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Is Mukasey Suggesting We Ignored Information Mohammed al-Qahtani Gave Us?

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I’ve been having difficulty finding the time to get through the entire AEI torture extravaganza that took place yesterday (“Moderated” by John Yoo). But by the time I read this Greg Sargent piece, I had gotten through the point at about 3 minutes in where Michael Mukasey said,

Was there a memo in the file beforehand [before KSM uttered the name of courier Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti] that contained that name? Yes, but it was disregarded because it came from somebody insignificant and it was not regarded as significant.

Which in and of itself seems an admission (one reflected in the CIA IG Report) that CIA wasn’t accrediting intelligence from more minor figures adequately in their assessments of efficacy.

But there may be another problem with Mukasey’s statement. According to the NYT, KSM was reported to have been asked about al-Kuwaiti months after his waterboarding, in fall 2003.

And as you may have seen in reporting, al-Kuwaiti’s name comes up in a curious reference in Mohammed al-Qahtani’s Gitmo file. Note I’m showing the quotes themselves and the sources. And as you read this, remember that KU-10024 is KSM’s detainee number, so the email training described involves KSM, al-Kuwaiti, and al-Qahtani.

(S//NF) Detainee received computer training from al-Qaida member Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti in preparation for his mission to the US.

(S//NF) Detainee stated while at Abu Shem’s house in Karachi in July 2001, KU-10024 had al-Kuwaiti teach detainee to send email. KU-10024 informed detainee when someone went on a mission, he would need to know how to send messages and email was safer than talking on the phone. Al-Kuwaiti took detainee to a local internet cafe for his training.42

(S//NF) Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti was a senior al-Qaida facilitator and subordinate of KU-10024. Al-Kuwaiti worked in the al-Qaida media house operated by KU-10024 in Kandahar and served as a courier.43

(S//NF) Al-Qaida facilitator Hassan Ghul stated al-Kuwaiti, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi traveled with UBL.44 (Analyst Note: Al-Kuwaiti was seen in Tora Bora and it is possible al-Kuwaiti was one of the individuals detainee reported accompanying UBL in Tora Bora prior to UBL’s disappearance.)

(S//NF) Detainee stated he was not very skilled in the use of email and al-Kuwaiti told KU-10024 it would be difficult for the detainee to fully understand computers or how to use the internet for the purpose of emailing. (Analyst Note: Detainee attended a computer course in Saudi Arabia and received a certificate upon graduating. It is doubtful detainee would not be able to grasp the concept and procedures necessary for internet email, especially with Arabic websites that offered the service. Detainee stated KU-10024 provided him with a code to use when he reported success obtaining his visa.)45

42 IIR 6 034 1194 03

43 IIR 6 034 0226 05, TD-314/04398-05, TD-314/39130-02

44 TD-314/29012-04, TD-314/30205-04, Analyst Note: For additional information see TD-314/05730-05, IIR 6 034 0226 05, TD-314/45991-05, TD-314/63199-04, TD-314/04398-05, TD-314/56328-04, TD-314/55744-04, TD- 314/49162-04, TD-314/45296-04, TD-314/24351-04, TD-314/04950-04, TD-314/39130-02, IIR 6 034 0760 03

45 IIR 6 034 1194 03, 000063 SIR 30-MAY-2003, IIR 6 034 1205 03 [my emphasis]

First, note the argument they’re making here. To support the claim that Mohammed al-Qahtani must be an important al Qaeda figure, they use his own description of being trained on using email by Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, and then link that up with all the information the folks at Gitmo knew about al-Kuwaiti in 2008, thereby showing associatively that al-Qahtani was being trained by people–KSM and al-Kuwaiti–who had close ties to OBL.

Some of this information to support this argument was obviously collected after al-Qahtani’s earlier interrogations (and notably, after the most intense part of his torture, which lasted from November 23, 2002 to January 15, 2003) and from other detainees. The information about al-Kuwait’s role as a facilitator and courier (see footnote 43) is sourced to two intelligence reports from 2005, and one from 2002. Given that there’s nothing that says al-Qahtani explained this detail himself, that 2002 report might be the report from the detainee held by another country.

Then there’s the intelligence given by Hassan Ghul, dated 2004 (see footnote 44), stating that al-Kuwaiti traveled with OBL. One of the two 2005 reports also cited is one of the same reports named in footnote 45.

