Cameraman: We're rolling.
Peter: Okay. Good morning.
-: Good morning, Peter.
-: And we are very grateful to you
for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo project.
And we invite you to speak of your experiences
and involvement in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
We are hoping to provide you an opportunity
to tell your story in your own words.
We are creating an archive of stories
that people in America and around the world
will have a better opportunity and understanding
of what you and others have observed and experienced.
Future generations must know what happened in Guantanamo,
and by telling your story, you are contributing to history
and we are very grateful to you
for participating and willing to participate
and speaking with us today.
If anytime, during the interview you want to take a break,
just let us know.
-: Okay.
Peter: And if there's anything you say
that you would rather have us removed, we can remove it.
And I'd like to begin with just some general background
including your name and country of origin and hometown.
Maybe we can start with that
and then we'll go into birth date and age.
-: Sure.
My full name is Manuel Enrique Fernandez, Supervielle.
I was born in Havana, Cuba
and I currently reside in Miami Beach, Florida.
Peter: And your birth date and your age?
-: 7 October, 1956.
I am 55 years old.
Peter: And your languages and nationality
and marital status.
-: I speak English and Spanish.
I am married.
And what was the other question?
Peter: Nationality?
-: I'm a U.S. citizen.
Peter: And education, details about your education?
-: I have a Undergraduate in International Relations
from St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas,
a Law degree, JD from the University of Texas, Austin,
a Masters in International, I'm sorry,
in Military Law from the U.S. Army
Judge Advocate General School in Charlottesville, Virginia,
a Masters in International Law
from the University of Miami, Florida
and a Masters in National Security
from the National War College in Washington, DC.
Peter: And your current occupation?
-: Independent Consultant, yeah.
Peter: Well, let's talk a little bit about
how you got here, and maybe you could begin
by how you joined the military?
Why you joined the military?
And when that was.
-: Sure.
You know, as a Cuban refugee,
we lived for only a year in Miami, Florida
when we first came out in 1961.
And then after that, we lived four years in Indiana
where I learned English more or less.
And then Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
where I became a big Pirate Steeler fan, still am.
And then Tallahassee, Florida.
This is all while my dad was getting his education
in the United States or reeducation.
He already had a Law degree in Cuba
but he got a Doctorate in Education.
And then ultimately we landed in,
we settled in Laredo, Texas,
where I did four years of high school.
And we did not, I did not have,
nor did my parents for that matter have money
really for me to go to college.
And so I applied for an Army ROTC Scholarship,
which I was very fortunate to get.
And then I chose to use that at St. Mary's University.
I applied for that scholarship for two reasons.
One was financial as I indicated
but I was also looking to do something of public service
in sort of payback, if you will, for the U.S.
taking me and my family in.
To be perfectly honest with you,
I was actually looking at the Peace Corps,
but they were only taking people with college degrees.
And obviously I was just coming out of high school
and they offered no money.
So then the army said, hey, you know, we can offer you money
and you can still serve your country that way.
So that's why I decided to go ahead
and take the ROTC Scholarship.
Peter: And when you graduated from college,
what happened then?
-: From Undergraduate,
well before graduating, I had spent...
I was gonna be commissioned as an Armor Officer at tanks.
And so I spent the Summer between my Junior and Senior year
at Fort Bliss, Texas with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment
in charge of a platoon, 2nd Squadron,
second heavy company there.
Anyway, I spent that Summer there
and that's when I thought, maybe going to law school
wouldn't be such a bad idea.
So I took the LSAT and did well on it.
And so I asked the army for an educational delay
before I started my active duty time.
So I went to law school at my own expense,
married my sweetheart from college Margie,
and then when I graduated from law school
I branch transferred from Armor to JAG,
Judge Advocate, General School.
Peter: Did the army pay for your law school?
-: No, not at that time,
because I was the one asking to go to law school.
So no.
Peter: And after law school,
then you entered the military?
-: Yes.
After law school, well, I mean, I was already in the army
I mean at that point, you know,
when I was first commissioned out of St. Mary's,
I came out as a Second Lieutenant,
and then while I was in law school, you know,
I got promoted to First Lieutenant only on paper.
And so all the time counted as reserve time
but not active duty.
So then when I came on active duty in January of '82,
January 7th of '82 to be precise,
as a Judge Advocate then you go
and you did a three-month schooling
for new judge advocates, basically coming out of law school.
First assignment was with the 24th Infantry Division
mechanized at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
And I wanted to be in the trial room.
I wanted to be an oral advocate.
So I was very fortunate once again
and I was made a prosecutor for the Division Artillery.
I did that for a year,
prosecuted about 45 courts martials,
everything from murder to mostly drug sales,
but assaults, arsons, disrespect, that kind of...
And then I was a Defense Counsel for two more years
there at Fort Stewart.
Then we did about another 70 trials as a Defense Counsel.
Again, same kind of cases.
Then we went to Korea for two years.
While we were at Fort Stewart, we had two children,
Christine, the oldest and Joe.
They were born in Fort Stewart.
And then we moved to Korea,
where we were there for two years.
I was the Senior Prosecutor for pretty much everything,
South of Seoul.
We lived in Taegu Korea.
Again, more courts martials,
but I was doing other stuff as well, administrative law,
and it was a lot of interesting things.
Then a year of study to get the first Masters in Law,
in Charlottesville,
then Hawaii for four years.
And when I went to Hawaii,
that was an International Operational Law
position basically.
So it was no longer the courtroom stuff.
Now it was my first exposure
to practicing International Operational Law.
So I did a lot of traveling with our deployed forces,
when our forces would go on exercises to various places,
I would go with the force and deal with host nation
on issues that would come up or soldiers doing stupid things
or customs issues, tax issues,
all kinds of things.
I was also involved in Disaster Relief Mission to Bangladesh
as the Judge Advocate for Task Force Sea Angel, we called it
Madagascar to sort of open relations
with the Madagascan military,
when they were still somewhat under the Soviet influence.
Samoa, like I said, Bangladesh
Western Samoa, Thailand,
Philippines to help with human rights programs
as they were fighting the insurgency there
in the late eighties.
Peter: Were you trained in international law issues
or along the way?
-: When I did that first Masters in international...
When I did that first Masters in Military Law,
we had a fairly heavy dose of International Law
as part of that.
And of course, even in the basic course, back in '82
we had a smaller dose, but yes.
So even though it was not something
that I had focused on in law school,
but you know, the military is very, very good
at providing you a support system.
And so even I had a lot of questions
as I was brand new at this stuff, you know,
and I was telling, for example,
I was telling the captain, the skipper of an army ship
that had taken into port in the Solomon Islands,
that I didn't see a problem with, you know,
customs officials boarding the ship and inspecting it.
I found out later that the Navy frowns on that.
The U.S. Navy doesn't like that.
So, you know, I learned the hard way
and that was not the only example,
but I also had a lot of folks
that I could call back and say, hey, I got this issue.
And, you know, either back at the Pentagon,
or colleagues.
I never felt over my head because I knew
that there was always this support group out there
that--
Peter: And were you well versed
in the Geneva Conventions during this time?
-: Not well-versed, I mean, I'd studied them
and I knew what they were,
and I knew what the theory was behind them.
Like I said, in the Philippines,
I was actually trying to talk to them about, you know,
Common Article 3 type of issues,
but really in many of these foreign countries,
especially when it's an internal armed conflict,
they don't look at so much the Geneva Conventions
as much as the rubric of human rights,
and that whole paradigm, you know, it's not,
they don't look at it so much
in the way of the Geneva Conventions.
Peter: So what year are we at now when you were there?
-: Left, did a Y from '88 to '92,
then the army sent me to get my Masters in International Law
at the University of Miami.
Did that for a year,
wrote a paper on Status of Forces Agreements,
because that was something that I was doing
a lot of in the Pacific.
And then I went to the Pentagon, to be the Deputy
of the Army's International Operation Law Division.
And I did that for three years from '93 to '96.
