Former Senior Interrogator In Iraq: Cheney Is Wrong

[babylonsister]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-alexander/whats-not-said-is-more-im_b_207151.html


Matthew Alexander
Led the interrogations that found Zarqawi; author of "How to Break a Terrorist"
Posted: May 24, 2009 10:48 AM

What's Not Said Is More Important Than What Is Said


As a senior interrogator in Iraq (and a former criminal investigator), there was a lesson I learned that served me well: there's more to be learned from what someone doesn't say than from what they do say. Let me dissect former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on National Security using this model and my interrogation skills.

First, VP Cheney said, "This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately... it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do." He further stated, "It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so." That is simply untrue. Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq. What the former vice president didn't say is the fact that the dislike of our policies in the Middle East were not enough to make thousands of Muslim men pick up arms against us before these revelations. Torture and abuse became Al Qaida's number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives.

Secondly, the former vice president, in saying that waterboarding is not torture, never mentions the fact that it was the United States and its Allies, during the Tokyo Trials, that helped convict a Japanese soldier for war crimes for waterboarding one of Jimmie Doolittle's Raiders. Have our morals and values changed in fifty years? He also did not mention that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both prohibited their troops from torturing prisoners of war. Washington specifically used the term "injure" -- no mention of severe mental or physical pain.

Thirdly, the former vice president never mentioned the Senate testimony of Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who successfully interrogated Abu Zubaydah and learned the identity of Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber, and the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was the mastermind behind 9/11. We'll never know what more we could have discovered from Abu Zubaydah had not CIA contractors taken over the interrogations and used waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Also, glaringly absent from the former vice president's speech was any mention of the fact that the former administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.

In addition, in his continued defense of harsh interrogation techniques (aka torture and abuse), VP Cheney forgets that harsh techniques have ensured that future detainees will be less likely to cooperate because they see us as hypocrites. They are less willing to trust us when we fail to live up to our principles. I experienced this firsthand in Iraq when interrogating high-ranking members of Al Qaida, some of whom decided to cooperate simply because I treated them with respect and civility.

The former vice president is confusing harshness with effectiveness. An effective interrogation is one that yields useful, accurate intelligence, not one that is harsh. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of interrogations, the goal of which is not to coerce information from a prisoner, but to convince a prisoner to cooperate.

Finally, the point that is most absent is that our greatest success in this conflict was achieved without torture or abuse. My interrogation team found Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq and murderer of tens of thousands. We did this using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques. These worked to great effect on the most hardened members of Al Qaida -- spiritual leaders who had been behind the waves of suicide bombers and, hence, the sectarian violence that swept across Iraq. We convinced them to cooperate by applying our intellect. In essence, we worked smarter, not harsher.

[MarjorieG]

1. Needs to be on the airwaves, as a NYT op-ed. Could they have refused, so Huff-Post

Needs to go places, and Rachel has been good on past BushCo torture, when not conflating with Obama. She needs to make distinction.

[Voice for Peace]

2. agree, get him on tv

[babylonsister]

3. He's written extensively for VetVoices, but you're right, he needs

more mainstream exposure.

[Overseas]

10. Rachel Maddow has had "Matthew Alexander" on her show.

He was excellent.

I think he may have been on a couple of times already.

He was excellent and made many of the points in the op ed above.

[Hissyspit]

4. .

[magellan]

5. K&R

[malaise]

6. Cheney is saying what he is saying for one reason

He's scared shitless - this is about self-defense.

[MasonJar]

7. Can one see George Stephanopolis or Brian Williams et al putting

someone on who is so eloquent in regards to the non-efficacy of torture? They should, but they will not. We forget that by coming to DU we learn of the abuses by politicians; most Americans are still in the dark. Our goal should be to get these types of cogent and easily understood and credible statements out there. Can anyone forward this to Keith and/or Rachel, etcs.? It is becoming more clear by the day why CBS had to get rid of Dan Rather. He was the only one of the big name newscasters who would have followed the story where it led.

[snot]

8. This assumes, of course, that Cheney actually wanted results.

I think it's worth considering that, consciously or not, he got the results he REALLY wanted -- less cooperation, more perpetual war.

[spanone]

9. k&r...

[spanone]

11. another shameless kick

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. kick and recommended for the truth !!!!

[SpiralHawk]

13. Okay, Republicon Homelanders. Try some truth for a change:

"Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq."

[spanone]

14. CHENEY IS WRONG

[beac]

15. K&R! n/t

[peacetalksforall]

16. Thinking back to that period, I would say that this writer is

speaking the truth about the violence after the knowledge of torture and inhumanity.

Those first months were all about -
. making sure that Iraq was safe for contractors and oil companies
. using the divisions within Iraq to create war like settings so we could remain in Iraq do to the oil extraction and shipping - the longer the better if not forever
. there were orchestrated insurgencies - carried out by Americans and the British (and most likely their usual partner who had plenty to benefit from) - they may have had their partners kill Berg and Pearl
. the oil was in the northern and southern part of Iraq, not so much in the middle where the sect was more Sunni a la the Saud family and the Shite matched Iran. It was obvious there were many on again, off again agreements with Turkey re the Kurds
. why waste our boys and bullets if the Iraqi's could kill each other and make everyone think that the U.S. was putting up a good fight and trying to end it, but not really
. they swept able-bodied men who might lay traps for the pipe line or try to defend their land, off the street
. they were totally pre-occupied with planned insurgency by our own and maintaining it and protecting the prisons and the green zone and building castles
. they were totally pre-occupied with cross deals and all kinds of profits from guns
. this was a time for certain companies to make a ton of money
. the attempts to get those contractors in there with kick backs to reconstruct the country and build hospitals was helpful to the psychology used on our soldiers, but the soldiers didn't get a piece of the profits
. this was a time to present coalition partners as coming in to help and some did, but it is more like they came in to get some profit and a portion of the oil - in other words, we probably paid for their soldiers or asked for contributions of other kinds 0 like permission to refuel including rendition flights

Oil, yes oil - those Iraqi and neighboring men, boys, women are suffering because of oil plus sick minds who were put in charge of carrying out their own devised plan at sometime in the 90's and which must have had the approval of barons. The public relations mantra that beats into everyone that we were attacked because they hate us for our freedom was created in the 90's along with Pearl Harbor 2. They worked many years on their eight years because they expected to remain in power after the eight years as evidenced by their reckless arrogance and inhumanity.

Torture was the device of the combination of Cheney Rumsfeld Bush and all their willing sidekicks, and Powell is not innocent though he makes himself sound like he is and is doing a better job than Cheney. One wonders what money Powell may already have in his bank account. Sorry to be so suspect for those of you who admire him.

The plan the arrogance went poof, now we are left with the arrogance of lies and defense.

Thanks to those of us with a conscience. This writer is right on as far as the escalation following the revelations.

[secondwind]

17. K&R!