It’s the information that came from al-Qahtani himself–which takes the form, “detainee stated”–that’s more interesting. The three pieces of intelligence that appear to come from al-Qahtani (see footnotes 42 and 45) are all dated 2003. More interesting, one of them is named 000063 SIR 30-MAY-2003. The appearance of al-Qahtani’s detainee number, 063, seems confirmation this intelligence came from him. And the report is dated May 30, 2003, at least three months before KSM is reported to have talked about al-Kuwaiti, but more than five months after his torture ended.

Now, it’s possible that al-Qahtani didn’t use al-Kuwaiti’s nickname. But it at least appears that al-Qahtani was using it several months before KSM was. Mind you, he didn’t say anything about al-Kuwaiti traveling with OBL (which came two years later from Hassan Ghul) or being a courier (which may have come from that detainee in another country). Just that some guy with ties to KSM tried to teach him to use email.

Of course, this doesn’t clear up the torture debate at all (aside from the fact that torture is illegal and immoral and, in the case of al-Qahtani, has made it impossible to try him for his presumed role in 9/11). After all, it appears that, like KSM, al-Qahtani started to talk about al-Kuwaiti five months after being tortured. And note, it appears, though is not certain, that al-Qahtani did not give this information to the FBI or DOD before he was tortured, when they didn’t know who he was.

But it does appear to be fatal for Mukasey’s story. It’s one thing to claim that a detainee in some other country is so minor no one paid attention to the intelligence he offered. But you can’t make the claim al-Qahtani–the assumed 20th hijacker–was insignificant.

Which leads to the bigger question: why did it take CIA at least three months after al-Qahtani talked about being trained for 9/11 by al-Kuwaiti before they asked KSM about him?

John McCain: KSM Lied Under Torture, Just Like I Did

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John McCain has, on balance, a good op-ed in the WaPo refuting Michael Mukasey’s embrace of torture. McCain’s larger point is that our approach to the Arab Spring will have a key role in our ability to defeat terrorists, which is a point not being made vociferously enough. And while he places himself in the camp of people who believe the torturers and those who approved torture should not be prosecuted, he does have this to say of Mukasey’s claim that KSM’s torture produced intelligence that led to Osama bin Laden.

That is false.

[snip]

In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true.

While I’m glad McCain provided these additional details on the lies KSM told under torture, I’m a bit more interested in two other details McCain includes.

The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured.

[snip]

According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.

The first bit of intelligence–that Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was first IDed in another country–presumably introduces an entirely new detainee into the picture. Though the description “we believe was not tortured” must be viewed skeptically, as most of the other countries that were holding detainees do torture. This presumably happened no later than 2002, though, as Mohammed al-Qahtani talked about Abu Ahmed as an associate of KSM in 2002 and 2003.

It’s the other detail I find even more interesting: that info on Abu Ahmed’s real role and his real relationship with OBL came using “standard, noncoercive means.” This break in intelligence has fairly consistently been attributed to Hassan Ghul in tick tocks of the hunt for OBL. And while McCain doesn’t confirm that Ghul provided the intelligence, if he did, then consider what it probably means.

I have noted that a detainee who appears to be Ghul was held for six months–from January to August 2004–before the CIA started getting approval for his CIA-led interrogation. If the detainee who provided the key information on Abu Ahmed was Ghul and did so through noncoercive means, it means that Ghul’s interrogation before CIA got him–presumably, Ghul’s interrogation by military interrogators not using torture–yielded the key piece of information that would eventually lead to OBL. And (such a scenario would further imply) CIA insisted on taking custody and torturing him, even after he yielded information that would lead to OBL. Which might explain the legal sensitivities around Ghul’s torture, because if they got key info without torture the claims they based torture on would all be demonstrably false.

It’s all wildarsed speculation at this point, but such a scenario might explain why the torture apologists have been so vehement. Because one of their narratives, after all, is that they needed torture to get the key information. They needed torture, the torture apologists explained, because the standard interrogations done by the FBI and military weren’t effective. But McCain’s narrative suggests the possibility, at least, that for one of the few detainees interrogated at length by real interrogators first yielded the key piece of intelligence leading to OBL, after which the CIA ignored that intelligence and instead set about torturing a detainee who had already yielded crucial intelligence.

Update: McCain gave a version of this on the Senate floor today. He added details about the first detainee who gave information.