There, I began traveling a lot to Latin America,
mostly because just happenstance,
but I met some very senior people, commanders,
the Commander of the Uruguayan Army, for example,
and Uruguayans, the Argentines and the Chileans
were all heavily engaged in peacekeeping operations
around the world, in Africa,
and in the Balkans.
And their legal system, their military legal system,
the photo Taegu that they have,
did not really contemplate having forces
outside of their home nation in a non-combat operation.
And so there was this legal gap that had occurred
where the host nation wasn't going to be prosecuting
or investigating Argentines for example,
and the Argentine code didn't contemplate that,
it was not extra territorial in peace time.
And so you had this gap,
and so I was trying to help these various countries
close that gap through legislative measures and training
and things of that nature.
So I did a lot of that during that period of time
traveling other places as well, but there was that.
And then Peru also with the Sendero Luminoso, you know,
counterinsurgency trying to help the Peruvian military
conduct their operations in a manner
that would be more consistent again with their own laws
and human rights laws.
They were having also the trials,
where they would cover up the identity
of the judges and the prosecutors.
And so I sort of advised a little bit on that as well.
So let's see, I was '93 to '96,
then '96 to '98, we moved to Panama
and I was assigned as the Senior Judge Advocate
for U.S. Army South.
The way the military is structured,
we have combatant commands, which are geographic
and they are joint in nature.
So that that's where you have Central Command,
Southern Command, Pacific Command, et cetera.
They're joined in the sense that they have all four services
underneath them in terms of Army, Navy, Air Force
and Marine Corps.
So U.S. Army South would be the army component
to U.S. Southern Command, which is the joint component.
At that time, when we moved down there in '96,
U.S. Southern Command was still physically in Panama
as was U.S. Army South.
I was sent down there because a lot of the work that I...
While I was at the Pentagon from '93 to '96,
I spent a lot of time working
on the Panama Canal turnover issues.
And so the Judge Advocate General of the army at the time
thought it would be a good idea to have me go down there.
I was a Lieutenant Colonel,
brand new Lieutenant Colonel at the time,
office of about 21, 22 attorneys,
and about 30-some support staff,
covering the wide range of issues.
A lot of young captains, right out of law school,
lieutenants right out of law school.
I had a very good deputy,
and they focused on pretty much a lot of the heavy lifting
all of the day-to-day kinds of things.
Myself and one of my civilian attorneys
focused more on the Panama Canal turnover issues.
You know, termination of contracts,
a lot of environmental law questions,
negotiations for a post 1999 presence.
So it was a very interesting time.
Plus all the normal operational stuff,
we kept doing exercises with foreign countries.
'98 to 2000, for a year and a half only,
actually Summer of '98 to January of 2000,
I was the Chair of the army...
I was the Chair of the International Operational
Law Division at the Army JAG School,
at the Army Judge Advocate General School
in Charlottesville,
where we taught the Geneva Conventions
and other rules of engagement and all those kinds of things.
Contractors on the battlefield, human rights,
I did that for a year and a half,
and then the Commander General Wilhelm, Charles Wilhelm,
who's a Marine four-star Commander at SOUTHCOM,
U.S. Southern Command hired me to...
There was a nomination, I mean, there was a vacancy,
and so each service nominates a judge advocate,
all four services.
And I was selected to be his judge advocate by him
starting in I guess it was the very beginning
of February of 2000.
The initial big marquee item was the implementation
of Plan Colombia and the creation
of an Army Judge Advocates Corps for the Colombian military
to help them with dealing with human rights,
abuses, accusations, things like that,
and we did that.
We working with the Colombians,
we helped them to create a JAG Corps.
And then that takes us then to obviously
September 11th of 2001,
and then shortly thereafter--
Peter: Where were you then?
-: I had just pinned on actually as a Colonel and--
Peter: Were you in DC?
-: No, no, no.
I was the Southern Command Judge Advocate.
I got there in 2000, February of 2000,
and then a year and a half later,
when 9/11 happened, I was still there.
I was at SOUTHCOM for three and a half years
from February of 2000 to July of 2003.
Peter: So when the planes hit,
what were you thinking?
What were you seeing?
What was going on at that day?
-: I was literally on an airplane heading to Columbia
to celebrate the first anniversary
of the Colombian JAG Corp,
and the pilot diverted to Panama,
didn't tell us why.
We landed in Panama.
There were no customs officials.
There were no immigration officials.
It was absolute chaotic scene
at the Panamanian airport there.
And, you know, no one had told us what had happened.
So when I got off and I saw
one of the Panamanian local people that are working
at the airport running around,
I said, what's going on?
I assumed that there had been a terrorist attack
in Columbia, which was not that uncommon at the time.
So that's what I thought had happened.
But then when they told me what had happened,
and then I saw it on the TV, I was stunned.
And then it was a question,
well, how do I get Columbia from here?
And they took us to a hotel and they just dumped us off
at the American airlines.
And they pretty much said, you know, you're on your own.
And I having lived in Panama before,
I knew where the American airlines office was.
And so I immediately went there and managed to get a flight.
It was almost like the last seat available
to get to Columbia that day,
or that late that night.
But I'll tell you that, you know,
sitting there briefly, you know,
when I got to the hotel the first thing I did
was put it on a TV.
And aside like every other, you know,
300 million Americans feeling the shock
of what just happened, you know,
I kind of figured that, you know,
that our lives were not, as a nation,
our lives we're not gonna be the same
and our life as a family was in particular
not going to be the same.
I made it to Columbia.
Peter: Why did you still feel the need to go Columbia
with that current...?
-: Well, I mean, a couple of things.
I mean, number one is that was the mission.
We were gonna have this big deal down there.
This was the first year anniversary.
There was some pride,
there were certain elements in Columbia
that didn't really like having a JAG Corp.
And so it was really important to be there
to show the flag, if you will,
and provide support to those Colombians
who very courageously were pushing forward
with this JAG Corp.
And I will tell you that they have, you know,
the Colombian side have suffered so much,
from war and from acts of terror,
that they were extraordinarily empathetic
to what was happening.
And it actually was in many ways comforting to get
that kind of empathy from them,
when I showed up finally, you know, very late at night
I managed to find my way to the, you know,
to the military hotel that we were staying at.
And then they had a very moving ceremony,
in memorial of the victims of 9/11.
And, you know, it was very difficult.
I mean, if you recall, all the planes were grounded
so it's not like I was gonna be able to go anywhere anyway,
other than, you know, I was stuck there in Columbia
for about 10 days or so,
which should have only been...
And all the other Americans
that were supposed to be coming in for the conference,
I was showing up a couple of days early
because I was helping to organize it.
Nobody else got there.
So it was quite a challenge to sort of
fill administratively, you know,
to make the presentations
for some of the people who were not able to show up.
Peter: So after those 10 days,
were you given a new charge,
or were you given new responsibilities?
-: I went back to...
Now keep in mind, you know,
this was still....
The president at the time had not yet, you know,
he did shoot, I believe, you know,
some sort of declarations in terms of, you know,
who we thought was responsible for this and all that.
But no, I went back to SOUTHCOM, you know,
at that point, my mission was still focused on
Plan Colombia and all the other stuff
having to do with the war against drugs.
That was a big part of our mission at the time.
It still is, you know,
all the counter-narcotics intercept at sea,
kind of things that we were doing.
That was all a big deal.
So I was still focused on that.
And then just to finish out, you know,
I did the three year and a half years at SOUTHCOM,
from there another year to get
the Masters in National Security
at the National War College in Washington, DC.
And then I was the Executive Officer
to the Army General Counsel, political appointee.
So I'm kind of like his military aid, if you will,
just to advise on military things
that as a civilian he might not otherwise be aware of.
Did that for a year, and then I was asked to go serve
as the Senior Judge Advocate for all U.S.
and coalition forces in Afghanistan for a year.
So that would be '05 to '06.
And then I came back from that,
and then I was selected to be on a faculty
at the National War College.
And so that was from '06 to when I retired
at the beginning of '08.
