Categories
Foreign Policy National Security Pakistan The War on Terrorism

The Efficacy of Drone Attacks

Jane Perlesz and Pir Zubair Shah for the New York Times interviewed various residents of the tribal areas of North Waziristan in Pakistan about the effect of the accelerated drone attacks of the past year:

The strikes have cast a pall of fear over an area that was once a free zone for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, forcing militants to abandon satellite phones and large gatherings in favor of communicating by courier and moving stealthily in small groups, they said.

The drones, operated by the C.I.A., fly overhead sometimes four at a time, emitting a beelike hum virtually 24 hours a day, observing and tracking targets, then unleashing missiles on their quarry, they said.

The strikes have sharpened tensions between the local tribesmen and the militants, who have dumped bodies with signs accusing the victims of being American spies in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, they said…

In the first six weeks of this year, more than a dozen strikes killed up to 90 peoplesuspected of being militants, according to Pakistani and American accounts. There are now multiple strikes on some days, and in some weeks the strikes occur every other day, the people from North Waziristan said.

The strikes have become so ferocious, “It seems they really want to kill everyone, not just the leaders,” said the militant, who is a mid-ranking fighter associated with the insurgent network headed by Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani. By “everyone” he meant rank-and-file fighters, though civilians are being killed, too.

I think debates on the ethics of drone attacks are warranted. There is something very dangerous about the sterility of murder by remote control.

But in a war, dirty things must be done. If these drone attacks are effective in destabilizing Al Qaeda, then they’re almost certainly worth it.

Categories
National Security The War on Terrorism

The Bureaucracy of Al Qaeda

[digg-reddit-me]Jason Burke and Ian Black assessed the state of Al Qaeda for the Guardian last week. Their conclusion: Al Qaeda has been decimated, especially by recent attacks on its middle management, and they are having trouble gaining new recruits, in part because of various bureaucratic obstacles Al Qaeda has put in place which have detracted from the “romance” of the terrorist life, including:

  • Requiring recruits “to pay around $1,000 (£600) for their equipment, weapons and accommodation…”
  • Making Bin Laden impossible to see.
  • Forbidding recruits from going outside.
  • Running a kind of ad hoc training that: “involved little live firing; they underwent weeks of religious instruction from a junior cleric; an instructor made a bomb, but they had no opportunity to try themselves.”
  • And best of all, Al Qaeda required them to fill out “forms in triplicate before sitting exams to test his suitability for a suicide attack…”

If there’s a certain set of individuals who are willing to blow themselves up, and another set of individuals willing to fill out forms in triplicate, I would guess the overlap is relatively small.

[Image by Mike Kline licensed under Creative Commons.]

Categories
Law National Security Political Philosophy Politics The Bush Legacy The Opinionsphere The War on Terrorism

Experimenting With National Security Policy

[digg-reddit-me]On September 11, 2001, the Bush administration was taken by surprise. Their immediate reactions are forgivable, if disheartening – the 7 1/2 minutes reading a book after being told “America is under attack;” the quick spreading of false information at the top levels as officials thought that the State Department had been attacked and that taxi cabs were planning on blowing themselves up in front of major Washington buildings; the order by Cheney to take out a civilian airliner, usurping the role of the president. President Bush and Condi Rice clearly panicked – as Rice has essentially admitted since leaving office:

Unless you were there in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans. And I know a lot of people are second-guessing now, but let me tell you what the second-guessing that would really have hurt me – if the second-guessing had been about 3,000 more Americans dying because we didn’t do everything we could to protect them.

Karl Rove, seeing his dream of a realignment of the electorate threatened by the biggest terrorist attack in American history likewise panicked.

Cheney though was emboldened – his sense of purpose, his disdain for America’s delicate system of checks and balances, and his radicalism imbued Bush’s first term with a reactionary fervor. The War on Terror became synonymous with Cheney’s goal of creating an imperial presidency. At this point, in the aftermath of this devastating attack, Rove began to plan for ways to turn this glaring weakness into a strength; and Cheney attempted to change the American structure of government – believing that 9/11 would have been prevented if only the president had more power. Thus, Cheney began to systematically use this crisis to centralize more power in the White House – and to assert greater executive powers and to outright reject the powers of the legislative, judicial, and quasi-independent branches of government to check his or the president’s power. Laws were read in such a way as to maximally expand presidential power – with a statute declaring war on Al Qaeda secretly being understood to overturn decades of legislation, for example; vast areas of law were secretly held to be unconstitutional checks on the president’s power and were ignored. In so doing, Cheney began to fundamentally alter the American social bargain.

