, followed by discussions about God, Muhammad, and Jesus. No questions, no yelling, just the slow process of developing a relationship with their witness.

  Al-Libi seemed taken aback. This was not what he had been taught to expect. There was no torture, no pain. These men were friendly, even likable. He had no fidelity to bin Laden; he never felt particularly close with the al-Qaeda leader and had begun to consider him selfish.

  So he talked. He wasn’t a member of al-Qaeda, he said, having never formally pledged his allegiance to bin Laden. But he mixed with the group quite easily and knew many of its senior members. He was acquainted with Richard Reid, the man now called the shoe bomber, who had attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight bound from Paris to Miami. Reid had trained with al-Qaeda and stayed in the group’s two-floor guesthouse in the Shar-e Naw area of Kabul, near the Pul-e Khishti Bridge. He didn’t speak much, and stayed aloof from others. Al-Libi also provided information about Zacarias Moussaoui, the al-Qaeda member arrested in Minneapolis shortly before 9/11.

  While he denied any connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, he did reveal a critical secret—al-Qaeda was in the final stages of a plan to blow up the American embassy in Aden. This was actionable intelligence, information that could save American lives.

  The raw information from al-Libi was typed up quickly into FBI 302s—notes of interview—and transmitted to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the senior leadership of the FBI. The interrogators in Bagram had every reason to believe that the sessions with al-Libi would be seen as an unmitigated success.

  • • •

  The message shot out from the CIA station chief in Kabul: The FBI was screwing up. Al-Libi was holding back.

  That opinion reached the White House the same day. Clearly, the station chief was right. Al-Libi had to know more than he was telling. He was a senior member of al-Qaeda, and claimed not to know anything about the group’s connections to Iraq? Absurd!

  The order went out. This gentle approach wasn’t working. The CIA needed to take over. It was time to get rough.

  • • •

  Fincher and Mahon were conducting another day of questioning with al-Libi when a Toyota Tundra pulled up to the building. Without warning, a CIA officer in his mid-fifties climbed out of the truck, then burst into the interrogation room with military troops.

  “You’re going to Egypt!” the CIA man barked, pointing at al-Libi.

  As Fincher and Mahon stood by helplessly, the soldiers grabbed al-Libi and strapped him to a stretcher. They bound his feet and hands, sealed his mouth with duct tape, and pulled a hood over his head. Troops lifted al-Libi onto the stretcher, took him out to the Toyota, and put him inside a box in the back. Then the truck drove away.

  • • •

  On January 11, pilots from the 445th Airlift Wing banked a C-141 cargo carrier over the mystically lucid sapphire waters of the Caribbean Sea. Ahead, the sheltered inlet of Guantanamo Bay appeared, its surrounding lowlands rising steadily through foothills toward blue and purple mountains in the distance.

  The Lockheed Starlifter passed over the rocky shoreline and touched down on a small, unwelcoming airstrip encircled by scorched grass and scrub. After a twenty-seven-hour flight from Kandahar, the first twenty suspected terrorists had arrived at the detention camp.

  Four Humvees—three with fifty-caliber machine guns and the fourth with a grenade launcher—ringed the plane. A navy Huey helicopter circled overhead. Forty marines with rifles, helmets, and face shields crowded around the airstrip in an intimidating show of force.

  Just before 3:00 P.M., the rear doorway of the aircraft opened, and a manacled figure appeared. He was dressed in a fluorescent-orange jumpsuit and cap, a turquoise surgical mask over his mouth, blacked-out goggles, and sound-blocking earmuffs. On the tarmac, he was frisked by military police.

  After being searched, the detainees were loaded onto a white bus with windows that had all been blacked out. Once the twenty prisoners were secured, the bus drove down to the bay and onto a ferry, beginning the twenty-minute journey from the leeward to the windward side.

  • • •

  A group of marines waited in silence outside of Camp X-Ray. Hours before, they had heard that the first detainees had arrived at the airfield and, since then, had received intermittent updates on their location. The last notification had just been radioed in—the terrorists would arrive in sixty seconds.

  A bus appeared, escorted by two military Humvees. As the line of vehicles came to a stop, the marines could hear their comrades inside the bus yelling at the detainees.

  “You’re the property of the U.S. now!” one soldier shouted.