The first mention of the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, as well as a description of him as an important member of Al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country. The United States did not conduct this detainee’s interrogation, nor did we render him to that country for the purpose of interrogation. We did not learn Abu Ahmed’s real name or alias as a result of waterboarding or any ‘enhanced interrogation technique’ used on a detainee in U.S. custody.

Note, it sounds like the US might have been involved in the interrogation, just not conducting it. Also interesting that we didn’t render that detainee to the other country. Pakistan? Jordan?

Also note this admission that Ibn Shiekh al-Libi was tortured (which of course we already knew).

It has also been reported, and the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee confirms for me, that a man named Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had been captured by the United States and rendered to Egypt, where we believe he was tortured, provided false and misleading information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs. That false information was ultimately included in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement to the UN Security Council, and, I assume, helped to influence the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq.

Jose Rodriguez Brags that He Got Terrorists to Deny Things Using Torture

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Jose Rodriguez, the guy who as head of Counterterrorism Center oversaw the torture program and who as head of Clandestine Services had the videotapes that would prove torturers exceeded torture guidelines destroyed, has chosen this moment to give his first public interview. And according to Rodriguez, torture was key in finding Osama bin Laden.

“Information provided by KSM and Abu Faraj al Libbi about Bin Laden’s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of [bin Laden’s] compound and the operation that led to his death,” Rodriguez tells TIME in his first public interview. Rodriguez was cleared of charges in the video destruction investigation last year.

Of course, as the NYT reports but doesn’t note the implication of, the intelligence KSM and al-Libi gave interrogators were unreliable denials.

Because Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Libi had both steered interrogators away from Mr. Kuwaiti, C.I.A. officials concluded that they must be protecting him for an important reason.

“Think about circles of information — there’s an inner circle they would protect with their lives,” said an American official who was briefed on the C.I.A. analysis. “The crown jewels of Al Qaeda were the whereabouts of Bin Laden and his operational security.”

That’s what we’re arguing about, folks: whether the torture program was so effective that it led two terrorists to protect particular information after they’d been tortured.

I guess Jose Rodriguez doesn’t think he could have gotten KSM and al-Libi to deny this information without torture?

To be fair to Rodriguez, that’s not what he said al-Libi–whom he describes as having provided the most important intelligence–gave us. Rather, al-Libi provided information that convinced Rodriguez that Osama bin Laden wasn’t all that important.

Faraj told interrogators that the courier would only carry messages from bin Laden to the outside world every two months or so. “I realized that bin Laden was not really running his organization. You can’t run an organization and have a courier who makes the rounds every two months,” Rodriguez says. “So I became convinced then that this was a person who was just a figurehead and was not calling the shots, the tactical shots, of the organization. So that was significant.”

As a reminder, Abu Faraj al-Libi would have provided this information some time in 2005–probably June or July. In late 2005, CIA closed Alec Station, its bin Laden unit, having decided that al Qaeda was no longer as hierarchical as it used to be, and so pursuing bin Laden was not that important.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice “dead or alive.”

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened.

All of which suggests that that great piece of intelligence al-Libi gave us–that OBL’s couriers would only check in every two months which meant he was just a figurehead–led directly to the CIA’s decision to stop focusing on bin Laden.

And if that’s the case, then al-Libi’s torture didn’t lead us to OBL; rather, it led us to stop searching in concerted manner for OBL.

No wonder Jose Rodriguez has taken this moment to start spinning wildly.

KSM Was Lying about OBL’s Location While Hiding the Courier Who Could Locate Him

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I apologize for yet another post on why the torture apologists claims that torture got us Osama bin Laden are wrong.

The debate is now manipulating the question at issue, suggesting that the fact Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi provided tidbits (or, according to several reports, unconvincing denials) that led to OBL equates to us needing torture to get that intelligence. Particularly given that CIA used the denials of KSM and al-Libi as indications they were hiding something, it’s unclear why a denial without coercion would have served differently.

But there are two points that seem key in assessing the torture question. First, both KSM and al-Libi had critical intelligence they withheld under torture. KSM knew of Abu Ahmed’s trusted role and real name; al-Libi knew Abu Ahmed was OBL’s trusted courier and may have known of what became OBL’s compound.

And neither of them revealed that information to the CIA.

They waterboarded KSM 183 times in a month, and he either never got asked about couriers guarding OBL, or he avoided answering the question honestly. Had KSM revealed that detail, Bush might have gotten OBL 8 years ago.