It wasn’t until far right-wingers from Office of Legal Counsel Director Jack Goldsmith, Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, and quite a few other top CIA, FBI, and Justice employees were about to resign that Bush finally realized how radical his administration had become. By Bush’s second term, he began to walk most of his more radical policies back – though refusing to admit any fault and maintaining his authority to do all of it.

Now that Bush is no longer in office, liberals, libertarians, progressives, and other Bush administration opponents had two basic conceptions of how to move forward and how to look at the radicalism of Bush’s first term and his assertions of executive power that he maintained until he left office. The first conception was well expressed by Tom Malinowski of the Human Rights Watch at a Congressional hearing on June 11, 2009:

We should stop experimenting. We should not build yet another untested structure on a foundation of failure. We should finally, at long last, bring to justice the men who killed thousands of people on September 11, and others who have committed or planned or aided the murder of Americans. And we should do it in a system that works.

On the other side, some who opposed the radical actions of Bush-Cheney still saw within September 11 something similar to what Cheney did – a unique threat to our way of life. What these individuals are forced to do is balance the threat of catastrophic terrorism with the desire to preserve our way of life. Rather than starting with the assumption that a stronger president with fewer checks on his or her power is the only way to prevent terrorism, these individuals believe we must experiment with our laws and institutions, to tinker with them, to achieve this right balance – all within the public realm and with the consent of the people, rather than in secret.

In an interview with a British paper, Philip Bobbitt, for example, makes the case for why we need to experiment with our national security policy – focusing specifically on the idea of stockpiling laws:

I think when you go to weapons of mass destruction you’re talking about just a completely different level of horror and disruption…We must come, as societies, to some understanding of what we’re facing, and in these times of tranquillity organise ourselves and debate about what we will do if a catastrophe should come to pass. We should stockpile laws for such an eventuality, just as we stockpile vaccines. Then I think we have an excellent chance of getting through these attacks with systems of consent in place. But if we don’t do that, if we say oh, get real, this isn’t another second world war, surely you’re exaggerating the threat, this couldn’t possibly threaten our society now! It hasn’t yet! And if you don’t use the democratic process to put laws in place now, then in a way you become the ally of the terrorists because when a truly terrible series of mass atrocities really does occur and you don’t have anything to fall back on, that’s when you get martial law, that’s when you get the system that’s in democratic collapse, and you become the source of terror yourself. No, Bin Ladin isn’t going to invade and occupy Westminster and put Mullah Omar in the House of Lords, he’s not going to take over. If Britain becomes a state of terror it will be because we did it to ourselves and we did it because we did not prepare when we had the time and the peace to do so by law and by consensual systems.The United States can do the same thing. If we are busy throwing away laws, the one steady craft we have to get through this, Washington will turn us into a state of terror, we’ll do it. We’ll embrace it enthusiastically…

We need to focus on making our society more resilient in the event of an attack, on spreading information regarding terrorism so that citizens can make informed choices (as was successful in preventing the fourth attack on September 11). The laws regarding continuity of government – from my understanding – are incomplete Cold War relics. We need to take the threat of terrorism from the realm of fear and bring into the realm of rational thought. Obama, as president, is uniquely positioned to do this.

It seems to me that Malinowski’s approach – while understandable – is misguided. In a changing world,  our government must adapt, must experiment. And the threat from catastrophic terrorism – the threat inherent in a globalized world, with technology increasing the power of individuals exponentially – is real. It must change the calculus, the balancing test. We need to experiment with our national security policies – and get away from the Culture War politics that thanks to Rove and Cheney have come to dominate this arena. The Rule of Law and our way of life is better protected if we reflectively plan for an emergency now rather than overreacting in fear in the moment.

Categories
Barack Obama Foreign Policy Politics

Variations on a Theme

Anyone else notice that Ayman al-Zawahiri’s criticisms of Obama follow the same meme Obama’s domestic opponents tried to use to marginalize him:

His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words.

