500 Days (71 page)

The other sergeant stepped in. Not answering, he said, disrespected his colleague, he said.

“No,” al-Qahtani said. “I don’t want any water.”

His first response.

•  •  •  

1:45
P.M
. Into the eleventh straight hour of interrogation.

A television was moved in front of al-Qahtani and one of the soldiers loaded a DVD in the attached player. The screen filled with images of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Planes smashing in the buildings in balls of fire. People jumping to their deaths. The towers collapsing.

Al-Qahtani stared at the video, exhibiting no emotion. Photos of the hijackers appeared, and he reacted for the first time by averting his eyes.

•  •  •  

2:15
P.M
.

One of the guards calmly engaged al-Qahtani in a conversation about family and dreams.

Al-Qahtani grew upset. “Why are you causing me pain talking about family and things I can not have?” he asked.

He started to cry.

•  •  •  

7:20
P.M
.
The eighteenth straight hour.

The third shift of interrogators arrived.

You will be judged by Allah, one of them told al-Qahtani. The leaders of al-Qaeda had twisted the words of the Koran.

“How did this come about?” the sergeant asked. “Why are you the only one holding on and everyone else is speaking?”

No response.

“Don’t worry about a military judge,” he continued. “Worry about Allah. The Koran doesn’t say kill the innocent. Make things right. Repent.”

Al-Qahtani cried again. He said that if the guards took him back to Delta Camp, where other detainees were held, he would answer their questions.

“You have to earn your way back to Delta,” an interrogator responded.

•  •  •  

12:00
A.M
.
Into the twenty-second straight hour.

Al-Qahtani had not said a word for more than four hours. He was unchained and taken back to bed.

The military’s first day of “rapport-building” interrogation had ended.

•  •  •  

November 24, 4:00
A.M
.

After allowing al-Qahtani four hours of sleep, one of the sergeants woke him. The detainee was struggling to stay conscious, so the sergeant walked him around for five minutes. He was then chained to the floor.

“I want to perform sunrise prayer,” al-Qahtani said.

“The sun hasn’t come up yet,” the second sergeant said. “I’ll allow prayer later.”

When did Ramadan begin? al-Qahtani asked.

“We’ll talk about that later.”

Besides, al-Qahtani had announced the previous day—after eating—that he
was on a hunger strike. So why would Ramadan make a difference? He was already fasting.

“I don’t know how to answer the question,” al-Qahtani responded.

•  •  •  

6:45
P
.
M
.
Into the fourteenth straight hour of interrogation.

Al-Qahtani had spoken only a few times since the morning. Nothing much, and usually just asking to pray or go to the bathroom. A doctor arrived to check him, to make sure that he was physically able to continue.

“I want to sign a form or a release saying I do not want any medication,” he said.

“No such form exists,” the doctor responded.

One of the interrogators looked at al-Qahtani. “Mo,” he said, using a nickname they had given him. “We are not going to let you die.”

•  •  •  

12:00
A.M
.
Twenty straight hours of interrogation.

Al-Qahtani had remained mostly silent. His feet were swollen, and the soldiers put on a pressure wrap to combat the problem. Then he was put to bed.

•  •  •  

November 25, 6:00
A.M
.
Beginning the third straight hour of interrogation.

The sergeants played the 9/11 DVD for al-Qahtani again. One of them came up behind him and leaned in close.

“What is God telling you right now?” he whispered. “Your nineteen friends died in a fireball and you weren’t with them. Was that God’s choice? Is it God’s will that you stay alive to tell us about his message?”

Without warning, al-Qahtani threw his head back, smacking the sergeant in the eye. Two guards jumped on him, pinning him to the ground. The sergeant crouched down, and al-Qahtani spat at him.

The sergeant smiled. “Go ahead and spit on me,” he said. “It won’t change anything. You’re still here, I’m still talking to you. And you won’t leave until you’ve given God’s message.”

The two guards pulled up al-Qahtani and put him back in the chair.