And just as importantly, the whole time KSM was shielding Abu Ahmed’s true identity while being waterboarded, KSM was also lying to the CIA about where OBL was. When asked what things he lied about under torture at his 2007 CSRT hearing, KSM specifically said he first said he didn’t know of OBL’s whereabouts, and then confirmed false locations for him, in response to the torture.

President [of the Tribunal]: What I’m trying to get at is any statement that you made was it because of this treatment, to use your word, you claim torture. Do you make any statements because of that?

[snip]

KSM: I make up stories just location UBL. Where is he? I don’t know. Then he torture me. Then I said yes, he is in this area or this is al Qaida which I don’t him. I say no. They torture me.

So at the time when KSM was guarding crucial information about Abu Ahmed and with it OBL’s location, he was making shit up to get the torture to stop.

As I understand the torture apologists’ arguments, the whole point of it (aside from generating propaganda and making chicken hawks excited) is to get crucial intelligence quickly, to skip the laborious process of acquiring a mosaic of information and developing deep knowledge of an organization over years–that is, to skip the process that has now resulted in the death of OBL. But instead of skipping that step, we got denials and–in the case of KSM–disinformation. And only now, eight and six years later, we’re only now becoming aware of the intelligence these men had that would have led to OBL had our interrogation been more successful.

Tracking the Courier … Through Hassan Ghul

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Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo have fleshed out the story I linked here, describing the threads of intelligence that led to the courier–whose name they report as Sheikh Abu Ahmed–who in turn led to Osama bin Laden. The story includes the following steps:

  • Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, months after he was waterboarded and via “standard” interrogation, admits he knows someone named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, but denies he has anything to do with al Qaeda.
  • Hassan Ghul, who was captured in Iraq in 2004, reveals that Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was an al Qaeda courier
  • Under CIA interrogation, Abu Faraj al-Libi admits he learned he was replacing KSM through a courier, but denied knowing al-Kuwaiti so strenuously CIA figured he must be important
  • Via still unclear means, CIA learns Abu Ahmed’s real name
  • US picks up Abu Ahmed talking to someone else it was monitoring, speaking from a location away from the compound
  • US tracks Abu Ahmed back to compound

The story has many more details, so go read the whole thing and then come back for my long-winded discussion.

First, some general comments. This narrative still seems to be missing at least one step: how they learned Abu Ahmed’s real name. As I noted earlier, the senior administration official who briefed on this the other day said they learned that name four years ago, so sometime about a year after the time in 2005-2006 when al-Libi’s interrogation would have made it clear al-Kuwaiti was a key figure.

Further, the narrative the AP tells now makes it even more clear how ineffective the CIA program was. The AP’s sources specify that KSM did not admit he knew al-Kuwaiti while being waterboarded. But that sort of dodges the whole issue: in response to his torture, according to KSM, he made up false locations for OBL. At the same time he was shielding information that could lead to OBL–and he continued to shield it under “standard” interrogation (again, it’s a pity FBI’s KSM expert never got to interrogate him). And then al-Libi, when he was in the CIA’s interrogation program, managed to shield that same information even after the CIA recognized it was important.

The CIA program failed to do one of the most important things it set out to do, break through detainees’ efforts to hide OBL.

Now onto the most fascinating part of this story: the role of Hassan Ghul. Here’s how AP describes his role.

Then in 2004, top al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida’s operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden’s personal courier.

“Hassan Ghul was the linchpin,” a U.S. official said.

I’ve written about Ghul a bunch, largely because his treatment in 2004 appears to have presented legal problems for the Bush Administration with regards to deportation from Iraq, relations between DOD and CIA, and torture itself, all of which bubbled over just as tensions about the interrogation program arose. Just as interesting, Ghul is widely understood to have been disappeared (and there were doubts about his identity). Given the Ibn Sheikh al-Libi precedent–where they disappeared and then suicided a detainee with the most inconvenient information–Ghul’s disappearance remains an key unexplained detail. I had, in the past, wondered whether claims that Ghul served as an envoy from al Qaeda to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were overblown (which would provide one explanation for his disappearance), but Ghul’s knowledge of al-Kuwaiti (and the capture of al-Libi nine months after Ghul’s interrogation at least appears to have begun in earnest) would seem to confirm he did turn out to be who he said he was: someone with real ties to top al Qaeda leaders.

But here’s the other remarkable bit. Ghul was last heard of when the British al Qaeda figure Rangzieb Ahmed claimed to have been held with Ghul in Pakistan from 2006-2007, after which Ghul was moved. But at least according to a Goldman tweet from yesterday, after spending time in Romania, Ghul was freed. Particularly given the legal exposure the Bush Administration might have specifically with Ghul (I’ll explain this in a future post), I find that remarkable.

