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?

Panetta: No Detainee in CIA Custody Revealed Courier’s Real Name

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Greg Sargent has liberated the letter that Leon Panetta sent to John McCain to explain how torture didn’t find Osama bin Laden. Sargent has three paragraphs of the letter (go read them), but here is the operative passage.

Let me further point out that we first learned about the facilitator/courier’s nom de guerre from a detainee not in CIA custody in 2002. It is also important to note that some detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques attempted to provide false or misleading information about the facilitator/courier. These attempts to falsify the facilitator/courier’s role were alerting.

In the end, no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier’s full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered through other intelligence means.

Consider the significance of this letter. The Director of the CIA claims no credit for the two biggest intelligence leads that led to OBL (mind you, he oversaw that actual op to get OBL, so CIA did have a big role). While this letter doesn’t say it, McCain’s two statements (which I presume reflect further conversations with Panetta) reveal that the detainee who first discussed Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was interrogated by another country.

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.

And we know from other descriptions that we got Abu Ahmed’s real name and location via SIGINT. Rather bizarrely, Pakistan even claims to have collected and handed over those intercepts to us (doesn’t the NSA have the best intercept capability in the Milky Way?).

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the ISI, which prides itself on arresting a series of key terrorists including the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has now broken off relations with the Central Intelligence Agency.

“They are furious. They handed over telephone intercepts in 2009 that were crucial in leading to bin Laden’s courier – the key breakthrough in the hunt,” said a source briefed on relations between the two countries.

“Then four months ago they were told there was nothing in it, it was what the Americans called a ‘cold lead’. Since then they have been left out completely out of the loop.”

In addition, we also used various means of tracking him (presumably including more SIGINT and satellite imagery).

Note, too, that in this passage at least, Panetta doesn’t even take credit for the intelligence provided by Hassan Ghul about the true role of al-Kuwaiti in al Qaeda. As McCain describes he, he had to learn that from SSCI staffers.

I have sought further information from the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and they confirm for me that, in fact, 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 Osama bin Laden – was obtained through standard, non-coercive means, not through any ‘enhanced interrogation technique.’

In other words, the CIA Director is not even bragging about stuff that did come from a CIA detainee (though I’ve raised my doubts about when he was transferred into CIA custody).

Now, maybe Panetta is doing this to appease the Pakistanis. While we can’t publicly say the SIGINT came from them (and possibly the first detainee interrogation intelligence), if CIA doesn’t claim credit it sort of makes it easier for others to do so.

But think about the other implication of this. Panetta has a date with–among others–Jeff Sessions and Scott Brown for confirmation hearings to become Secretary of Defense. This letter–and the fact it was liberated just in time to spoil AEI’s torture fest–is not going to make things easy for Panetta among the nuttier Republicans on the committee and in the Senate more generally.

Good thing the guy he wrote the letter to is the Ranking Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

SCOTUS: Govt Can Use State Secrets to Hide Crimes

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SCOTUS just declined to take the Jeppesen Dataplan suit.

The high court rejected an appeal by five men who claimed that U.S. operatives—with support from Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing unit—abducted them and sent them to other countries where they were tortured. They alleged Jeppesen provided critical flight planning and logistical support to the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. The men were seeking unspecified monetary damages from the company.

This effectively means that men like Binyam Mohamed, who the Brits have admitted was tortured after being rendered, cannot sue for redress. And the ruling is particularly egregious since a Jeppesen executive admitted that his company was flying rendition flights.

In effect, SCOTUS’ decision not to take this case leaves in place state secrets precedent that allows the government to commit grave crimes, but hide behind state secrets.

Update: The Brennan Center and a bunch of other crazy hippies who believe in rule of law wrote a letter in response to SCOTUS’ decision to DOJ reminding them that, per their purported state secrets policy, credible allegations of wrong-doing must be referred to the Inspectors General of the relevant agencies for investigation.

In December of last year, the undersigned groups and individuals wrote to inquire whether the Department of Justice had referred to the Inspectors General (IG) of the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice, or any other department or agency allegations arising out of the government’s extraordinary rendition program detailed in several recently dismissed civil complaints—a referral required by the Department of Justice’s policy on the use of the state secrets privilege issued on September 23, 2009 (hereinafter “the September 23 policy”).  As we have received no response to that letter, and today’s Supreme Court decision makes it highly unlikely that any examination of the issue will take place in the courts, we submit this open letter posing the same question.