It’s also worth noting that variations on this theme – that you have to ignore Obama’s words and mastery of public symbolism and focus on his record and policies – that Hillary Clinton used, that Paul Krugman used, that John McCain used, and that Republicans have continued to use – have failed to substantially detract from popular support for Obama.

Of course, in the Middle East, Obama’s policies are far less popular than his American policies are. But I think this just goes to show how tuned in Al Qaeda is into the American media and politics.

Categories
National Security The Bush Legacy The Opinionsphere The War on Terrorism

Ali Soufan Goes to Washington

[digg-reddit-me]I’ve written about FBI interrogator and one-time undercover agent in Al Qaeda, Ali Soufan, several times on this blog (here and here) – including in my first post that got some traction comparing the interrogations of Ibn al-Libi and Abu Zandel. Since Obama took office – as memos have been declassified, Soufan has been finally able to speak out about his experiences interrogating Al Qaeda members – as in the past few weeks he wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times and was interviewed by Michael Isikoff of Newsweek. Today, he is testifying before the Senate on American torture. I haven’t seen his actual appearance, but his written statement is a powerful piece which describes both why torture should not be done – and tells the story of how America took the fateful step. 

As this is a public statement, I am reproducing it in full here:

Ali Soufan’s Written Statement to the Senate

Mr. Chairman, Committee members, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I know that each one of you cares deeply about our nation’s security. It was always a comfort to me during the most dangerous of situations that I faced, from going undercover as an al Qaeda operative, to unraveling terrorist cells, to tracking down the killers of the 17 U.S. sailors murdered in the USS Cole bombing, that those of us on the frontline had your support and the backing of the American people. So I thank you. 

The issue that I am here to discuss today – interrogation methods used to question terrorists – is not, and should not be, a partisan matter. We all share a commitment to using the best interrogation method possible that serves our national security interests and fits squarely within the framework of our nation’s principles. 

From my experience – and I speak as someone who has personally interrogated many terrorists and elicited important actionable intelligence– I strongly believe that it is a mistake to use what has become known as the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a position shared by many professional operatives, including the CIA officers who were present at the initial phases of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation. 

These techniques, from an operational perspective, are ineffective, slow and unreliable, and as a result harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda. (This is aside from the important additional considerations that they are un-American and harmful to our reputation and cause.) 
My interest in speaking about this issue is not to advocate the prosecution of anyone. People were given misinformation, half-truths, and false claims of successes; and reluctant intelligence officers were given instructions and assurances from higher authorities. Examining a past we cannot change is only worthwhile when it helps guide us towards claiming a better future that is yet within our reach. 

And my focus is on the future. I wish to do my part to ensure that we never again use these harmful, slow, ineffective, and unreliable techniques instead of the tried, tested, and successful ones – the ones that are also in sync with our values and moral character. Only by doing this will we defeat the terrorists as effectively and quickly as possible. 

Most of my professional career has been spent investigating, studying, and interrogating terrorists. I have had the privilege of working alongside, and learning from, some of the most dedicated and talented men and women our nation has– individuals from the FBI, and other law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies. 

In my capacity as a FBI Agent, I investigated and supervised highly sensitive and complex international terrorism cases, including the East Africa bombings, the USS Cole bombing, and the events surrounding the attacks of 9/11. I also coordinated both domestic and international counter-terrorism operations on the Joint Terrorist Task Force, FBI New York Office. 

I personally interrogated many terrorists we have in our custody and elsewhere, and gained confessions, identified terror operatives, their funding, details of potential plots, and information on how al Qaeda operates, along with other actionable intelligence. Because of these successes, I was the government’s main witness in both of the trials we have had so far in Guantanamo Bay – the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver and bodyguard for Osama Bin Laden, and Ali Hamza Al Bahlul, Bin Laden’s propagandist. In addition I am currently helping the prosecution prepare for upcoming trials of other detainees held in Guantanamo Bay. 

There are many examples of successful interrogations of terrorists that have taken place before and after 9/11. Many of them are classified, but one that is already public and mirrors the other cases, is the interrogation of al Qaeda terrorist Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri, known as Abu Jandal. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, together with my partner Special Agent Robert McFadden, a first-class intelligence operative from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), (which, from my experience, is one of the classiest agencies I encountered in the intelligence community), I interrogated Abu Jandal. 
Through our interrogation, which was done completely by the book (including advising him of his rights), we obtained a treasure trove of highly significant actionable intelligence. For example, Abu Jandal gave us extensive information on Osama Bin Laden’s terror network, structure, leadership, membership, security details, facilities, family, communication methods, travels, training, ammunitions, and weaponry, including a breakdown of what machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, and anti-tank missiles they used. He also provided explicit details of the 9/11plot operatives, and identified many terrorists who we later successfully apprehended. 