The Osama bin Laden Trail Shows Waterboarding Didn’t Work

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The AP has confirmed that intelligence leading to the courier that in turn led to Osama bin Laden came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and–as I surmised earlier–Abu Faraj al-Libi while in CIA custody. But partly because of the language AP uses to describe this–and partly because the wingnuts love torture–many are drawing the wrong conclusion about it. Here’s what the AP says:

Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

Note what AP says: KSM provided the courier’s nom de guerre. The CIA got similar information from al-Libi. And they were tortured. The AP does not say torture led to this information.

Here’s what a senior administration official said last night about when they got the intelligence on the courier.

Detainees gave us his nom de guerre or his nickname and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.

Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.

Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can’t go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. [my emphasis]

In other words, while the CIA may have learned the courier’s nickname earlier, they didn’t learn his true name until “four years ago”–so late 2006 at the earliest. And they didn’t learn where the courier operated until around 2009.

From these dates we can conclude that either KSM shielded the courier’s identity entirely until close to 2007, or he told his interrogators that there was a courier who might be protecting bin Laden early in his detention but they were never able to force him to give the courier’s true name or his location, at least not until three or four years after the waterboarding of KSM ended. That’s either a sign of the rank incompetence of KSM’s interrogators (that is, that they missed the significance of a courier protecting OBL), or a sign he was able to withstand whatever treatment they used with him.

With al-Libi, the connection between whatever torture he experienced and this intelligence is less clear (since he was first detained in 2005), but even with al-Libi, it appears clear he either never revealed the courier’s real name or only did so after he had been in custody for a year, and almost certainly until after he arrived in Gitmo.

Update: Putting the AP’s reporting here together with the DAB, it seems like al-Libi did give up the name, perhaps earlier than reported. But still not waterboarding.

Either these men didn’t know the true name of their protégé and assistant (which is highly unlikely), or they managed to withhold that information even under torture.

In fact, two people who normally would be crowing about the success of torture are not now doing it. Donald Rumsfeld suggests the discovery of OBL came from intelligence gained at Gitmo (therefore, not in Poland or Romania). And while Cheney assumes enhanced interrogation aka torture led to OBL, he admits he doesn’t know where the intelligence came from; given that he was ordering up propaganda reports along the way to justify his torture program, yet can’t claim definitively that the intelligence came from it, is a pretty good tell that he can’t say it did.

If KSM and al-Libi revealed details about the courier (and al-Libi’s Gitmo file suggests he did; KSM’s, which is dated two years earlier, does not), they shielded the most important information about him for years.

All of which sort of makes you wonder whether the FBI’s KSM expert could have gotten it out of KSM had he ever interrogated him.

And about that Nuclear Hellstorm Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Promised if Osama bin Laden Was Killed?

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When the WikiLeaks Gitmo Files were first released last week, the Telegraph’s top headline warned of a “nuclear hellstorm” if Osama bin Laden were captured or killed.

One of the terrorist group’s most senior figures warned that al-Qaeda had obtained and hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe that would be detonated if Osama bin Laden was killed or captured.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda mastermind currently facing trial in America over the 9/11 atrocities, was involved in a range of plans including attacks on US nuclear plants and a “nuclear hellstorm” plot in America.

[snip]

According to the US WikiLeaks files, a Libyan detainee, Abu Al-Libi, “has knowledge of al-Qaeda possibly possessing a nuclear bomb”. Al-Libi, the operational chief of al-Qaeda and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before his detention, allegedly knew the location of a nuclear bomb in Europe that would be detonated if bin Laden were killed or captured.

That headline was based on two details from the Gitmo files. First, this passage from Abu Faraj al-Libi’s Detainee Assessment Brief:

(S//NF) Detainee has knowledge of al-Qaida possibly possessing a nuclear bomb. Al-Qaida associate Sharif al-Masri stated in June or July 2004, upon encountering difficulties in moving the nuclear bomb, detainee commented if al-Qaida was able to move the bomb, al-Qaida would find operatives to use it. However, detainee told Sharif al-Masri that al-Qaida currently had no operatives in the US. The operatives would be Europeans of Arab or Asian descent. The device was reportedly located in Europe.40 Sharif al-Masri reported detainee would know about the bomb and its exact location.41 Sharif al-Masri believes if UBL were to be captured or killed, the bomb would be detonated in the US, detainee would be one of those able to give the order.42

And this single line from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s DAB.