Peter: So can we go back to SOUTHCOM,
if you were focusing still on Columbia
and intersecting drugs, and did that continue?
How long did that continue?
-: It still goes on today.
Peter: No, you, you.
-: Until the day I left.
Peter: So they never changed your role in spite of 9/11.
-: Oh, no of course it did,
once they said on December 17th
or somewhere in the middle of December,
Secretary of Defense said,
we're sending all these people
that we've captured in Afghanistan,
to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo,
the least worst place that we can put them
or something to that effect.
And I knew at that point that, you know,
once again, you know, our world was going to get
turned upside down because Guantanamo was in our area
of responsibility.
The way the military works is these combatant commands
have geographic responsibility.
And if something's happening in your area,
then you have to deal with it.
And so I knew right away,
that we were going to be charged with the responsibility
of dealing with these people coming over.
Peter: And what did you know about those people
on December 17th?
-: Nothing.
I mean, other than the fact that they'd been captured
on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, you know, I was not focused on that.
Peter: And were you, and from December 17th
moving forward what was your role
and did you go to Guantanamo
to see them when they were brought to Guantanamo
or did you know who these people were?
Or how they would treat in Afghanistan?
What did you know along those lines?
-: Okay, well, shortly, well,
I was actually on vacation,
because it was right before Christmas,
and so I had agreed...
I had a staff at SOUTHCOM,
let me give you a little bit of context.
I had one senior officer from each service.
So had an Air force, Colonel Terry Farrell.
I had a Navy Captain, Marty Evans.
I had a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, Wendy Stafford
and I had an Army,
I think, I'm not sure if he was a Major at the time
or if he was a Lieutenant Colonel.
I know he got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel
but Mark Jinglers.
And then I had a Senior Civilian,
but he did engagement programs, legal engagement stuff
with folks down in the theater in South America,
Central America and Caribbean.
So, but those four military officers,
that was the entire staff that I had there.
Granted, they were all very senior,
but it was very small staff.
The same as all the other combatant commands.
And on December 17th, I was on vacation
because the plan was that during Christmas,
they were all gonna take off,
and then I would come back before they left.
That turned out to be a really bad plan
because when I got back, some days later,
I think like maybe on the 19th or the 20th,
something like that, they were all gone,
you know, scattered to California and Montana and, you know,
wherever Washington State.
So that was a very challenging time,
because I was essentially there when I got back.
It was all very intense as far as, you know, what do we do?
And so the immediate priority,
the immediate priority was, okay,
we're gonna be getting all these guys,
where are we going to put them?
Where we're going to put them?
And so, you know, we would have, you know
we were working really long hours
and it was the entire staff.
The engineer, the command surgeon, the chaplain,
the chief of operations, the chief of intelligence,
the JAG communications, everybody just trying to figure out
what are we gonna do with these guys?
And so we contemplated a number of different options
and the most reasonable option,
this went on for like, I don't know a week or 10 days,
all the way through Christmas basically
up until it beginning of--
Peter: January.
-: Yeah, or maybe right after Christmas, before the New Year,
somewhere in there.
I mean, we were contemplating things like, you know
do we bring a ship in, for example,
and, you know, and just park it
and then put these people on board the ship?
I mean, that was sort of like a quick solution.
You know, they were actually in one
of the Geneva Conventions, not the third,
but, you know, it talks about not doing that kind of thing.
We contemplated tents.
I mean, this and that and another thing.
At the end of the day, you know,
as obviously history proved out,
we settled on building up Camp X-Ray
which is essentially a place where
during the days of the Haitian Migrant
work issues back in the mid nineties,
was sort of the temporary detention place
for people who were misbehaving
and needed to be separated or segregated from the main camp.
And so all it was, was just basically,
there weren't many there,
I don't remember the numbers but you know,
less than 30 or not many less than that.
I mean, it was just a very small footprint there,
as far as how many people you could hold,
somewhere in the number of maybe 30, something like that.
But the thing is with, you know,
seven, eight years of non-use,
it had been completely overgrown and was really not usable.
Nevertheless, our engineers did a fabulously great job
of getting in there, clearing it out,
and then just creating that initial space
that could be used to detain people.
The first plane load, I don't remember the exact date
but I want to say it was like 10th, 11th, 12th of January
or something like that.
Peter: 11th.
-: 11th.
And so they had precious little time
to get that place up and going.
And we were getting, we were on an operations tempo,
an op tempo of about a plane every other day.
And each plane was bringing, I don't know, 30, 35 people.
And so these guys were having to build literally
and as soon as it was built,
the particular cage, if you will,
it was filled up and then they build the next one
and the next thing, you know,
it'd be filled up the next day.
Peter: So the idea of where has these men came from
SOUTHCOM from, essentially your team.
I mean, basically the people in DC said,
you take care of it.
You find a place for them, that's not our job.
-: Oh yeah.
And by my team, of course it was,
let me continue to context.
The commander at the time was an acting commander,
Major General Gary Spear,
because our commander had been Peter Pace, General Pace,
who then had been promoted up position-wise
to be the Vice Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff.
The new incoming commander was delayed in his arrival
for a long period of time for about a year, I think.
And so that left us with our Deputy Commander,
Major General Gary Spear, as the acting commander.
You know, SOUTHCOM as compared
to the other combatant commands was relatively junior
in terms of its staff.
Like, you know, our Chief of Operations
was a one-star General.
Chief of Intelligence was a one-star General.
These are positions that Pay Comm, Pacific Command,
or European Command or Central Command would be, you know,
two-star Generals, maybe even three, depending.
So, you know, we found ourselves,
and General Spear found himself all of a sudden
thrust into this very difficult situation
and being one down, basically, you know,
without an actual commander, but with an acting commander.
And, you know, he did a, I thought incredibly marvelous job.
Peter: But I just wanted to confirm,
so it was his responsibility with--
-: Yes, you know, in the military,
we break things down into basically three strata.
You have the national or strategic level authority,
I should say,
and that would be the joint staff,
and the department of defense and the president basically
and the inter-agency, that's strategic level.
And then the operational level are those combatant commands.
And then at the tactical level
would be whatever joint task force
or whatever maneuver units are actually part of the thing.
So, yes, we were the ones that were basically told
you know, deal with these guys.
Find where you're gonna put these guys.
Peter: And did you don't know anything more
about these guys a long way before January 11th
just as between that time when you first heard about them
and January 11th did you know anything more about them
or what was going on?
-: Okay.
I called a friend of mine who had been the staff
to judge advocate at U.S. Central Command,
but was now retired from his Air Force career,
but was still serving as a civilian at U.S. Central Command,
retired Colonel Barry Hammel.
And so I called him up.
Shortly, you know, shortly once I got back to SOUTHCOM,
to Miami right before Christmas,
and I called him up,
and because, I mean, you know, I knew that
the first thing is all right, so like, what are these guys?
Because people weren't even,
they didn't know what the call them,
on the news or the...
And so I called him up and I said, Hey Barry,
I understand you guys are going to be sending us
all these guys.
He goes, yep.
And I said, so what's their legal status ?
He says, I don't know.
I said, what do you mean you don't know?
He says, I can't answer that.
I don't know. I've asked the question.
I've asked Washington, I've asked Jane,
referring to Jane Dalton, who is a dear friend
of both his and mine,
Navy Captain, she was the Chairman's Legal Advisor.
I've asked and so far I have not been given
any kind of clear answer.
I was just told that, you know, we're working on it.
We will get back to you.
So, you know, he said, I suggest you call her.
And I did.
So I called her up. I called Jane.
She and I had served together in the Pacific
when I was at Pacific Command.
She was at CINCPAC Fleet which is the Navy component
to Pacific Command.
So we had met and I knew her husband who's a Navy Captain.
She was at the time a Navy Commander.
I was an Army Captain, or I guess Lieutenant Commander.
And she pretty much told me what Barry had already said
which was, you know, we're working on it, man.
You know, we'll get back to you.
