500 Days (70 page)

General Miller was all for it. The director of intelligence at Guantanamo, Lieutenant Colonel Phifer, sent him an e-mail within hours, informing Miller that interrogators would begin using the techniques in two days.

•  •  •  

There were times when Britt Mallow wanted to jab a pencil in someone’s eye.

Mallow, the commander of the Criminal Investigative Task Force at Guantanamo, had been battling the Pentagon and the intelligence unit for months. At the detention center, he had witnessed some of the asinine interrogations conducted by young, poorly trained soldiers. No one had yet seemed to notice that screaming, “Where is bin Laden?” at detainees had zero effect.

Then those same interrogators who had resorted to contrivances started using tactics that looked as though they had been lifted from
24,
the counterterrorism
television show. Flashing lights, loud music, stress positions—the approach was ridiculous. Worse than ridiculous. Counterproductive.

Mallow had tried to persuade Dunlavey that the methods used by the criminal investigators were the most fruitful. But the general had just waved him away, captivated by the false glories of an intelligence unit that brandished information obtained by criminal investigators as its own.

Dunlavey’s false claims of success climbed up the line of command to the Pentagon, giving credence to the belief that screaming and jumping were strong components of a national defense. Mallow’s disparagement of that approach had earned him some screams of his own—from get-tough-on-terrorists Defense Department bureaucrats.

That’s when he hit the slow burn—or not so slow. These
suits
who had never questioned anyone outside of a job interview, who had never seen combat, who had never confronted the enemy, had the arrogance to tell the military officers trained for the job to butt out.

Then, in mid-November, Mallow saw Dunlavey’s October request to allow measures that were even more severe to loosen al-Qahtani’s tongue. The reason for the appeal: because the already rough treatment being meted out wasn’t working.

No kidding.

It was the proverbial slippery slope. Rather than acknowledging defeat, the intelligence officers wanted to double down on a failed approach. Harsh interrogations would work, they were arguing, if only they were harsher.

This madness had to be stopped, Mallow decided. On November 14, he sent an e-mail to Miller saying that he strongly opposed the tactics described in the Dunlavey proposal.

“I feel they will be largely ineffective, and that they will have serious negative material and legal effects on our investigations,” he wrote. “I am also extremely concerned that the use of many of these techniques will open any military members up for criminal charges.”

Mallow had no way of knowing that an even more disturbing solution was in the making—the just-written Special Interrogation Plan that was scheduled to be used on al-Qahtani within the next twenty-four hours.

•  •  •  

The skies were overcast in Ottawa that same day as Colin Powell led an eleven-member diplomatic contingent to the headquarters of the Foreign Affairs
Ministry. It was Powell’s first formal visit with senior Canadian officials, and the main topic of discussion was expected to be Iraq.

Six days earlier, the U.N. Security Council had unanimously approved Resolution 1441, declaring Iraq in breach of its cease-fire agreement from the Gulf War and offering Saddam a final opportunity to give up his weapons. Powell had traveled to Ottawa in part to ask, without suggesting specifics, what Canadian officials would be willing to contribute to a coalition military force in the event an invasion of Iraq proved necessary.

A working lunch had been scheduled, but first Powell met with Bill Graham, the foreign minister. Powell opened with the usual diplomatic fare about the important friendship of the two countries, then acknowledged recent frictions that had marred it—an American program that required all Canadians of Arab descent to be fingerprinted and photographed before being admitted to the country, the arrest and detention of a Canadian hunter who had wandered across the border carrying a rifle, the deportation of Maher Arar to Syria.

“But we should never lose sight of the great overall relationship,” he said, citing the high volume of trade and tourism between the two countries.

“Well, thank you, Mr. Powell,” Graham said. “And let me welcome you and extend my government’s deepest appreciation for your visit today.”

After dispensing with the niceties, the two men ranged over the international scene, discussing Iraq, North Korea, border restrictions, and security issues.