(U) Detainee told his interrogators that al-Qaida had planned to create a “nuclear hell storm” in America.

Now, the reference to al-Libi is of particular interest given accounts of how we found Osama bin Laden, as I have laid out here. I think it likely that al-Libi was the source of the information on the courier(s) that ultimately led to OBL’s compound.

That said, note the intelligence in that passage. The first sentence claims, uncritically, that al-Libi “has knowledge of al-Qaida possibly possessing a nuclear bomb”–though the use of the word “possibly” suggests some doubt. And the remaining 6 sentences of that paragraph are cited to Sharif al-Masri, not al-Libi himself. (Note, CNN appears to have gotten this utterly and completely wrong in this article.)

Al-Masri was detained in 2004 and reports from his interrogation–with the news on WMD–were leaked. As of 2006, his whereabouts remained unknown; I’m checking to see if his whereabouts are still unknown. [Update: His whereabouts were still unknown in March 2008, h/t Jeff Kaye.] [Update: Andy Worthington confirms that al-Masri is one of the detainees who has disappeared; he was never in Gitmo.] (Remember, too, that the Bradbury memos were written to retroactively authorize torture committed in this 2004 time period.)

But none of the reporting on nukes in al-Libi’s file comes from al-Libi himself, and it notes that “detainee ha[d] neither confirmed nor denied” … “knowledge of an al-Qaida nuclear device” by September 10, 2008.

Does the fact that he had neither confirmed nor denied the allegation a full 3 years after being captured mean we never asked?

The KSM intelligence is of even sketchier provenance. KSM’s DAB cites WorldNetDaily (!) as the source.

69 Al-Qaida warning- WorldnetDaily.com 17 -Sep-06, Al-Qaida warns Muslims: Time to get out of U.S. Afghan terror commander hints at a big attack on N.Y. and Washington.

Not only should the WND source raise questions, but reading the article reveals there is only one mention of KSM, and it has nothing to do with what he told his interrogators.

And all of this is more suspect considering Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri claimed he told his torturers that Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb, but later recanted the claim.

Usama bin Laden having a nuclear bomb. [REDACTED]. Then they used to laugh. Then they used to tell me you need to admit to those information. So I used to invent some of the stuff for them to say Usama bin laden had a, had a nuclear bomb. And they use to laugh and they were very happy. They were extremely happy because of the news. Then after that I told them, listen. He has no bomb. [my emphasis]

Al-Nashiri’s Gitmo file makes no claim he knew anything about al Qaeda and nukes.

In other words, when we tortured prisoners–and all of the detainees to whom this claim can be traced were in CIA custody–we asked them to tell us al Qaeda had nukes.

So I’m guessing the Telegraph’s big headline is not keeping our national security experts up at night.

Update: Titled changed. After all, KSM promised hellstorm, according to WND, if OBL was captured or killed.

Abu Faraj al-Libi and the Trail to Osama bin Laden

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According to reports, we first started tracking the couriers who would ultimately lead us to Osama bin Laden over four years ago.

The stream of information that led to Sunday’s raid began over four years ago, when U.S. intelligence personnel were alerted about two couriers who were working with al Qaeda and had deep connections to top al Qaeda officials. Prisoners in U.S. custody flagged these two couriers as individuals who might have been helping bin Laden, one official said

“One courier in particular had our constant attention,” the official said. He declined to give that courier’s name but said he was a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a “trusted assistant” of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a former senior al Qaeda officer who was captured in 2005.

“Detainees also identified this man as one of the few couriers trusted by bin Laden,” the official said. The U.S. intelligence community uncovered the identity of this courier four years ago, and two years ago, the U.S. discovered the area of Pakistan this courier and his brother were working in.

In August 2010, the intelligence agencies found the exact compound where this courier was living, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The neighborhood is affluent and many retired Pakistani military officials live there.

The reference to Abu Faraj al-Libi is notable in this context for two reasons. He was one of the last High Value Detainees picked up. The Red Cross dates his capture to May 2, 2005 (though he appears to have been held in joint Pakistani-US custody for a time and his Detainee Assessment Brief says he was transferred to US custody on June 6, 2005), and of the HVDs moved to Gitmo in September 2006, he was the last to be picked up.