The information was important for the preparation of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. It also provided an important background to the 9/11 Commission report; it provided a foundation for the trials so far held in Guantanamo Bay; and it also has been invaluable in helping to capture and identify top al Qaeda operatives and thus disrupt plots. 

The approach used in these successful interrogations can be called the Informed Interrogation Approach. Until the introduction of the “enhanced” technique, it was the sole approach used by our military, intelligence, and law enforcement community. 

It is an approach rooted in experiences and lessons learned during World War II and from our Counter-insurgency experience in Vietnam – experiences and lessons that generated the Army Field Manual. This was then refined over the decades to include how to interrogate terrorism suspects specifically, as experience was gained from interrogations following the first World Trade Center bombing, the East Africa Embassy bombings, and the USS Cole bombing. To sum up, it is an approach derived from the cumulative experiences, wisdom, and successes of the most effective operational people our country has produced. 

Before I joined the Bureau, for example, traditional investigative strategies along with intelligence derived from human sources successfully thwarted the 1993 New York City Landmark Bomb Plot (TERRSTOP), a plot by the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, to attack the UN Headquarters, the FBI’s New York office, and tunnels and bridges across New York City, — as a follow-up to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. That remains to this day the largest thwarted attack on our homeland. I had the privilege of working with, and learning from, those who conducted this successful operation. 

The Informed Interrogation Approach is based on leveraging our knowledge of the detainee’s culture and mindset, together with using information we already know about him. 

The interrogator knows that there are three primary points of influence on the detainee: 

First, there is the fear that the detainee feels as a result of his capture and isolation from his support base. People crave human contact, and this is especially true in some cultures more than others. The interrogator turns this knowledge into an advantage by becoming the one person the detainee can talk to and who listens to what he has to say, and uses this to encourage the detainee to open up. 

In addition, acting in a non-threatening way isn’t how the detainee is trained to expect a U.S. interrogator to act. This adds to the detainee’s confusion and makes him more likely to cooperate. 

Second, and connected, there is the need the detainee feels to sustain a position of respect and value to interrogator. As the interrogator is the one person speaking to and listening to the detainee, a relationship is built – and the detainee doesn’t want to jeopardize it. The interrogator capitalizes on this and compels the detainee to give up more information. 

And third, there is the impression the detainee has of the evidence against him. The interrogator has to do his or her homework and become an expert in every detail known to the intelligence community about the detainee. The interrogator then uses that knowledge to impress upon the detainee that everything about him is known and that any lie will be easily caught. 

For example, in my first interrogation of the terrorist Abu Zubaydah, who had strong links to al Qaeda’s leaders and who knew the details of the 9/11 plot before it happened, I asked him his name. He replied with his alias. I then asked him, “how about if I call you Hani?” That was the name his mother nicknamed him as a child. He looked at me in shock, said “ok,” and we started talking. 

The Army Field Manual is not about being nice or soft. It is a knowledge-based approach. It is about outwitting the detainee by using a combination of interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional strategies to get the information needed. If done correctly it’s an approach that works quickly and effectively because it outwits the detainee using a method that he is not trained, or able, to resist. 

This Informed Interrogation Approach is in sharp contrast with the harsh interrogation approach introduced by outside contractors and forced upon CIA officials to use. 

The harsh technique method doesn’t use the knowledge we have of the detainee’s history, mindset, vulnerabilities, or culture, and instead tries to subjugate the detainee into submission through humiliation and cruelty. The approach applies a force continuum, each time using harsher and harsher techniques until the detainee submits. 

The idea behind the technique is to force the detainee to see the interrogator as the master who controls his pain. It is an exercise in trying to gain compliance rather than eliciting cooperation. A theoretical application of this technique is a situation where the detainee is stripped naked and told: “Tell us what you know.” 

If the detainee doesn’t immediately respond by giving information, for example he asks: “what do you want to know?” the interviewer will reply: “you know,” and walk out of the interrogation room. Then the next step on the force continuum is introduced, for example sleep deprivation, and the process will continue until the detainee’s will is broken and he automatically gives up all information he is presumed to know. 