So I went to go see my boss, General Spear.
And I told him, I said, you know,
I can't answer for you because how we treat these guys.
And a lot of the questions that are being asked now
in terms of, you know, at the tactical level,
how do we actually conduct this mission,
depends on what their status is.
And, you know, I'm not getting an answer to that,
and so we drafted a letter, a memo,
that he signed, going up to the Chairman,
basically asking the question.
Because, you know, after a few days of this
it was apparent that my asking the question, you know,
was probably not gonna get it answered.
So we decided it would be better to have him
ask the question of the Chairman.
Peter: As the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.
-: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
So I drafted a memo for him and, you know, he sent it on up.
It was that memo...
I think this was late December.
I can't remember if was late December or very early January
when this went out, but it was around that timeframe,
right around the New Year.
It was that memo that I believe it was on February 7th,
the president actually answered,
with his memo basically saying these guys are detainees
and, you know, they are, well, I'm sure you've seen the memo
but that memo was in response to the one--
-: That Bush's memo was the response
to that memo that General Spear sent.
-: Well, yeah, because I mean,
when it went from General Spear to the chairman,
then the chairman sent it up the chain
to the Secretary of Defense who,
and then up in Washington, they, you know, but yeah
I mean, sooner or later, they were gonna have to come up
with an answer anyway,
but hopefully, you know, this memo from us was intended
to get an answer quicker or sooner rather than later.
What it did do though, is in the meantime,
we got sort of a...
Without going into too much of the details here,
but part of the way the communications,
the official communications work
when you're being tasked by superior to as a military unit
to go do something, you know,
oftentimes you're given a warning order
which is basically a memo that says,
hey we're about to give you a task to go do this.
You are here by warned,
and start getting yourself ready basically.
And so we got one of those saying,
hey, you're about to get these detainees
or these people from...
They weren't calling them detainees at the time,
you're about to get these guys from Afghanistan, you know,
start working on it.
That's what we got around the 17th, 18th,
you know, middle of December.
Well, as we kept asking questions,
there would be changes to that warning order basically
saying, okay, you know,
change number one, change number two,
and each one kind of massaged the original one,
the original warning order a little bit.
We never actually...
What we were hoping for was the actual tasking order
telling us, okay here's your exact mission,
but we kept getting a, I seem to recall,
that we kept getting a series of these modifications.
And on one of those in response to our insistence
on asking for the status,
this has been a really long time,
so I don't remember,
and I haven't seen it.
I have not looked at this stuff,
but what it said was something to the effect of
that, you know, you shall treat these people
in a manner consistent with the principles
of the Geneva Convention, but not the Geneva Convention.
Peter: This will be before February 7th.
-: Yes. Oh, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
This was either very late December or early January.
And that's what it said.
Treat them in a manner consistent with the principles,
but you do not apply the actual Geneva Convention
as a matter of law.
It didn't say that, but that's the way I took.
It was you're not applying the Geneva Convention
as a matter of law, but follow the principles.
I don't know who came up with that.
I have no idea where the genesis of that came from,
but that's what we got back.
Now, if you're a military commander, as you know,
you can imagine that that is not the kind of clear guidance
that you would prefer.
So I talked to my boss and, you know,
he wanted me to explain what that meant.
And I said, well, you know,
this is as good as it's gonna get for a while,
so, you know, we need to do what we can with this.
And I believe that, you know, within our JAG community,
we can ascertain, and there's been articles written
in fact from when I was at the Army JAG School,
one of the fellows that worked for me
who I believe you've met Jeff Corn,
he and another fellow Mike Smit,
Major Mike Smit had published some articles
precisely on the subject of principles
of the Geneva Convention.
So I say, you know, there's something out there,
so let's take a look at it.
And, you know, we were having daily,
my staff, by the way had come back
when I started calling them up, saying,
everybody, get back here.
It took three or four or five days,
but eventually everybody got back.
So by, you know, sometime right after Christmas
but before the New Year's, we had everybody back.
I sent Wendy Stafford up to be...
She's a Marine.
And I sent her to go support the Marine Commander,
who had been tasked to be the Joint Task Force Commander
for this thing.
Mike Leonard was a Brigadier General, Mike Leonard,
and so Wendy went up there
and I think they were camped in June
and spent like a week or so there with him
before they deployed to Guantanamo.
Peter: She was supposed to inform him
on what you told her?
-: Yeah, she was our liaison, if you will,
to make sure that on all these various legal issues
and whatnot that I had somebody
that actually worked for me there with General Leonard
to facilitate communications.
Peter: So what were you thinking
in terms of since this was somewhat ambiguous,
since you knew something about Geneva conventions
and you knew the law probably better than many people,
did you think this was strange
or did you figure this was a new paradigm?
You know, as Gonzales had said,
maybe I don't know if he had set up by this point,
but what was your own thoughts
in terms of what was going on?
-: Well, you know, that's a good question.
I mean, I think that there was so much
chaotic confusion going on,
and I mean, every day was just everything's
you know, everything from, you know, how high of a gap
does there have to be between the chain link
and the base cement floor, and, you know
just a lot of that kind of stuff.
And all the whirlwind of, you know why we can't use a ship
or why we shouldn't be using a ship out there.
And if we did and those kinds of things,
and by the way, I mean, this, you know,
all this stuff with Columbia was still going on,
the peacekeeping initiatives with the Argentina,
all that stuff's going on.
It's not like that just stops the war against drugs.
In fact, how that interplays,
how the war on drugs now is gonna be,
how all these things are taking resources away from us
that we need to devote to Guantanamo.
So all this stuff is going on.
So to answer your question, I guess,
it was very it was certainly unsettling,
because we were not getting sort of clear guidance,
but, you know, every time ever since you were a cadet,
as in ROTC, or one of the academies,
you are taught and trained to work through the very fluid,
constantly changing, rapidly changing, chaotic situations
to accomplish the mission
in a way that you've been...
Where you are trying to do that in a manner
that is consistent with the values and the principles
that you've been taught all along the way.
And so, you know, there's an expression in the military
that is, that it is better to ask for forgiveness
than to ask for permission.
That assumes that the person that is acting,
is gonna be acting consistent
with all their training, education and values
that they've received over the years.
And so we got to a point here where I thought
we had pushed this thing as far as we were going to push it
and we had gotten a response,
which was, you know, follow the principles,
but not the convention.
And so when I went to go talk to my staff,
I mean I wasn't doing this on my own obviously.
I had my staff and I had a big conference table.
And every day, several times a day,
we'd sit down and say, okay, here's the issue of the hour
not even the issue of the day, but the issue of the hour.
And on this one, you know,
we thought about it pretty hard,
but, you know, we came to a consensus that, you know,
above all, when you look at
the 3rd Geneva convention particular on POW's,
there is a very clear and explicit theme
and value if you will, of transparency.
And because that's what's going to ensure,
I mean that's what we were doing with the Colombians,
basically trying to create a JAG Corps
to create transparency.
It's the same thing here.
So, you know, the easiest way to do that
would be to have the International Committee
for the Red Cross which is very specifically mentioned
in the Geneva Convention,
and have them be physically there to help us.
And, oh by the way, you know,
I speak Spanish and I understand Latin America,
but I knew that these guys that were coming
did not speak Spanish and were not Latin.
And so we needed some help, cultural help
and many other things.
And so I went and spoke with with our Chief of Intelligence,
General Burgess, Chief of Operations General Jackman,
with our chaplain, with our doc medical officer
and Public Affairs and others,
and everybody was consistently saying,
yeah it would be a good idea to have the ICRC.
Peter: When was this?
-: This was taking place again,
I think before the New Year, late December.
Peter: So that early, you thought the ICRC
the Red Cross should be present?
-: Well, yeah.
I mean, like I said, we had already gotten back
the answer of treat them in a manner consistent
with the principles, but not the Convention.
And so, you know, the short answer is, okay well,
one of the big, most important principles
is transparency ICRC, let's do it.