More interesting, though, are some details from his DAB. In 2003, OBL assigned al-Libi to be “the official messenger” between himself and others in Pakistan. And, apparently at that point, al-Libi moved with his family to Abbottabad, the city where OBL was found.

In July 2003, detainee received a letter from UBL’s designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting detainee take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organizing travel, and distributing funds to families in Pakistan. UBL stated detainee would be the official messenger between UBL and others in Pakistan.12 In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad, PK and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.13

His DAB describes al-Libi providing intelligence on al Qaeda’s courier system.

Detainee reported on al-Qaida’s methods for choosing and employing couriers, as well preferred communication means.

And in May 2005 (when the Red Cross says he was captured), al-Libi said he was responsible for facilitating al Qaeda in “settled areas of Pakistan.”

In TD-314/37025-05, detainee stated of early May 2005, he was responsible for facilitation within the settled areas of Pakistan, communication with UBL and external links.

That all sounds suspiciously like the kind of portfolio that might include arranging for a custom-built mansion in Abbottabad for OBL’s family.

None of this means, of course, that al-Libi is the HVD who first IDed the courier who ultimately led to OBL. But it does seem like he was a likely source of that information.

Saifullah Paracha’s Gitmo File Contains Suspect Details, but His Defense Attorney Can’t Point Them Out

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I’m going to be in transit for another half day yet, but I wanted to comment on this motion David Remes, Gitmo detainee Saifullah Paracha’s attorney, filed to request emergency access to the Detainee Assessment Brief on his client released by WikiLeaks on Monday. (h/t Benjamin Wittes)  Remes describes the implications of the protection order he works under, noting specifically the warning DOJ sent out the other day.

For example, because the government considers the documents classified, and counsel holds a “secret” security clearance, he is concerned that if he views the documents online, the government might revoke his clearance. Losing his clearance will disable him from continuing to represent his current or future detainee clients and jeopardize his ability to obtain further clearances. Counsel is concerned that the government may even prosecute him. To avoid any potential sanctions, undersigned counsel errs on the side of extreme caution and refrains from viewing the documents.

The only place undersigned counsel can view these documents and fear no potential sanctions is at a Secure Facility the Justice Department has provided in the Washington area for counsel with “secret” level clearances. To the best of counsel’s knowledge, the Secure Facility contains no secure computer onto which the Wikileaks documents can be downloaded. Moreover, counsel is confident that the Justice Department will not ferry the documents to the Secure Facility for viewing and use by counsel. Even if the leaked documents were made available for viewing and use by counsel at the Secure Facility, counsel located far from the Facility – some thousands of miles away – would have to journey to the Facility to view and use them. [my emphasis]

That is, Remes could view the documents in just one place without risking losing his clearance and his ability to defend his client, or even criminal sanctions–a DOJ Secure Facility. Yet DOJ is not going to make the documents accessible there. So he’s SOL; he can’t see them.

Remes goes on to describe how this prevents him from defending his client publicly, specifically because he can’t comment for a big article the NYT did which (IMO) offered a credulous reading of Paracha’s file. While that article contains a quote from ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi noting that the information in the files is uncorroborated, and while NYT admits much of the evidence derives from KSM whom they note was waterboarded, rather than point out obvious suspect details in Paracha’s file, it simply repeats those details uncritically.

Here’s just one reason why Remes needs to have access to the file to adequately represent his client and refute credulous readings of Paracha’s file:

(S//NF) The plan called for shipping explosives in containers that detainee used to ship women’s and children’s clothing to the US. Detainee agreed to this plan. KU-10024 [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] claimed in early March 2003, PK-10020 and PK-10018 [Ammar al-Baluchi, KSM’s nephew] were arranging the details with detainee and his son Uzair. KU-10024 stated detainee knew all the details of the plan. Uzair understood PK-10018 and PK-10020 were al-Qaida, but KU-10024 was unsure how much Uzair [Paracha’s son] knew about the actual smuggling plan.8 [my emphasis]

There are, in general, just two kinds of evidence offered by KSM in March 2003: evidence the CIA itself claims was disinformation offered by KSM in his early days of captivity while he was still successfully resisting interrogation, and evidence offered up under torture, potentially one of the 183 waterboarding sessions KSM survived in March 2003.

It’s unclear which category this piece of intelligence falls into, but the use of the verb “claimed” suggests there’s something about the intelligence that may have led even the briefer on Paracha’s file to doubt it.