If the required referrals have not yet been made, we respectfully request that you now ask the relevant IGs to undertake a joint investigation into the Executive’s use of extraordinary rendition and to issue a public report—with as little redaction as possible—of their findings.  Should the IG investigation uncover government wrongdoing, we also urge that plaintiffs’ legitimate claims be acknowledged and redressed—that the government vindicate their claims by recognizing the ordeals they endured and denouncing any wrongdoing; by issuing a public apology; by providing monetary compensation; and through any other means that justice requires.

[snip]

Consequently, we believe that a thorough investigation—conducted by all relevant Inspectors General with full access to all relevant witnesses, documents, tapes, photographs, and other material, and culminating in a public report—would serve the interests of justice, and would accord with the September 23 policy’s aspiration to “provide greater accountability and reliability in the invocation of the state secrets privilege.” Moreover, where government wrongdoing is uncovered, providing plaintiffs appropriate redress could at least grant some small measure of recompense for the denial of these plaintiffs’ day in court.

This is me officially holding my breath for the Obama Administration to do what they promised on this front.

The Confusion about When Hassan Ghul’s Torture Started

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In this post, I noted that John McCain seemed to be talking about Hassan Ghul when he spoke of a detainee who gave up key information on Osama bin Laden’s courier without being tortured.

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.

Reuters has a piece on Ghul that may accord with my earlier speculation. (h/t MadDog) They describe DiFi confirming that key information came form Ghul, but before his torture started.

Earlier this week, [Dianne] Feinstein told Reuters about a CIA detainee who “did provide useful and accurate intelligence.” But she added: “This was acquired before the CIA used their enhanced interrogation techniques against the detainee.” Three U.S. officials said Feinstein was referring to Ghul.

Reuters relies heavily on declassified CIA documents to understand Ghul’s treatment–which I assume means they’ve confirmed that the May 2005 mention of Ghul was to Hassan Ghul, and not a second Janat Ghul that may have been held in CIA custody.

But if that’s true, they seem to be missing the key documents–the August 2004 documents cited in the May 2005 documents that ask for and get approval for four more torture techniques–dietary manipulation, nudity, water dousing and abdominal slap. From those documents, we can at least presume that Ghul was being subjected to his first round of CIA interrogations between August 2 and August 25, 2004, when CIA asked for the four additional techniques (though there are other possibilities I laid out here).

Just as interesting is the paper trail discussing the CIA getting custody of a detainee–and the Principals Committee discussing the treatment of a detainee named “Ghul”–on July 2 (Jay Bybee has said that detainee was Janat Gul, but unless there’s a CIA detainee named Janat distinct from the Janat who was in Gitmo, that seems unlikely). At the Principals Committee meeting, they appear to have approved certain treatment of this Ghul, notably after the torture skeptics left the meeting.

In other words, if FOIAed documents do pertain to Hassan Ghul (and Reuters appears to suggest they do), then Ghul was likely not in CIA custody until July 2004. That is, it appears Ghul was not turned over to exclusive CIA custody until six months after he was captured. His initial torture approval came on August 2, and his second torture approval came on August 26.

So when DiFi says the key information from Ghul “was acquired before the CIA used their enhanced interrogation techniques against the detainee,” that probably also means that information was acquired before Ghul was transferred to CIA custody. That doesn’t mean CIA didn’t have access to him earlier than that, or that DOD didn’t use some kind of torture on him before then (again, see this post for some of the possibilities).

All of which has two really big possible implications.

First, that the Principals Committee–without input from key DOJ officials–approved the torture of Hassan Ghul after he had already given up vital information leading to Osama bin Laden’s location. And given that the torture approvals were always premised on the claim that a detainee wouldn’t give up information without torture, this would mean a key claim made to justify torturing Ghul appears to have been false. This would tie an illegal torture authorization directly to people like Dick Cheney, having effectively bypassed the normal DOJ approval process.

Also, this could mean that obfuscation happening here serves to hide the possibility that what we now call a CIA detainee gave up his most important information while still in DOD custody.

Whitewash Investigation on Detainee Abuse Is Why We Need WikiLeaks

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The Nation has a long study on the Army’s Detainee Abuse Task Force, which one of its members described as a “whitewash.”