There are many problems with this technique. 

A major problem is that it is ineffective. Al Qaeda terrorists are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, the al Qaeda training prepares them for much worse – the torture they would expect to receive if caught by dictatorships for example. 

This is why, as we see from the recently released Department of Justice memos on interrogation, the contractors had to keep getting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods, until they reached waterboarding and then there was nothing they could do but use that technique again and again. Abu Zubaydah had to be waterboarded 83 times and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times. In a democracy there is a glass ceiling of harsh techniques the interrogator cannot breach, and a detainee can eventually call the interrogator’s bluff. 

In addition the harsh techniques only serves to reinforce what the detainee has been prepared to expect if captured. This gives him a greater sense of control and predictability about his experience, and strengthens his will to resist. 

A second major problem with this technique is that evidence gained from it is unreliable. There is no way to know whether the detainee is being truthful, or just speaking to either mitigate his discomfort or to deliberately provide false information. As the interrogator isn’t an expert on the detainee or the subject matter, nor has he spent time going over the details of the case, the interrogator cannot easily know if the detainee is telling the truth. This unfortunately has happened and we have had problems ranging from agents chasing false leads to the disastrous case of Ibn Sheikh al-Libby who gave false information on Iraq, al Qaeda, and WMD. 

A third major problem with this technique is that it is slow. It takes place over a long period of time, for example preventing the detainee from sleeping for 180 hours as the memos detail, or waterboarding 183 times in the case of KSM. When we have an alleged “ticking timebomb” scenario and need to get information quickly, we can’t afford to wait that long. 

A fourth problem with this technique is that ignores the end game. In our country we have due process, which requires evidence to be collected in a certain way. The CIA, because of the sensitivity of its operations, by necessity, operates secretly. These two factors mean that by putting the CIA in charge of interrogations, either secrecy is sacrificed for justice and the CIA’s operations are hampered, or justice is not served. Neither is a desirable outcome. 

Another disastrous consequence of the use of the harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the “Chinese Wall” between the CIA and FBI – similar to the wall that prevented us from working together to stop 9/11. In addition, the FBI and the CIA officers on the ground during the Abu Zubaydah interrogation were working together closely and effectively, until the contractors’ interferences. Because we in the FBI would not be a part of the harsh techniques, the agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An FBI colleague of mine, for example, who had tracked KSM and knew more about him than anyone in the government, was not allowed to speak to him. 

Furthermore, the CIA specializes in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting intelligence. The FBI, on the other hand, has a trained investigative branch. Until that point, we were complimenting each other’s expertise, until the imposition of the “enhanced methods.” As a result people ended doing what they were not trained to do. 

It is also important to realize that those behind this technique are outside contractors with no expertise in intelligence operations, investigations, terrorism, or al Qaeda. Nor did the contractors have any experience in the art of interview and interrogation. One of the contractors told me this at the time, and this lack of experience has also now been recently reported on by sources familiar with their backgrounds. 

The case of the terrorist Abu Zubaydah is a good example of where the success of the Informed Interrogation Approach can be contrasted with the failure of the harsh technique approach. I have to restrict my remarks to what has been unclassified. (I will note that there is documented evidence supporting everything I will tell you today.) 

Immediately after Abu Zubaydah was captured, a fellow FBI agent and I were flown to meet him at an undisclosed location. We were both very familiar with Abu Zubaydah and have successfully interrogated al-Qaeda terrorists. We started interrogating him, supported by CIA officials who were stationed at the location, and within the first hour of the interrogation, using the Informed Interrogation Approach, we gained important actionable intelligence. 

The information was so important that, as I later learned from open sources, it went to CIA Director George Tennet who was so impressed that he initially ordered us to be congratulated. That was apparently quickly withdrawn as soon as Mr. Tennet was told that it was FBI agents, who were responsible. He then immediately ordered a CIA CTC interrogation team to leave DC and head to the location to take over from us.

During his capture Abu Zubaydah had been injured. After seeing the extent of his injuries, the CIA medical team supporting us decided they were not equipped to treat him and we had to take him to a hospital or he would die. At the hospital, we continued our questioning as much as possible, while taking into account his medical condition and the need to know all information he might have on existing threats. 