The intelligence report cited for this detail (and therefore collected in March 2003), TD-314/16519-03, is cited three more times in Paracha’s file, only one of which is corroborated by reports dated 2004 and 2005.

In other words, one of the claims against Paracha can be traced back to a March 2003 interrogation of KSM that no one should consider credible. The entire case against Paracha builds off this early interrogation.

There are a number of other reasons to doubt the “facts” laid out in Paracha’s file. Notably, references to Aafia Siddiqui make no mention of her earlier reported detention by the US in Afghanistan, and instead claims “Siddiqui was detained in Afghanistan in mid-July 2008,” thereby hiding a key detail as to the credibility of any intelligence Siddiqui may have offered (or, just as likely, making no mention of intelligence Siddiqui refuted during years of interrogation in US custody in Afghanistan).

Parts of Paracha’s file reveal real weaknesses in the government’s case against him. These are all very basic details Remes needs to point out, particularly if NYT reporters aren’t going to read the file critically themselves. But given the way the protection order works, he can’t do that.

In July 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Tried to Come to the US

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One of the most intriguing details of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed indictment is this entry:

126. On or about July 23, 2001, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED applied for a U.S.-entry visa, using the name “Abdulrahman A.A. Al-Ghamdi,” which application was denied.

That’s interesting for a number of reasons. Such a reference doesn’t show up in the 9/11 Report, though by that time, a CIA source had already warned that someone named “Khaled” was sending people to the US to carry out terrorist activities for Osama bin Laden; on July 12, 2001, that source IDed a picture of KSM.

It also raises questions about sourcing. Why didn’t the 9/11 Commission know this by spring 2004, when they were finishing their report? Is it possible KSM told us about this attempt to fly to the US after that point? It’s worth noting that at least one piece of intelligence that appears in the indictment–a description of how the muscle hijackers were taught to use short blades by killing sheep and camel–is sourced to the February 23, 2004 interrogation of KSM. Or has the government developed a granular enough understanding of KSM’s movements that it was able to pin this attempted visa application to him via other–perhaps SIGINT–means?

But then the big question is, what was KSM planning to do if he had actually received a visa to travel to the US?

Given the timing and the context–KSM attempted to get the visa just a week after Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mohammed Atta met in Spain for their last planning meeting before the attack, and therefore presumably right after bin al-Shibh reported back to KSM on what happened at the meeting–it seems that KSM was worried about whether Ziad Jarrah would carry through with the attack. The 9/11 Report describes:

The most significant part of the mid-July conversation [between KSM and bin al-Shibh] concerned Jarrah’s troubled relationship with Atta. KSM and Binalshibh both acknowledge that Jarrah chafed under Atta’s authority over him. Binalshibh believes the disagreement arose in part from Jarrah’s family visits. Moreover, Jarrah had been on his own for most of his time in the United States because Binalshibh’s visa difficulty had prevented the two from training together. Jarrah thus felt excluded from the decisionmaking. Binalshibh had to act as a broker between Jarrh and Atta.

Concerned that Jarrah might withdraw from the operation at this late stage, KSM emphasized the importance of Atta and Jarrah’s resolving their differences. Binalshibh claims that such concern was unwarranted, and in their mid-July discussion reassured KSM that Atta and Jarrah would reconcile and be ready to move forward in about a month, after Jarrah visited his family. Noting his concern and the potential for delay, KSM at one point instructed Binalshibh to send “the skirts” to “Sally”–a coded instruction to Binalshibh to send funds to Zacarias Moussaoui.

On July 20, Jarrah’s girlfriend bought him a one-way ticket to Dusseldorf. On July 23, KSM attempted to get his visa to the US. On July 25, Jarrah flew to Dusseldorf; while bin al-Shibh talked to him right away, they did not have their more substantive conversation until later. And between July 30 and August 3, 2001, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and bin al-Shibh sent money to Moussaoui he used to enroll in flight school (and buy a Leatherman knife).

It’s also worth noting that Atta, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf al-Hazmi met in Las Vegas on August 13. The 9/11 Report reported it had gotten no explanation as to why they chose Las Vegas. The indictment explains that “in summer 2001, KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED instructed some of the hijackers to meet in Las Vegas to make final preparations.”

Had KSM received his visa, would he have attended the meeting?

In any case, it appears that KSM’s concerns about the plot falling to pieces (or at least losing Jarrah as a pilot) were sufficiently serious that he tried to come to the US himself to deal with the problem.