And so, you know, we didn't operate in a vacuum.
We're talked internally within my office,
then we talk with Wendy who talked to General Leonard.
He said, for sure, that's, you know, it's a great idea.
And the rest of the SOUTHCOM staff
thought it was a good idea.
So then I went to go see my boss General Spear.
And he says, all right, you know.
Peter: Anybody say, it's not a good idea?
-: Not anybody that we talked to.
Peter: And you didn't think you need to go up the chain
beyond General Spear, before you made that decision?
-: Well, what do you mean by, did I think?
Peter: Well, I think, were you nervous
about making that kind of decision
and thinking that maybe someone above, you know
who wouldn't apply to Geneva's as such
might be concerned about sending the Red Cross
and you should worry about them
at that higher level before you--
-: I don't think that I gave that much thought
to be honest with you.
I mean, I think there was just a lot of stuff happening
and it, you know, my staff and I thought
it was the right thing.
The SOUTHCOM staff thought it was the right thing.
The JTF Commander thought it was the right thing.
And then my boss thought it was the right thing.
So maybe if I had stopped to actually think about, you know,
consequences and stuff like that,
but the bottom line is I didn't.
And so when I talked to my boss, he said,
all right go ahead and do it, then I did.
Peter: How'd you do it?
-: Well, I didn't have a phone number, obviously.
So I went to somebody else on our staff
in the J-5, which is policy.
And there was some people there that I knew
dealt with the ICRC.
So they gave me a number,
but it was like to the ICRC person in Latin America,
in Mexico or someplace.
I called them up and they gave me the number
to the ICRC folks in Washington,
and then they gave me the number of the ones in Geneva.
So eventually I got ahold of the Geneva office
and I called them up.
Peter: And what'd you say to them?
-: Well, I introduce myself, you know, Colonel Supervielle,
I'm the Senior Judge Advocate at JAG lawyer
at U.S Southern Command.
You may have heard that in a few weeks,
we're going to be receiving these people
that were captured on the battlefield from Afghanistan
at Guantanamo, and were responsible
for the operational planning
of the detention of these people.
Would you all be interested in having representation there?
Peter: And to which they said?
-: There was a long pause.
And the guy asked me, he says, who are you again?
I said, I'm Colonel Supervielle.
And he says, and so you're inviting us to come
and be at Guantanamo?
And I said, yes.
He says, well, yes, we would very much like to be there.
Thank you very much. That's very kind of you.
And I said, well, you know, just,
that was pretty much it.
And then it became a question of,
then he says, I need to put you in contact,
please call Mr. Urs Boegli,
who is our Chief Representative for the Americans
in Washington,
and you can coordinate the details with him.
So I did.
I think right after that phone call,
I called Mr. Boegli up,
and he was also very kind and, you know,
very appreciative and everything.
And then I went to talk to our Chief of Operations
General Jackman,
and I said, these are the ICRC folks,
this is an opera...
At this point, you know, getting them there
and everything is operational in nature.
So I put them in contact and I believe that they spoke,
in fact, I'm sure they did.
Peter: Did they come before the detainees?
-: No, no.
This conversation had to have taken place
I guess now that I think about it
I guess sometime in January,
because if you're saying that
the first detainees arrived when?
Peter: January 11th.
-: Okay.
And these fellows...
I went on a flight there, I don't know,
I think it was like the middle of the month,
like a few days after that first flight of detainees,
like maybe on the 15th,
and I think maybe two plane loads that arrived or something.
And the ICRC showed up like two days after I showed up.
So they didn't arrive probably until like January,
I don't know, 17, 18, something like that.
Peter: And were you there when they showed up?
-: Oh, yes.
Peter: And when you there deliberately to be there
so you could greet them or it just so happened
you were there?
-: No, well I was there deliberately,
it wasn't so much so I can greet them.
Yeah, what happened next there, going back to the invite
and getting the ball rolling and all that,
is it wasn't that same day or maybe a day later,
two days later, something like that.
I was having three or four phone conversations
with Captain Dalton, the Chairman's Legal Advisor
and so the next phone call of these
and we were talking about number of different issues.
I mentioned to her that, you know,
we had invited the ICRC.
And, you know, she was surprised.
And initially I believe, you know,
she basically said that she didn't think that the folks
within the DOD were going to be very pleased about that.
Peter: What did you think, when she said that to you?
-: Well, I said, you know, you all told us
we asked and we kept asking about status.
And then finally you all told us that
to apply the principles.
And I can't think of a principle that's more important
than having transparency and having the ICRC there.
So, you know, we were basically just complying
with what you all told us to do.
You know, it was a little bit of a tense conversation,
but I mean, like I said,
she's a really good friend, so it was certainly not
you know, hostile, but, you know, it was tense.
And I was I guess I just had not given it enough thought
in terms of thinking about what the reaction was gonna be.
I mean, I'm not going to say,
I didn't think about it at all,
but she made it clear that it was not
gonna be well received.
So then we were told that in a couple of days,
or the next day or two, three days later
that there was going to be a delegation of senior lawyers
from Washington flying down to Guantanamo.
And, you know, my boss General Spear said,
I would like for you to be there for that.
And I don't honestly recall how it was,
that, you know, if it was one of somebody
within the DOD General Counsel's office,
or it was Captain Dalton or somebody up in DC said,
you know, fly up here and then you fly down with them.
I just don't recall the details
of how that coordination happened.
But the point was that it was clear that I needed
to get to DC and then fly with that group of folks.
And so I flew up, spent one night at a hotel there,
and then the next morning they came by to pick me up,
and by one of the lawyers that worked for
the General Counsel of DOD.
And so we went out to Andrews Air Force Base
and boarded a small plane.
There were not very many military people.
Besides myself, I think Mr. Haynes
is the General Counsel of DOD.
I think his military aid was military.
I just don't recall.
There may have been others, but I don't recall.
There was primarily the DOD General count...
Well, first of all, the White House Counsel,
the Deputy Solicitor General, the Vice-President's Counsel.
Peter: Were on this plane?
Gonzalez was on this plane?
-: Yes, Mr. Gonzales was on the plane.
Mr. Thompson, I think was the Deputy Solicitor General.
I think Mr. Addington was the Vice-President's Counsel.
Mr. Haynes was the host, if you will.
It was his airplane,
Mr. Rumsfeld's lawyer.
Peter: Was he on the plane too?
-: Yes, it was his plane.
And he's the one that organized the trip.
Mr. Taft, who was the Secretary of State's Counsel.
Whit Cobb, who worked for Mr. Haynes,
the Air Force General Counsel was on the plane
and a couple of other folks that who worked at...
Mr. Chuck Allen, who worked for Mr. Haynes.
So it was primarily the DOD General Counsel's office,
the General Counsel,
some of his people and then the senior lawyers
from some of the other departments were on this plane,
and myself.
And we, you know, it was a small plane.
Peter: What was the reason
for all these people to go down there?
-: Well none of us had been down there,
and know the detainees had...
We already had at least two plane loads of people
down there, detainees,
and I think they wanted to get some...
Oh, Mr. Will was on the plane,
John Will was on this plane as well.
Yeah, it was to get, I guess, you know,
situational awareness of the situation of the facility
so that they would be better informed
when making policy determinations.
I'm assuming I wasn't part of that group,
I was just told by my boss to go, because they're going.
I want to make sure that you get situational awareness
and you're aware of what's, you know, what's happening.
Peter: Any of these people talk to you
about the Red Cross on the plane?
-: Yes, they did.
Peter: To what--
-: But I think you knew the...
Halfway down after about an hour on the plane or so
I was asked to, by Mr. Haynes, if I could
very nicely, very politely asked
if I could come talk to them.
So it, like I said, it's a small plane.
I went up to the front of the plane
and he asked me, you know, they were all sitting up.
It was only like two seats and two seats.
And maybe, I don't know, five rows back each.
So probably not, you know,
not more than 20, 25 seats on the plane.
And so I came up to the front and Mr. Haynes said,
I understand you invited the ICRC to Guantanamo.