Jon Renaud, a retired Army Warrant Officer who headed the task force as the Special Agent in Charge for the first half of 2005, now says of the DATF, “It didn’t accomplish anything—it was a whitewash.” Neither he nor his fellow agents could recall a single case they investigated that actually advanced to a court-martial hearing, known as an Article 32.

“These investigations needed to take place,” said Renaud, a Bronze Star recipient who retired in 2009 after twenty years in the military. “But they needed to be staffed and resourced with the same level of resources that they gave the Abu Ghraib case.” He noted that the Army assigned a general and staff to conduct a comprehensive investigation of Abu Ghraib. “That was a single case,” he said, “and we had hundreds of others for six people.”

In addition to the many details of abuses ultimately ignored in Iraq, the Nation’s story demonstrates why we need something like WikiLeaks. After all, not only should there be some kind of public accountability for abuses like this (that should be as accessible and widely reviewed as the Taguba Report), citizens ought to be able search for more information.

But DOD claims the DATF never existed.

Requests to the Army for information about the origins, mission and track record of the DATF were refused, and a FOIA request to CID was denied with this claim: “No documents of the kind you described could be located. No official ‘Detainee Abuse Task Force’ was ever established by the USACIDC.” After a lengthy appeals process, during which we provided several samples of DATF communications on DATF letterhead, this finding was reaffirmed: CID “never created an official ‘Detainee Abuse Task Force,'” the denial letter read. “Individual criminal investigation units may have set up informal, ad hoc task forces while deployed to emphasize detainee abuse investigations. In turn, they may have labeled certain investigations as being subject to a ‘Detainee Abuse Task Force.'” But “there was no official organization for such a task force.”

[snip]

Angela Birt, the Operations Officer who oversaw CID’s felony investigations across Iraq during 2005, including the DATF, expressed disbelief at the military’s response. According to Birt, the DATF did not receive an official unit designator; “there was no heraldry behind it,” she said. “But to say it didn’t exist in the terms that they said in the letter? Wow, that’s really embarrassing for them,” said Birt.

“To say, ‘You never existed,'” Renaud said, “It’s insulting. It’s insulting to the agents that worked on it.

“I have to assume they just don’t want to release the cases,” he went on, “because if anybody actually got ahold of all the cases [and] read over them, they would obviously see huge holes.”

In fact, one of the Nation’s sources noted that the military kept reopening the cases the ACLU was FOIAing.

Renaud explained that his superiors at Fort Belvoir sent him weekly e-mails containing an itemized list of cases they were ordering reopened. He also separately received a list of cases about which the ACLU had filed FOIA requests. And he began to notice a correlation.

“I challenged folks on this. I said, ‘Hey, are we reopening these cases because we’re going to work them? Or are we reopening them to play hide the ball because we don’t want to release them?'”

“We did discuss the potential that they were just sending these back because as long as they’re open, they’re not subject to FOIA,” said Birt. “The rule with [the] Crimes Records Center is: if a case is open, they will not honor a FOIA request because it might jeopardize open and valid investigative pursuits.”

So it’s not just DATF DOD was hiding from FOIA, it was the cases themselves (in a tactic the government appears to be repeating more generally).

The military, if asked, would probably deny that it issued orders not to investigate instances of Iraqi-on-Iraq torture. But, because of Wikileaks, we know they did issue that order.

This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a “fragmentary order” which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, “only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ”.

Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands. In effect, it means that the regime has been forced to change its political constitution but allowed to retain its use of torture.

The military, if asked, would probably deny knowing that the US turned detainees over to the Iraqi Wolf Brigade to be tortured. But, because of WikiLeaks, we know that did happen.

In Samarra, the series of log entries in 2004 and 2005 describe repeated raids by US infantry, who then handed their captives over to the Wolf Brigade for “further questioning”. Typical entries read: “All 5 detainees were turned over to Ministry of Interior for further questioning” (from 29 November 2004) and “The detainee was then turned over to the 2nd Ministry of Interior Commando Battalion for further questioning” (30 November 2004).

The field reports chime with allegations made by New York Times writer Peter Maass, who was in Samarra at the time. He told Guardian Films : “US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing,” while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said.

[snip]

The Wolf Brigade was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents. Members typically wore red berets, sunglasses and balaclavas, and drove out on raids in convoys of Toyota Landcruisers. They were accused by Iraqis of beating prisoners, torturing them with electric drills and sometimes executing suspects. The then interior minister in charge of them was alleged to have been a former member of the Shia Badr militia.