We were once again very successful and elicited information regarding the role of KSM as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and lots of other information that remains classified. (It is important to remember that before this we had no idea of KSM’s role in 9/11 or his importance in the al Qaeda leadership structure.) All this happened before the CTC team arrived. 

A few days after we started questioning Abu Zubaydah, the CTC interrogation team finally arrived from DC with a contractor who was instructing them on how they should conduct the interrogations, and we were removed. Immediately, on the instructions of the contractor, harsh techniques were introduced, starting with nudity. (The harsher techniques mentioned in the memos were not introduced or even discussed at this point.) 

The new techniques did not produce results as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking. At that time nudity and low-level sleep deprivation (between 24 and 48 hours) was being used. After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from DC asking why all of sudden no information was being transmitted (when before there had been a steady stream), we again were given control of the interrogation. 

We then returned to using the Informed Interrogation Approach. Within a few hours, Abu Zubaydah again started talking and gave us important actionable intelligence. 

This included the details of Jose Padilla, the so-called “dirty bomber.” To remind you of how important this information was viewed at the time, the then-Attorney General, John Ashcroft, held a press conference from Moscow to discuss the news. Other important actionable intelligence was also gained that remains classified. 

After a few days, the contractor attempted to once again try his untested theory and he started to re-implementing the harsh techniques. He moved this time further along the force continuum, introducing loud noise and then temperature manipulation. 

Throughout this time, my fellow FBI agent and I, along with a top CIA interrogator who was working with us, protested, but we were overruled. I should also note that another colleague, an operational psychologist for the CIA, had left the location because he objected to what was being done. 

Again, however, the technique wasn’t working and Abu Zubaydah wasn’t revealing any information, so we were once again brought back in to interrogate him. We found it harder to reengage him this time, because of how the techniques had affected him, but eventually, we succeeded, and he re-engaged again. 

Once again the contractor insisted on stepping up the notches of his experiment, and this time he requested the authorization to place Abu Zubaydah in a confinement box, as the next stage in the force continuum. While everything I saw to this point were nowhere near the severity later listed in the memos, the evolution of the contractor’s theory, along with what I had seen till then, struck me as “borderline torture.” 

As the Department of Justice IG report released last year states, I protested to my superiors in the FBI and refused to be a part of what was happening. The Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, a man I deeply respect, agreed passing the message that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out. 

As you can see from this timeline, many of the claims made in the memos about the success of the enhanced techniques are inaccurate. For example, it is untrue to claim Abu Zubaydah wasn’t cooperating before August 1, 2002. The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating him. 

In addition, simply by putting together dates cited in the memos with claims made, falsehoods are obvious. For example, it has been claimed that waterboarding got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Jose Padilla. But that doesn’t add up: Waterboarding wasn’t approved until 1August 2002 (verbally it was authorized around mid July 2002), and Padilla was arrested in May 2002. 

The same goes for KSM’s involvement in 9/11: That was discovered in April 2002, while waterboarding was not introduced until almost three months later. It speaks volumes that the quoted instances of harsh interrogation methods being a success are false. 

Nor can it be said that the harsh techniques were effective, which is why we had to be called back in repeatedly. As we know from the memos, the techniques that were apparently introduced after I left did not appear to work either, which is why the memos granted authorization for harsher techniques. That continued for several months right till waterboarding was introduced, which had to be used 83 times – an indication that Abu Zubaydah had called the interrogator’s bluff knowing the glass ceiling that existed. 

Authoritative CIA, FBI, and military sources have also questioned the claims made by the advocates of the techniques. For example, in one of the recently released Justice Department memos, the author, Stephen Bradbury, acknowledged a (still classified) internal CIA Inspector General report that had found it “difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.” 

In summary, the Informed Interrogation Approach outlined in the Army Field Manual is the most effective, reliable, and speedy approach we have for interrogating terrorists. It is legal and has worked time and again.

It was a mistake to abandon it in favor of harsh interrogation methods that are harmful, shameful, slower, unreliable, ineffective, and play directly into the enemy’s handbook. It was a mistake to abandon an approach that was working and naively replace it with an untested method. It was a mistake to abandon an approach that is based on the cumulative wisdom and successful tradition of our military, intelligence, and law enforcement community, in favor of techniques advocated by contractors with no relevant experience. 