Is that right?
And I said, yes, sir.
And he asked, you know, why?
And I said, well,
basically what I had already just told you,
which was, we were told to follow the principles.
It is an important principle to have transparency
and to have the ICRC there.
And so, you know, that's why, and...
Peter: And their response?
-: Well, we had a discussion for, I don't know,
I don't know, in reality what it was.
I know it felt a lot longer, I guess,
but in reality it was probably like 15, 20 minutes.
You know, comments were made about, well, you know,
having these guys here is...
You know, we'll expose everything
that we're trying to do down there to outsiders.
And I said, well, you know, the ICRC is not going to...
The ICRC does not report externally.
They only report to the detaining power, which would be us.
And I was asked, well, how do you know that?
And I said, well, you know, they've been around
for over a hundred years,
and they still haven't, you know,
they've been pretty consistent about that.
So I'm pretty sure they're not gonna, you know,
start violating their own policies now.
And besides, I mean, you know, I asked,
or I added I should say, you know,
we're not gonna be doing anything
that we were really should care
what anybody sees or not anyway.
Peter: You said that?
-: I did.
You know, I honestly believe that.
I mean, obviously when I said it.
There was some more discussion about them
and opening up, you know, a can of worms
that there would be every other NGO,
non-governmental organization would want to go down there
and all that.
And, you know, we'd be setting a precedent and all that.
And I said, well, no, not really, because just the opposite.
The ICRC is the only one that is mentioned by name
in the Convention.
So if we get them in there, then that provides,
I think a very legitimate reason
because we would not want, I mean,
from an operational reason,
we wouldn't want to have dozens of organizations
run around where we'd have to take our limited manpower
to deal with that logistically and everything else.
So if we get the guys who are the actual legally
by convention, supposed to be there,
for the time being it should give us a good reason
to tell everybody else to just wait,
you know, because we have these guys.
I also mentioned that again,
I highlighted we are U.S. Southern Command
and we know a lot about Latin America,
but we don't know squat about, you know,
Yemen or Afghanistan or Syria
or anywhere else in that part of the world.
So having...
And the ICRC guys had told us they were bringing in
people from that part of the world.
So as it, having their expertise on the ground
will be very helpful to our Task Force Commander
as he has told us,
that he wants them there for among other reasons that.
They would serve as a means or a channel of communication
between us and the trainees,
in a way where, you know hopefully we can try
and conduct this mission in a way that is consistent
with the principles of Geneva Convention.
All these things that it made kind of sense.
I was asked, well, asked, told, whatever
to, you know we need to hold off on these guys, on the ICRC.
And I said, you know, it's the ICRC.
You don't really tell them what to do.
They do whatever they're gonna do,
and they're on their way.
They're literally on their way.
They're there they're coming in from, you know,
I don't know, I think it was like Sudan
or Ethiopia and Afghanistan.
So they're physically on their way.
Their team is coming.
And then there was some more discussion about
telling them to not come.
And I said, well, you know,
my boss General Spear is the one who authorized me
to make the invitation,
so he would have to be the one to cancel it.
And I mean, obviously you all can talk to his bosses,
which in this case, the Secretary of Defense.
Some more discussion, and then it was like,
well, have them come through Washington first
so we can talk to them and postpone it.
And I said, again, I can't,
you know they're not gonna necessarily do what we want.
I said it would...
I told them, I said, I believe that, you know,
General Jackman has invited them come through SOUTHCOM.
So I believe that they are gonna be coming through SOUTHCOM.
So at that point, that discussion was tabled
for the time being.
And then Mr. Haynes asked one of his fellows there Whit Cobb
for this list,
and he produced a single sheet of paper that had,
I don't remember exactly a number 10, 12 different,
I think it was 10 rights of...
Not rights but conditions that we would meet
for the detainees.
And it was very basic stuff in terms of, you know,
providing food and water, shelter,
you know, ability to pray, you know,
It was really very fundamental and very, very, very basic.
Now, and so they, he handed that to me, he says
what do you think of this?
This is still in front of the group there, you know
this is what we've come.
This is what we have come up with in terms of how
we believe that these people should be treated.
And what I had done prior to getting up,
prior to going up to Washington
is since we were getting such little guidance
in terms of you know, principles versus the convention,
okay we're not gonna play the convention
and so on and so forth.
Let me also say that as we were putting together,
the manning document,
this is the document that when you come up
with an operation, you you start filling in personnel,
the people that are going to actually do stuff, right?
And so the entire SOUTHCOMM staff is doing this.
And the J-1, which is our personnel chief
was responsible for,
and he sends it out to all the staff people saying, okay
you know, tell us who you think you need.
You know, you're typically talking about,
I need whatever, you know 50 military policemen,
and I need, you know five intelligence officers,
so on and so forth.
And since we were getting, this is late December,
since we were getting no clear guidance
in terms of their status,
we thought in my office that, well, you know,
the fifth article, the article five
of the third Geneva convention says,
you know, if you don't know, if you have doubts,
well then hold the tribunal.
Have three guys sit around and ask questions
and get documents or whatever,
get evidence, and then make a determination on their status.
And so we thought, all right,
well we need to do article five tribunals
because obviously, we don't know what their status is
because we keep asking them.
So on the manning document I put down,
we needed I believe it was 10 maybe even 12,
but 10 or 12 JAGs,
made them 12.
I wanted 14, you know, we wanted four teams
of three main tribunals,
and then about 10 enlisted guys
to support that administratively.
So we put that in the manning document.
The manning document went up to the joint staff.
And then I got a call from the joint staff,
legal office saying, you know, we're taking that out.
We're not going to have any article five tribunals.
And I said, so, do we know their status?
Have you determined this?
Said no, still working on it.
I said, well, then we're not doing article five tribunals,
we're taking it out.
Okay, I mean, you know, what are you gonna do?
So we still don't know the status.
So at that point, then I went to my JAG staff and said look,
let's talk about this.
And so we all sat around and we talked about
different ways to deal with this
because you got to have something.
I mean, you can't just tell a commander,
well, you know deal with the principals
because that commander will not want to hear that.
So you want to give them something more specific.
So we ultimately decided that it would be best
to take the third Geneva convention
and look, putting this in context,
you know, this was the very beginning.
We didn't know, we didn't know who these guys were.
And even the guys who captured them
didn't really know who these people were.
And you're dealing with the concept of people
who are willing to kill themselves in suicide bombing,
and flying airplanes into buildings and that kind of thing.
And so the, you know, for people listening to this,
it's, you know, hindsight is 2020,
and the emotions and the lack of certainty
and the chaotic situation is lost on us.
And for a lot of people,
they didn't even live through this.
So it really was like that.
And so we were taking very very cautious measures
where we were going to act on the side
of security and safety.
And that was really what we were trying to do.
Not only safety for our guys
but safety for the detainees as well.
This was not the, you know,
the insurgencies that I had experienced
with in the Philippines and in Peru, and in Colombia,
those guys were not generally suicide bombers.
You know, they were going to plant the bomb,
but then they were gonna run away.
And so this was an entirely new paradigm
that we just didn't know really what to expect,
what to deal with.
And so ultra conservatism, ultra security,
safety consciousness, all right.
But that doesn't mean that
if those elements of security and operational security
or safety are not involved in something,
then our view was, well, then go ahead and give it to them
because you know, why not?
We're supposed to be trying to follow the principles.
That was our approach.
And so we took the third Geneva Convention
and broke it down into four or five segments,
just randomly by numbers, because I had five people,
you know, four people and said, you know,
like whatever when do you take one through
you know, 30, 35, whatever.
And so we each took...
I didn't, they did.
I mean, and the idea was talk,
first of all common sense approach,
but then also talk to the Intel guys,
talk to the JTF people.
Wendy had come back by now.
Talk to all the people who were actually going
to have to do this and figure out
if it's something that we can clearly give them,
like you know,
you know whatever, food and water and stuff like that.