And if it weren’t for WikiLeaks, we would know little about the multiple times our government bullied other countries to drop investigations of rendition and torture (one I’m certain we’ll see repeated when the President visits Poland later this month).

Without such transparency, the Nation study makes clear, there will be no accountability for the systematic flouting of US and international law.

But note the irony. As the Nation describes, none of the hundreds of abuse cases–not the ones that involved electrocution, not the ones that involved rape, not the ones that involved mock execution–resulted in a court-martial. But not only has the military charged Bradley Manning, but they have alleged that his actions–and not the torture and not the cover-up of torture–bring discredit on the armed forces.

Michael Mukasey Doubles Down on the Sophism

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The most interesting aspect of Michael Mukasey’s retort to John McCain’s op-ed calling him a liar is not the content–that’s the same old trite sophism–but rather the publication details of it.

It appears not under Mukasey’s byline, but under Dick Cheney’s speech-writer’s byline, complete with a picture. And when he introduces Mukasey’s words, Marc Thiessen doesn’t use any of those trappings of grammar or publication we normally use to indicate direct quotations from others, like quotation marks or a blockquote. Rather, Thiessen just says “here is his statement:” and then launches right into “Senator McCain described as “false” my statement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed broke under harsh interrogation…”

The seamlessness between Thiessen and Mukasey speaking in the first person all has the wonderful effect of emphasizing that Mukasey’s original statement was simply another product of Dick Cheney’s torture apologist PR campaign. In a bid to salvage the moral capitulations Mukasey made to become Attorney General, he now speaks in the voice of Dick Cheney’s flack.

And note the rather incredible ethical lapse here? McCain’s op-ed, remember, was published in the WaPo, the same paper Mukasey–I mean Thiessen’s–response is in. At current count, McCain’s op-ed has 778 Tweets and 5837 recommendations–22 times as many recommendations as Thiessen’s own op-ed on torture published two days earlier. [Update: And Greg Sargent did a post on McCain’s Senate speech, which itself has 6661 recommends at this point.] Whether McCain’s op-ed made Fred Hiatt vomit or not, it has brought the WaPo a great deal of traffic and attention, precisely what newspapers generally like to do with their op-ed pages. Generate controversy, influence debate, get traffic.

But Thiessen didn’t link McCain’s op-ed! He prevented the WaPo from enjoying the stickiness that a heated debate conducted within its own pages can give.

Of course, he also made it a lot more difficult for his–um, I mean Mukasey’s–readers to compare Mukasey’s rebuttal with McCain’s own op-ed. Thiessen–um, I mean Mukasey–must hope that readers don’t see that McCain’s claim had everything to do with whether torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led to Osama bin Laden, whereas Thiessen’s–um, I mean Mukasey’s rebuttal–clings to KSM’s use of a nickname that the US already knew. Or maybe Thiessen–um, I mean Mukasey–didn’t want his readers to know that KSM lied under torture and actually hindered the hunt for OBL, even after Thiessen’s–um, I mean Mukasey’s–cherished torture was used.

Or maybe Thiessen–um, I mean Mukasey–is hiding the much more powerful argument McCain made (which, as Amy Davidson lays out, was unfortunately diminished by McCain’s call for no prosecutions), in which McCain talks about the moral imperative not to torture.

As we debate how the United States can best influence the course of the Arab Spring, can’t we all agree that the most obvious thing we can do is stand as an example of a nation that holds an individual’s human rights as superior to the will of the majority or the wishes of government? Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but even then, as recognized in our Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others.

All of these arguments have the force of right, but they are beside the most important point. Ultimately, this is more than a utilitarian debate. This is a moral debate. It is about who we are.

You see, this is all about Thiessen–um, I mean Mukasey–engaging in another round of sophism, of setting facts loose in a haze of illogical statements to confuse readers. To allow readers to see a clear assertion that torture violates America’s claims to moral standing might clarify what Thiessen and those he speaks for are trying so desperately to muddle.