•  •  •  

9:15
A.M
.

Al-Qahtani asked to go to the bathroom. The interrogators told him no. He could use a bottle instead. He refused.

•  •  •  

9:40
A.M
.

Three and a half bags of liquid had been infused into al-Qahtani by IV. He moaned and spoke to one of the guards.

“I’m willing to talk if I can urinate,” he said.

A female sergeant came into the interrogation booth from another room.

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

“Al-Qaeda.”

“Who was your leader?”

“Osama bin Laden.”

“Why did you go to Orlando?”

“I wasn’t told the mission.”

“Who was meeting you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who was with you on the plane?”

“I was by myself.”

The second sergeant grunted. “You’re wasting my time.”

•  •  •  

10:00
A.M
.
Into the seventh straight hour.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” al-Qahtani said.

The male interrogator responded. “You can go in the bottle.”

“I want to go to the bathroom. It’s more comfortable.”

The interrogator shook his head. “You’ve ruined all trust,” he said. “You can either go in the bottle or in your pants.”

Al-Qahtani didn’t respond. Then he wet himself.

•  •  •  

1:20
P.M
.

A new shift of interrogators entered the room. The lead questioner engaged al-Qahtani in some small talk, trying to establish a bond. He asked him about al-Qahtani’s statement that he was with al-Qaeda.

“I was mad,” al-Qahtani said. “And under too much pressure.”

He asked for some food, saying that he would end his hunger strike if the IVs were removed from his body. The lead interrogator continued speaking with al-Qahtani in a calm, almost friendly voice. The Saudi suddenly began crying in deep, racking sobs.

“When I came to Orlando, I was turned away due to a visa problem,” he
said. “I was coming on my own. I am not part of al-Qaeda. I do not know Osama bin Laden.”

He went silent for a moment. “I don’t know what God wants.”

The lead interrogator described how al-Qaeda members swore allegiance to bin Laden. Al-Qahtani sat in silence. The interrogator finished his comments.

“I know nothing about Osama bin Laden,” al-Qahtani responded.

•  •  •  

2:20
P
.
M
.
Into the eleventh straight hour.

Al-Qahtani was eating a military meal ration, his third of the day, and drinking a full bottle of water. The interrogators continued to question him. But as he downed the food, al-Qahtani became increasingly evasive.

“After I ate, I feel better and will not talk.”

The intelligence officers continued their questioning, while al-Qahtani stayed silent. Then, suddenly, he started yelling.

“You are working for the devil!” he shouted. “You can take me back to my brothers. I will not eat anymore, I will not drink anymore, and I am not going to talk anymore.”

He wept.

•  •  •  

That same Monday, Stefano D’Ambrosio, the head of SISMI’s Milan office, was waiting in a hallway at Fort Braschi, the headquarters on the outskirts of Rome for the Italian military intelligence service.

He was there to meet with Gustavo Pignero, SISMI’s director of counterespionage, after having been summoned on Saturday by an urgent phone call to his house. Now, as he stood outside of Pignero’s office, he couldn’t help but wonder why he was there.

One of Pignero’s aides approached and took D’Ambrosio aside.

“What did you do to Mancini?” the aide asked. “He’s absolutely furious with you.”

Mancini?
D’Ambrosio’s only recent contact with SISMI’s second in command was a few weeks back, when he had raised his concerns about the American plan to kidnap a resident of Milan. But why would that discussion cause a problem? All he had done was warn Mancini about the plot and explain that the CIA’s Milan station chief, Robert Lady, was deeply opposed to the idea.

There had to be some other issue, D’Ambrosio thought. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said.

Seconds later, D’Ambrosio was invited into Pignero’s office. The head of the counterterrorism division was alone, sitting at his desk.

There were no pleasantries. “You are being transferred immediately to central headquarters in Rome,” Pignero said. “So, of course, you’re leaving Milan.”

That was it. No explanation, no rationale, just
You’re gone. Good-bye.