I mean, that's easy.
But a Quran, medical treatment, so on and so forth.
And if it's something we can give them
and do it in a secure way
that's not going to compromise operational security
then put a green bubble next to it.
We had three options, you know,
like a traffic light.
You got to keep this very simple.
If it's something that makes no sense whatsoever,
like for example, they can have their own canteen
where they can have their own little kitchen
and sell their own products and stuff like that
where they can have sharp instruments, that's red,
you know, we're not going to do that.
And if it's something in between like, you know, exercise,
yeah, they need to exercise,
but it's not going to be, you know,
just open air kind of thing.
I mean, where they're unsupervised or we're not, you know
where they're not under some sort of control,
positive control.
So we'd put that in yellow saying, yeah, they can exercise
but under certain circumstances.
And so these guys, you know,
I'm very grateful to these wonderful folks
that were in my office there,
because they worked on this for like a day straight.
You know, they stopped everything else that they were doing
and focused on this
and worked on it for like 24 hours straight,
and then I got it just in time to go up to DC.
So that takes us back to when Mr. Cobb
handed that piece of paper with the 10 items on it.
And they said, what do you think?
And I said, all right, well, you know,
this takes an approach of, you know,
what is the minimum, basically.
We've taken a different approach,
and then I literally had it in my pocket of my uniform.
I pulled it out and I said, this is what we're thinking.
And, you know, I showed it to him
and I explained everything I just explained to you.
And there was some discussion about it,
you know, well, essentially there was some concern about,
well, if there is...
And I said, look, you know, even at South Common Miami,
we can't execute this.
This has to be executed.
This is sort of a start point for the JTF Commander.
Just something to get him started.
These colors are going to change for sure.
Things that are red might turn to yellow
might even turn to green,
things that are green, we might say, well,
we shouldn't be doing that,
turn it to yellow or red, I don't know.
We don't know, but you got to start somewhere.
And this is sort of a starting point of specific things
that the, you know the law requires to some degree.
And even though we're not applying
the Geneva convention per se,
the principle is we ought to try and give as much as we can.
So I said, you know, and you gotta have faith
that the people that you have assigned,
your subordinates that you've assigned
in this case specifically the JTF Commander,
JTF 160 Commander, General Leonard knows what he's doing.
He's a General officer in the United States, Marine Corps.
You know, he'll know how to deal with this.
And it's just something,
it's a tool that will help him get started.
That's it.
And, you know, the question was, well,
what happens if he runs across some issue
that's really strategically important?
And I said, well, then he'll recognize it as such, I'm sure.
Let us know, and then we'll let you know,
and then you all can make the decision,
and we'll stand by for your decision.
But that discussion didn't take us long.
That was maybe only like 10 minutes.
And there wasn't really a lot of consternation over that.
It seemed to make--
Peter: They were willing to let you substitute
your program over theirs?
-: Well, yeah, I mean, their program was basically,
like I said just the list with 10 things on it.
And ours was the entire third Geneva convention,
with you know, with an indication
that we were being conscious of operational security,
safety, and those kinds of things
that were not going to compromise the mission.
So, you know, we landed in Guantanamo,
We spent the day...
Mr. Maura, Alberta, Maura who was the Navy General Counsel
had flown in from some other location on his own airplane,
met us there,
and we were being taken around on a yellow school bus
to the various places.
We went to X-Ray, and we saw the detainees,
we walked through, we went to the hospital,
because they were at the time,
we were using the Naval hospital there on Guantanamo
to treat the detainees.
Like I said there was only like maybe two planeloads
that had arrived at this time.
We went in, initially, very first thing is we got a briefing
from General Leonard, who explained everything.
I thought it was an excellent briefing
in terms of laying out what his plans were
and everything else.
And then we got the tour, where we walked around
and saw the various things that they had done
to get things ready for the rest of the people coming.
And then at the very end of the day,
it was just like all day thing,
we left very early in the morning.
So we were on the ground for, by now,
I guess, six hours or something.
And I already knew my boss had already told me
that he wanted me to stay anyway.
But, you know, Mr. Haynes suggested when we were on this,
we were taking them all back to the flight,
to the dock, because we were on the windward side
and we were taking them back to the dock
where they were going to get on a boat
to go across to the side to the leeward side,
where the airstrip was, the runway.
And, you know, Mr. Haynes, you know, told me to...
And we knew the ICRC was coming,
so he basically said, look, you know,
look, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to
you know, they're going to come.
And so, you know, we're counting on you
where I'm expecting you to handle this.
And I said, okay.
And they all got on the plane.
They left.
Mr. Maura stayed because he had his own plane.
He left the next day.
And then I stayed for, I dunno like 10 days or so.
The ICRC showed up.
I think it was two days later.
Peter: Before we'd get to your visit with the ICRC,
I just want to confirm that you had no more pushback
on the Red Cross after they left.
Other than that discussion you had on the plane
it sounds like you had no more pushback
on the Red Cross after that.
They kind of just reconciled themselves that they're coming
and they're gonna let it go.
-: You know, I guess you'd have to ask them
in terms of where they had reconciled or not.
But I mean, essentially other than that last conversation,
just as we literally walked to the back of the school bus
Mr. Haynes, and I, he asked me to go with him
and we went to the back and, you know,
he expressed that he was not happy about the situation,
but that there was really,
didn't look like there was anything
they were gonna be able to do about it.
If we withdraw the invitation now it's going to look bad.
It's going to, so, you know, deal with it.
Peter: Did he say the Red Cross clear
from certain parts of the camp?
-: No, no.
I mean, they were gone by the time the ICRC showed up.
Peter: And what did he advise you to do?
-: No, no.
He gave no specific guidance other than, you know,
deal with it and handle the situation.
Peter: Could I just, before we go on
to your meeting with the Red Cross,
I just want to confirm, why did you not choose the ship
as a place instead of the Camp X-Ray?
What was the logic?
And then you said there Jim Francis don't approve of that.
Is that the reason why, or was it logistically--
-: No, it was all kinds of real,
I mean, it was,
that was just one more factor,
but, you know where are we gonna get a ship, literally,
that would...
Where are we gonna get a ship that would be able to
be structured and configured in a way to do the mission?
I mean, you know, the Navy doesn't have anything like that.
You know, I mean, in these meetings, you know,
you throw everything out there.
It's like, well, maybe we can, you know, hire,
you know, borrow or buy, or somehow get a, you know
a cruise ship and then secure the doors
or we make each cabinet, you know, a cell.
And it was just, it was not a good idea.
Peter: And when you first landed in Guantanamo
and you went around with the other people,
what were your impressions of what you saw
and came back straight?
And then I assume there was no real,
I mean camps out there hadn't yet been built,
so there was nothing else there,
essentially Camp X-Ray and the detainees.
Were there any impressions you recall of seeing the men
and seeing the camp that might be worth of recording?
-: Well, I think that there was probably no more
than like 60 because like I said,
it was like maybe two plane loads.
And, you know they had their orange jumpsuits on
and the way Camp X-Ray was set up
was they were fairly large cages essentially
where there would be several detainees in each cage.
And there was a lot of construction going on
because as I indicated,
we were building new cages continuously.
And I guess from a personal level, you know,
looking at these guys and thinking,
these are the ones or perhaps they are, perhaps not.
But I mean, at that time I was assuming
that these were people who were, you know,
should have been there basically,
and had done these things.
And so there was, you know, a fair amount of mixed,
all kinds of emotions about it,
some negative emotion, I guess, towards these people.
But by the same token, many of them anyway
looked very, you know, physically small,
frail, disheveled if you will,
not abused or anything like that
I'm just talking physically, because I'm just saying,
and thinking, boy, you know, so much destruction,
you know, from this kind of folks.
I mean, when you see somebody face to face, you know,
they were all, most of them were looking at us,
but they didn't say anything.
I think maybe one or two may have yelled
a few things, whatever,
but most of them were just sitting there
very stoically kind of looking at us.