The mistake was so costly precisely because the situation was, and remains, too risky to allow someone to experiment with amateurish, Hollywood style interrogation methods- that in reality- taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the end game, and diminishes our moral high ground in a battle that is impossible to win without first capturing the hearts and minds around the world. It was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaeda. 

For the last seven years, it was not easy objecting to these methods when they had powerful backers. I stood up then for the same reason I’m willing to take on critics now, because I took an oath swearing to protect this great nation. I could not stand by quietly while our country’s safety was endangered and our moral standing damaged. 

I know you are motivated by the same considerations, and I hope you help ensure that these grave mistakes are never made again. 

Thank you.

Categories
Barack Obama National Security The War on Terrorism

Al Qaeda versus Obama (again)

Joby Warrick in the Washington Post:

The torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts now believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda’s skin. The departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group…

Friday, a new al-Qaeda salvo attempted to embarrass Obama, a day after the new president announced his plans for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Appearing on the videotaped message were two men who enlisted in al-Qaeda after being freed from that detention center.

It kind of puts things in perspective.

Categories
Life National Security New York City The War on Terrorism

The American People, Properly Informed

For those of you that don’t know, I take the Long Island Rail Road into Manhattan every morning to work. I always get in the first car at my station. When I take the subways, I go from Penn Station to Times Square to Grand Central Station, where I get off to go to the Chrysler Building where I work.

So, reading that a Qaeda group wanted to attack the LIRR during this holiday season hit close to home:

The FBI’s source reportedly told agents of an al Qaeda-connected group’s desire to place bombs or suicide bombers inside the first and last Long Island Rail Road commuter cars and detonate them as the train entered Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, also used by the Washington-New York-Boston Amtrak system and the New York City subway.

It’s the particulars that are chilling. That and the scare headlines – which were quickly eclipsed by the massive terrorist attack in Mumbai. But it’s not as if I am going to let such a threat change my life, my routine. The article also included a number of caveats – including a suggestion that the FBI wasn’t sure this had moved past the planning stage.

But it seems to me that making this potential means of attack public is quite a positive service, and suggests that maybe the national security infrastructure of the United States finally has figured out the lesson it had failed to learn after September 11:

The federal government cannot be everywhere. The best defense of our way of life, of our institutions, of our government, of our people is the American people themselves – properly informed.

By letting us know, the government is treating us as adults rather than children – and betting that a few million people paying extra attention is worth something.

Categories
National Security Politics The War on Terrorism The Web and Technology

Thanking the Jawa Report

I emphatically disagree with The Jawa Report‘s politics. I don’t know anything about the Internet Haganah. I think the attitude towards Islam exemplified by the pictures and headlines you can see by glancing at both sides is almost as medieval as the attitude of islamist extremists towards “the West.”

But if, as is being reported, they are responsible for preventing Al Qaeda from releasing their annual commemorative video on 9/11 – then they deserve praise. Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report denies responsibility though:

Neither I nor Aaron are responsible for the take down of al Qaeda’s main forum and two of its sister forums. Reporting that they are down does not mean I’m taking credit. Neither does reporting on it mean that I even approve of taking down al Qaeda’s main propaganda outlet.

But if I was responsible I’d deny it.

He repeats that last phrase several times in the post.

Regardless, if the reports are true. Congratulations. And this liberal, Obama-supporting New Yorker thanks you.

Categories
Election 2008 Foreign Policy McCain National Security Obama Politics The War on Terrorism

Will Bin Laden Endorse McCain?

[digg-reddit-me]Do you remember when the Bin Laden tape in 2004 was spun by Fox News and the right-wing as a Bin Laden endorsement of John Kerry?

If – as Charlie Black, a top Washington lobbyist unti McCain put him on his payroll, admitted – it is the conventional wisdom that a terrorist attack before the election would “be a big advantage” for McCain in the election and help get him elected…

And as McCain’s policies of military over-extension, fiscal irresponsibility, and continued occupation and war in the Middle East fit nicely into Al Qaeda’s master plan

Wouldn’t that logically make any terrorist attack on American soil, or any surprise videos putting Bin Laden front-and-center, an effective endorsement of McCain?

Just asking…

Categories
Election 2008 Humor

Osama Outraged at Magazine Cover

Courtesy of Tripartisan, the magazine cover that islamist extremists are outraged over.