  The marines outside lined up in groups of two in front of the bus exit. The door opened and the first man appeared, wearing leg irons and a belly chain. He was thrown to the waiting soldiers, who grabbed him by his arm and his shirt. As they dragged the man away, someone called out that the detainee had only one leg; seconds later, his prosthetic limb was tossed off the bus.

  Detainees were placed on their knees in a line until all twenty had been brought out. The pairs of marines then hauled them toward a holding area. Each man was taken to a chair and examined by a medic. Afterward, they were fingerprinted and assigned an internment serial number, or ISN. Their goggles, masks, and earmuffs were removed for a moment while they were photographed, then put back on.

  From there, they were taken to their cages in Alpha Block. The detainee designated as ISN 374—a man in his late fifties or even his late sixties, one of the soldiers guessed—was terrified. As he was taken toward his cell, the man shook and stopped lifting his feet. The guards carrying him started to yell.

  “Walk faster!” one shouted.

  The man was taken inside his cage and placed on his knees. One of the soldiers bent down and unshackled the leg irons as his partner held the man around his upper body. The soldier then came around in front to remove the handcuffs. The detainee began swaying back and forth. Both guards, along with an interpreter, yelled at him to stop.

  The soldier unlocked the handcuffs. The detainee pulled away, pushing into the marine holding him.

  The marine grabbed the man by his biceps and his shirt collar and slammed him face-first onto the cement floor. Then he fell on top of the detainee, holding him down by his neck so that the man couldn’t move. The guard’s partner left the cage as the officer in charge hustled over. He shoved the cage door closed, then spoke into a radio.

  “Code red! Code red!”

  Seconds later, the gate flew open again and other marines ran in. They grabbed their colleague, who was still pinning the detainee to the ground, and pulled him out of the cage. Then they jumped on top of the man and hog-tied him with cuffs and chains.

  He was left in that position, facedown, for a few hours.

  • • •

  The next morning, the left side of detainee 374’s face was bruised and scraped. The marine who had been bumped by the man the day before came by to check on him. He had done his assigned job by physically controlling this man, but still his conscience was eating at him.

  Why had the man resisted? What was he trying to accomplish? The marine couldn’t let the questions go, and a few days later, he heard from another detainee on the block what had happened.

  The man had arrived at Guantanamo without having heard or seen anything for more than a day. He had no idea where he was or what his captors’ plan for him was. His home country was a violent place, and he had seen people he knew executed right in front of him. But before they were killed, they we
re forced onto their knees.

  When his shackles were removed, the man, terrified that he was seconds from death, pulled away in a feeble attempt to protect himself. So the guards, unaware of what was happening, shoved him to the floor and piled on top.

  • • •

  A row of nineteenth-century double-gallery houses lines the 900 block of Euterpe Street in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, a tangible record of the city’s golden age. Named for the muse of music of Greek mythology, the street has attracted an eclectic collection of residents—artists, lawyers, businesspeople—eager to be immersed in the trappings of a long-gone era.

  Among the residents in early 2002 were Clive Stafford Smith and his wife, Emily Bolton. Stafford Smith, born in Cambridge, England, had decided to become a lawyer so that he could provide representation to criminal defendants facing execution. He worked on hundreds of death penalty cases for the Southern Prisoners’ Defense Committee in Atlanta, earning a reputation as an attorney willing to confront what he saw as the racism in the legal system that drove the American push toward executions.

  A series of death penalty cases had drawn him and Emily to New Orleans, and their love of the aesthetic persuaded them to buy a tumbledown house on Euterpe Street. Each day, he worked at the offices of Reprieve US, the American offshoot of a British legal charity he had founded. Each night, he returned from his office to the house, its lights cutting through the street’s darkness. There, he would spend part of the evening unwinding while reading a newspaper.

  On a night in January, Stafford Smith was poring over the paper when an article caught his eye. The United States was shipping terrorist suspects to a detention center in Guantanamo Bay. The men had no lawyers, no access to courts, and no means for contesting their incarceration.

  This is a catastrophe. Stafford Smith had an overwhelming sense of horror; this was unlike anything he had ever encountered in the free world. These people were being held beyond the reach of civilized society, in a place where they would have no legal rights. America was fighting a war to defend itself and its principles and the first thing it does is abandon the rule of law? This was exactly the kind of injustice he was fighting in the death penalty cases, he thought.