The last topic gave Graham the opening he needed to return to the topic of Maher Arar. The press had been lambasting Ottawa about the Arar case, he said, with commentators demanding to know why America had deported a Canadian to Syria. Graham wanted to know the answer himself.

“Mr. Powell,” Graham said. “We believe very strongly in security. But security will only come if our own citizens believe that it is being handled in a way where the right balance is being struck.”

Graham leaned on his elbows. “We don’t believe the balance was maintained here.”

“I understand your concern,” Powell said, “But we had evidence about Mr. Arar’s contacts and we were justified in doing what we did. He was a national security threat to the United States of America, which we were entitled to ascertain in our own sovereign right.”

As close as Washington’s relationship was with Ottawa, Powell said, the Canadians were not in the position to tell the Bush administration which individuals were or were not security threats.

“Well, look,” Graham said, “we are protesting that you did this.”

The United States had the absolute right to deport Arar the way it did, Powell responded. “And by the way,” he added, “your guys knew what we were doing all along. They gave a go-ahead.”

What the hell?
Graham had heard nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he had been told that no one in the government even knew that Arar had been shipped to Syria until days after it had happened.

“Okay,” Graham said, “if somebody by a wink or a nod or something explicit said something, tell us who it is and we can go to that person and find out what happened.”

Powell nodded solemnly. “I’ll see what we can do.”

•  •  •  

Two experienced FBI interrogators read the new plan for al-Qahtani with alarm. Where did the military come up with these ideas?

The agents poked around and were incredulous when they discovered that the “force him not to speak and then he’ll tell all” theory came from a single army translator. Other than the crackpot notion of a linguist with zero understanding of interrogation, the military had no data, no study—nothing—to back it up.

The scariest part of the initiative, though, was the provision in phase four that would allow for detainees to be shipped to Middle Eastern countries where they were sure to be tortured. Never mind that it was wrongheaded—torture just plain didn’t work—it crossed the line from foolish to illegal.

If the agents were disturbed by the contents of the plan, they were even more taken aback by the attitude of the people who would be following the proposed rules. They attended a meeting to discuss the policy with their military counterparts, who laughed and joked as they showed an undisguised glee about its cruelty.

The circuslike atmosphere of the meeting put the FBI agents on edge. Was it the baseless expectation that they might be able to pry information out of al-Qahtani that aroused the military interrogators’ enthusiasm? Or was it the anticipation of revenge, the opportunity to hurt a man who had been part of the plot that murdered thousands of their fellow citizens?

The two agents sent a memo to Washington. If this plan was not overhauled, and if a decision was made to implement the tactics that it authorized, their people in Guantanamo would have nothing to do with it.

In private discussions, members of the full Criminal Investigative Task Force
were even blunter. If military intelligence officials tried to carry out phase four, then the agents would have to arrest them.

•  •  •  

The explosion of anger from law enforcement prompted General Miller to postpone the execution of the Special Interrogation Plan and instead order a review. In his recent e-mail, Britt Mallow had suggested that the intelligence unit and criminal investigators work together in developing a common strategy based on the traditional relationship-building approach. Miller gave the go-ahead for the two sides to hammer out an agreement.

The result was a hybrid that combined ideas from both groups. The law enforcement approach would be pursued for about a week. If that didn’t work, the military’s plan would be put into effect, minus some of its harsher provisions.

One of the criminal investigators told his colleagues that the compromise was the best they could hope for—the “lesser of two evils.” Others disagreed, saying that if they accepted it, the military would assume the agents were giving their blessing to the remaining abusive techniques.

In the end, nobody was happy. The military interrogators grumbled that they wanted to reject any proposal that excluded SERE techniques and the option of sending al-Qahtani to the Middle East for torture. Inflicting severe pain, one officer said to an agent, worked with terrorists.

“Haven’t you seen
24
?” he asked.

•  •  •  

On November 21 in the Czech Republic, Bill Graham was wandering through the Prague Conference Center on the lookout for Colin Powell. It was a challenging hunt—the center was packed with crowds of dignitaries attending the first NATO summit since the Bali massacre and only the second since 9/11.