9/11 Commission Redux

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Spencer had a superb idea:

I don’t pretend that anything will produce an end to this new debate over torture. The fact that we’re debating torture diminishes our standing as a civilization. But moving beyond it: perhaps, after the actionable intelligence is drained from the bin Laden documents, it would be useful to reconvene the 9/11 Commission and have them review the ten-year hunt for bin Laden. It’s not helpful for something that looked like a failure on May 1 to be retconned into an inevitable, inexorable success. The tale of the bin Laden hunt — and the lessons to learn from it — is the logical final chapter of the  2004 report. And the gravitas of the 9/11 Commission, delivered through a public report, would create the closest thing possible to a narrative that can stand proudly before history.

And it would work not just for torture (though, given that the 9/11 Commission had doubts about the KSM interrogations they were reading in real time in 2003, I suspect we know what they’d conclude).

In addition to assessing whether torture, skilled interrogation by al Qaeda experts, or something else worked, the Commission could also review whether dragnet illegal wiretapping or targeted, legal wiretapping worked better; whether human missions or drones did; whether ground wars or smaller responses worked better (particularly when the ground war had nothing to do with terrorism). The Commission could develop a sense of where our counterterrorist investments paid off, and what served primarily to enrich contractors. Whether it makes sense to feel up cancer survivors at TSA gates, or whether the human screening already in place works better.

And, because we’re about due, the Commission can repeat all the non-nonsense recommendations it made 7 years ago (like scans of shipping containers) that the government refuses to put in place.

I’ve said we need a pause to figure out what has worked and what hasn’t. A 9/11 Commission 2.0 would work well for this.

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.

Marc Thiessen, You Are My Piñata

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Normally, Marc Thiessen’s torture apologies aren’t worth my time. But seeing as how I didn’t whack any piñatas on Cinco de Mayo, why not Thiessen’s latest, in which he claims those who deny CIA interrogations played a part in nabbing bin Laden are the latest birthers?

Note the formulation, though: Thiessen’s not talking about torture. He’s talking about CIA interrogations generally, even while he links to a Sully post that in turn links to me (thanks Sully!). Sully was explicitly talking about torture, not interrogations generally, and I was talking specifically about waterboarding, and from that Thiessen concludes we deny CIA interrogations had any role in nabbing OBL.

What’s the matter, Marc? Is your shifting of the debate indication you know you’ve lost the torture debate?

And boy does he lose that debate. Thiessen spends much of his column talking about people whose interrogations led to other plots, some of them totally debunked even within the documents Thiessen quotes. About the only piece he really connects to OBL is this interpretation of the intelligence Abu Faraj al-Libi contributed.

Take, for example, the file on Abu Faraj al-Libi — one of several CIA detainees who helped lead the agency to bin Laden’s courier. The document describes Abu Faraj as the “communications gateway” to bin Laden who once in custody “reported on al-Qai’das methods for choosing and employing couriers, as well as preferred communications means.” Based on intelligence obtained from Abu Faraj and other CIA detainees, it states that “in July 2003, [Abu Faraj] received a letter from UBL’s designated courier” (to whom he referred by a false name, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan) in which “UBL stated [Abu Faraj] would be the official messenger between UBL and others in Pakistan.” The file also notes a vital piece of intelligence: To better carry out his new duties “in mid-2003, [Abu Faraj] moved his family to Abbottabad” — the city where bin Laden eventually met his end — “and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.” And the file reveals that “in mid-April 2005, [Abu Faraj] began arranging for a store front to be used as a meeting place and drop point for messages he wanted to exchange” with bin Laden’s courier and was captured while waiting to meet him.

So to summarize Thiessen’s spin of how al-Libi helped nab OBL:

  • Al-Libi told the CIA that at a time when he was a key messenger for OBL, he had been in Abottabad
  • Al-Libi told the CIA how important couriers were
  • Al-Libi managed to hide the name of the all-important courier through whom we eventually found OBL, even under torture

Okay, Marc, so what did the CIA do with that intelligence? As Jose Rodriguez (who was head of Clandestine Services at the time) helpfully explained, they concluded from al-Libi’s interrogation that OBL was just a figurehead.

Al-Libbi told interrogators that the courier would carry messages from bin Laden to the outside world only 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.”

And later that same year, the CIA shut down its dedicated hunt for OBL.

The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

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.

It wasn’t until the intelligence community got the courier’s real identity, and with it traced him back to Abbottabad–neither of which (according to reports thus far) came from al-Libi–that the intelligence community managed to track the courier in Abbottabad and in turn to OBL.