“I’ve worked efficiently during my time in Milan,” D’Ambrosio said. “Did I do something wrong for you to come to such a decision?”

“No, not at all. You’ve done good work. But it’s like I’m a football coach, and I have a player on the field who was worth eight out of ten. But on the benches there was another player who could be worth ten out of ten. So he is the one who has to be brought in to play.”

D’Ambrosio thought for a moment, and couldn’t imagine who the “ten out of ten” player might be.

“When do I have to move?”

“Immediately,” Pignero replied.

The meeting ended. And while D’Ambrosio would never be told the truth, he suspected that his bosses had pushed him out of the way because of his objections to the kidnapping plan. Nor would he know that the CIA had lobbied for that decision.

•  •  •  

Two days later, Rumsfeld was meeting with his senior staff when he threw his hands up in frustration.

Nothing had been done about Dunlavey’s request to allow Guantanamo interrogators to use more aggressive tactics against al-Qahtani. General Hill, the SOUTHCOM commander, had relayed the proposal to the Pentagon, but had never received a response. The interrogators down in Guantanamo were still waiting for guidance from the top, Rumsfeld said.

“You guys couldn’t find your fanny with both hands!” he snapped. “Hill is telling me he wants an answer. I need a recommendation!”

The group promised to get back to Rumsfeld quickly. Then an interrogation plan could be put together for al-Qahtani.

None of them knew that new tactics were already being used against al-Qahtani. Major General Miller was the highest-ranking official who approved the hybrid plan. The Pentagon had never heard of it.

•  •  •  

The senior Pentagon aides left Rumsfeld’s suite through the dining room and headed to the office of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary.

They all took seats at a conference table, with Wolfowitz at the head, then brought out copies of the Hill memo and the attached Dunlavey request.

“All right,” Wolfowitz said, “What do we think?”

The men started reading down the list of recommended tactics. Category I seemed easy—yelling at a detainee, deceiving him, suggesting that the interrogators were from countries with reputations for torturing prisoners. Scaring them, tricking them—those were all techniques used in police interrogations. No problem there.

On to Category II: standing for four hours; using falsified documents; isolation; deprivation of light, sound, and comfort items; twenty-hour interrogations; leaving prisoners naked during questioning; forced shaving of facial hair; exploiting detainees’ phobias.

Most of these didn’t involve even touching the detainees, with the possible exception of the forced shaving. There was no real pain associated with any of the other actions, just fear and discomfort. This was a closer call than Category I, but again, the tactics struck the men as allowable.

Category III, the most aggressive of all. The officials took a moment to read the requested methods: convincing detainees that either they or their families were about to be killed; exposing them to cold; waterboarding; and using physical contact, such as grabbing or poking.

“These are icky,” said Feith, the deputy secretary for policy.

Haynes spoke. He knew that the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department had declared techniques like these to be lawful. But that, he argued, didn’t mean they should be used by the military.

“The DOJ is very permissive in what’s allowed,” he said. “But I think it’s a real mistake to go this far.”

Heads nodded. Most of these ideas were over the line.

Still, one seemed less troublesome—grabbing and poking. Not inflicting pain, more like asserting authority. Didn’t police do this, too? The group agreed; such mild physical contact was allowable.

Someone had to write up the recommendation. Haynes volunteered. It wasn’t really the kind of job he should have been doing; he was supposed to comment on the legality of policy initiatives, not write the proposals himself. But Feith and Wolfowitz worked slowly, and he figured it would take them forever to put together a memo; others in the room had even weaker credentials for the job.

Haynes headed to his office and typed up the one-page document. He finished at 1:00
P.M.

•  •  •  

The next day was Thanksgiving and Rumsfeld stayed home, where he reviewed the Haynes memo along with the attachments, including the letter from Hill and the request from Dunlavey.

Rumsfeld didn’t return to the office until the following Monday, December 2. He brought out the memo at the senior staff meeting that morning and read it over one more time.