From the time of the last meeting between Graham and his American counterpart, the Canadian foreign minister had angrily instructed his aides to find out who had approved of Maher Arar’s deportation to Syria. But everyone contacted—from Graham’s own department, the Mounties, Canadian intelligence—insisted that they had known nothing of the Americans’ plans.

Finally, Graham located Powell and pulled him aside.

“Look, I want to speak to you for a couple of minutes about the troubling issues around Mr. Arar,” Graham said. “My information still is that nobody in Canada had any participation in the decision that he be taken to Syria. Would you please continue looking into this?”

“Bill,” Powell replied, “my answer is exactly the same. You are not getting the
straight goods from your guys. I am telling you my information is that there were people involved in this decision in Canada.”

Graham nodded. But again, he asked Powell to identify them. The case was becoming a cause célèbre in Canada, and he needed to tamp down the furor. Powell again promised to do his best to get a name.

The two shook hands and Powell disappeared into the sea of faces. Graham boiled; someone in his government was lying. When he returned to Ottawa, he was going to pound some tables—his aides were going to find this person!

Or were they? Graham couldn’t shake a nagging doubt. What if the Canadian officials were telling the truth? What if Powell was wrong, and the United States had sent Arar to the Middle East without telling anyone? What if this citizen had been snatched away from his home and sent to a Syrian prison based on bad intelligence?

No trial, no chance to defend himself,
Graham thought.
What chance did Arar have for justice in this Kafkaesque situation?

•  •  •  

At a private room in another part of the Prague Center, Bush met with Blair and a few of his top subordinates.

He smiled as he glad-handed all around. “How ya doing?” he said with each handshake. A few of the aides noticed that Bush was wearing a showy pair of cowboy boots—an unusual yet somehow endearing choice for a NATO meeting.

Bush and the prime minister then launched into a discussion about Iraq. Just sitting back to see how Saddam reacted to the new resolution wouldn’t cut it, the president said.

“We need real pressure to build on him, through troop movements, international condemnation,” he said. “We need really tough and unpredictable inspections, to throw Saddam off balance.”

They also had to be ready to move, if necessary. “Once we’ve made the call agreeing that Saddam is in breach, we have to do something militarily, and quickly,” Bush said. That meant a quick, sustainable bombing raid, he added, followed by boots on the ground.

The first inspection by Hans Blix’s team was set to begin in six days, but Bush made it clear that he wasn’t impressed with the Swedish diplomat.

“He’s wringing his hands and talking war and peace,” he said. “But that’s our judgment.”

Blair wasn’t so downbeat. “I feel there’s a twenty percent chance that Saddam will cooperate,” he said.

Bush shrugged. “I don’t know what cooperation means.”

Well, if Saddam failed to meet the terms of the resolution and there was a military action, his government would fall pretty quickly, Blair said. Bush agreed, adding that the CIA and MI5 should be put to work to help that along, even before an invasion.

Back to inspections. “Saddam’s making Blix and the U.N. look like fools,” Bush said.

The British officials walked away from the meeting with a feeling that Bush had drawn his line in the sand. How much proof would it take to convince him that inspections were working if he was condemning Blix before the diplomat and his team had even arrived in Baghdad?

•  •  •  

Two days later at Guantanamo, the military initiated the new interrogation strategy for al-Qahtani. General Miller and other officers had formally adopted the modified hybrid plan—starting with relationship building but reverting to an aggressive approach if gentleness failed.

At 2:25 in the morning, a hooded al-Qahtani was escorted into an interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. After a guard sat him down, his chains were bolted to the floor and his hood was removed. There were two interrogators, one translator, and an army psychologist in the room.

The sergeants handling the questioning began the rapport-building process—at least as best as they understood it. Al-Qahtani refused to look at one of them, a woman, saying eye contact with the opposite sex was against his religion. She asked Qahtani if he wanted water, but he didn’t answer.