Now, as even the little bit I wrote that was quoted in Sully’s post made clear (so Thiessen presumably read it), the point I’m making is not that CIA interrogations didn’t yield information and–just as importantly–unbelievable denials–that ultimately helped lead to OBL. Rather, that either torture didn’t do as promised (that is, ensure we got all the important information that might lead to OBL’s location quickly) or the torturers were unable to understand the intelligence they were getting and so the intelligence was not used for years after we got it. Here’s what Sully quoted from me.

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.

And Thiessen’s own argument backs that up! According to his own argument, al-Libi gave us two key pieces of information, lied about another, and … the CIA responded by deprioritizing their hunt.

This, apparently, is Thiessen’s idea of a success!

And so, while those of us who note how torture stalled the hunt for OBL and didn’t deliver as promised note that fact, Thiessen sits at the WaPo proclaiming misunderstood leads and detainee lies a sign of success.

Alas, thwacking Thiessen’s nonsense won’t do a damn bit of good. Like torture, I guess, piñata thwacking never seems to work with dead-enders like Thiessen.

(Piñata image by peasap, used under Creative Commons license)

Condi Claims US Was at War When She Ignored August 6, 2001 PDB

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Condi Rice is, of all Bush’s top aides, the best at managing her reputation. Which is why her interview with Fareed Zakaria yesterday is so interesting.

Sure, there are some examples of Condi’s signature lies, such as when she claims the dedicated group to hunt Osama bin Laden–which was shut down between 2005 and 2009, after which Obama reinstituted it–proves the Bush Administration’s focus on capturing OBL.

ZAKARIA: President Obama did say that he felt that the capture or killing of Bin Laden was not a top priority when he took office and he moved it to a top priority. What’s your reaction?

RICE: Oh, it was a top priority. We wanted to get Osama Bin Laden every single day. And there was a unit at the – the agency that worked on nothing else.

More interesting, though, is Condi’s confusion about how many Presidents have hunted OBL. At the beginning of her interview, she suggests that the hunt for OBL has spanned just two presidencies.

ZAKARIA: When you first heard the news about Bin Laden’s assassination, what – what did you think?

RICE: Well, I was incredibly gratified and, frankly, relieved. It been a long hunt for him. I was proud that over two presidencies we were persistent enough and patient enough to put together the picture that ultimately led to him. You don’t just stumble upon Osama Bin Laden. It takes a lot of work to get there.

But then there’s this remarkable exchange.

ZAKARIA: And you’re hearing some Republicans, people like Rush Limbaugh, say Obama really doesn’t deserve much credit for this. You know, the – the operation was a routine operation.

You’ve been in the White House. Do you think that the president at key moments had to make difficult calls whether to use a drone, whether to use a special operations?

RICE: I’ve been in the White House, and I’ve seen a president make difficult decisions. And there were difficult decisions in this. What – what President Obama has done, indeed, it was a – it was a brave decision.

Now, it is absolutely the case that the United States of America has been fighting this war for at least 10 years, and really a bit longer. And so this is a victory across presidencies. It’s a – it’s a victory for having learned more how to fight the counterterrorism fight. [my emphasis]

Now, I presume the reference to a war that pre-dates 9/11 and even May 2011 is Condi’s claim that when she was demoting Richard Clarke in the early days of 2001 and when Bush was saying “I’m tired of swatting at flies … I’m tired of playing defense. I want to play offense. I want to take the fight to the terrorists” in March 2001, that was part of an already-engaged war with al Qaeda. Her reference to the hunt for OBL across two, not three, presidencies would seem to discount Clinton’s efforts to capture or kill him.

But that would presumably also mean Condi and Bush were at war when they dismissed the urgency of the August 6, 2001 PDB, titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” and discussing preparations for plane hijackings.

Or maybe the reference to a longer war refers to the efforts Clinton made to neutralize OBL after OBL declared war on the US in 1996. If so, it’d sure be nice if Condi said that explicitly, given how many times the Bush Administration claimed Clinton did nothing to hunt down OBL.

Which raises the next question. I agree we’ve spent much of the last 10 years learning how to fight terrorism. Aside from obvious stupid, easily avoidable mistakes like the Iraq War and torture, there’s nothing wrong with admitting that we had to learn to do this right (though we often ignored the lessons that the UK and Israel, as well as other European countries, learned in their earlier counterterrorist fights).

But is Condi admitting that Obama has learned things that the Bush Administration didn’t know?