They'd only been there for a couple of days themselves
you know, and they were still I'm sure in shock,
but yes I guess to your point is that
there were all kinds of, you know, mixed emotions
that run through your head
in a very quick fashion as you see this.
But then again, I didn't have time to dwell on it
because we're working back and forth.
We're getting briefings and we're getting tours
and I'm thinking of what needs to happen next.
And I did not have the luxury of time to sit there
and philosophize about all this or contemplate,
you know, the...
Peter: Well, did you have any expectations
before you came down there, what you would see or do--
-: Well, you know, in the briefings at SOUTHCOM
before I left and all that,
the engineer would be showing us slides
pretty much every day in terms of the construction.
So yeah, I had some idea of that, you know,
but it's very much one thing to see it
in pictures or in bars and charts and graphs
than it is to physically be there.
And, you know, the dryness of the place
and the dust and the dirt
and the sound from the construction going on
and to actually see eye to eye with, you know,
one of the the people sitting there.
It's a very different thing.
Peter: And did you speak to the prison guards
at all while you walking through?
-: No, not, not at all, no.
We were in a big gaggle of just moving, you know
from point to point where we were supposed to go
very rapidly.
It was, you know, it was all happening very quickly.
Peter: Just one more thing, going back to the plane
when they spoke to you about the Jim mentions,
did John, you or David Addington have opinions
when you had that conversation, do you remember,
beside Jim Haynes, as to whether the Red Cross applies,
whether do Kansas apply, did you hear any of that?
-: Well, first of all,
I don't remember Mr. Willis saying anything.
Mr. Addington was sitting up at the very front
with across the aisle from Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Taft
was on the other side of him.
And Mr. Thomas, I think was another side of Mr. Gonzales
and Mr. Haynes was standing up next to me
actually kind of crouched over,
because of the small airplane,
but, you know, I made it clear,
that it we were not applying the Geneva Conventions.
We were applying the principles of Geneva Convention
which is what you told us to do.
So I was very careful not to get into...
I did not create an opening to have a discussion
about the applicability or not of the Geneva Conventions
because I already took it as a given
that they had decided that it didn't apply,
but you said to apply the principles.
And so on that, you know, here's what we did.
Peter: Just one more thing.
Did you feel after that conversation kind of,
I don't know how to put it somewhat uncomfortable,
you know just that maybe, you know,
you were put in a position that you couldn't defend
and, you know maybe made the wrong decision
or did you still feel he made the right decision?
-: Well, no, I never felt like I made the wrong decision.
Clearly I was uncomfortable.
I could tell,
you know, that my adrenaline was flowing.
I remember I had been a prosecutor and defense counsel.
I had been a trial advocate for five years.
And as most people who know me would tell you that
you know, when I get into a certain mode, you know
advocacy mode or whatever you want to call it
adversarial mode, not adversarial, but you know,
when you're having to defend yourself,
you know, kind of thing,
that I engage in that.
I don't...
So no, I never thought that it was the wrong decision
or anything else,
I felt very comfortable with and very sure
about the decisions that we had made,
the fact that they were supported by the JTF Commander
by my commander at SOUTHCOM,
by my legal staff, by the rest of the SOUTHCOM staff.
And we were doing exactly what they told us to do,
was apply the principles.
So if anything, if I regret anything I suppose,
is that I may have been perhaps a little bit
overly aggressive in my tone.
And that I was, you know, as a Colonel,
I should not have been,
I probably should have been more,
not backing down from what I was saying, per se,
but maybe how I was saying it.
I don't know.
Fortunately, I have no way of remembering
exactly what happened.
I was on a different side,
but I know that my adrenaline and everything
had kicked in, a lot.
Peter: Well, I'm sure.
I mean, do you think you were intimidated by these people,
you know all essentially crabbing you,
you know, pushing against you?
-: You know, they were very polite
and no one raised their voice.
No one said anything mean or anything like that.
And there was, I mean, clearly they were very upset.
Body language and everything else, and, you know,
certain tone perhaps, but it was all very professional
and I didn't feel intimidated.
Like I said, I think that just tends to, you know,
bring out other qualities.
Peter: Okay, let's go on.
Then, when the Red Cross arrived,
were you there to greet them or?
-: Well, right.
But before they arrived, I mean,
General Leonard and his principal staff,
his deputy and myself,
we all got together and said, okay, you know,
what's the game plan?
Are we gonna deal with these guys?
And, you know, obviously the ICRC
bases their ability to do their job on being independent.
And so, you know, we were gonna make sure
that they got nice quarters to live in,
and that they had a rental car to drive around in
but they're gonna have to pay for it,
to maintain their independence,
if we gave them that, if we offered it to them for free,
then that would compromise that.
So, you know, did that, access to the detainees,
we were talking, you know,
in terms of how are we going to do that?
You know, so we...
The point is that General Leonard made it very clear
as the commander that he supported the idea
of being as cooperative as possible with the ICRC.
They're here to help us quite frankly,
that was the whole point, you know,
and to help us do our mission better.
So welcome.
I don't remember whose idea it was.
It certainly wasn't mine, but somebody had the idea
which I think was brilliant,
to actually have a...
When they showed up you know,
we went in for the initial briefing,
and we kind of set out the terms of reference
the rules of engagement, if you will, between us and them
and how they were going to interact with.
And we went straight from the tarmac,
we picked them up got them into vans.
You know, I sat in one of the vehicles with them
and we, all the principal, you know,
they split up a little bit, but when we got back,
we had this briefing.
I don't think it took that long, an hour maybe
something like that, maybe a little bit more.
They all spoke English very well.
Peter: How many were there?
-: Four.
Urs Boegli and three others.
And the three others, Urs I think was Swiss
and the three others were, you know, Lebanese or,
Peter: Middle Eastern.
-: Yeah.
And so I think Egyptian may be, I don't recall,
but afterwards, one of the ideas that somebody came up with
was to have a little welcome reception event,
probably social.
And the Navy Captain who was the base commander,
hosted it at his house.
And the spouses of the senior Navy staff on the base
you know, had baked, you know,
had prepared hors d'oeuvres and some food and, you know,
so on and so forth.
And we had, you know, sodas and some wine.
I think there was, you know, one of the guys was French.
And so after the briefing, we took them,
they went back to their hotel and all that kind of thing.
Or I say hotel, I mean that the quarters
that we had on the base there.
And, you know, they freshened up and all that.`
And then that evening, we all went to the captain's house
for this dinner party.
And, you know, it was the four of them.
And I don't know, maybe a dozen of us and spouses,
so maybe altogether, whatever, 15, 20, 30,
no, not that many, but around 20 people or so.
And it was very, very nice event
where we started talking a little bit about
and getting to know them and them to know us
on a more personal basis,
you know where you're from and so on and so forth.
And it was not Urs, but it was one of the other guys,
that at one point, you know, we went out,
and the Navy Captain, his house was up on a big bluff
on a cliff overlooking Guantanamo Bay, beautiful view.
And at night you can see the lights of the city
of Guantanamo, Cuba off in the distance very clearly.
And so, you know, we went out on the balcony,
this guy and I outside over overlooking the bay
and, you know, by this time, somehow it had already come out
that I was originally from Cuba,
and this is my first time back to Cuba since I left in 1961.
And even though it was an American base,
it's still technically Cuba
and it's physically, geographically, flora fauna Cuba.
So for me, it was an emotional thing
just to be on Cuban soil, if you will.
But anyway, the guy knew about this.
And so, as we were sitting there,
we were looking in the city of Guantanamo, I asked him
do you all have a mission here in Cuba?
And he said, no.
We've been trying to gain access to Cuba for decades,
but without success.
And I said, well, ironic then isn't it,
that your first visit of the ICRC to Cuba
is at the invitation of the United States.
And his response was, well,
I wouldn't expect anything different from the United States.
So I said, okay, fair enough.
Peter: Any of them ask you
what the status of the detainees was?
Were they concerned,
since there was no clear status at that time?
-: Yes, and we told them, I said, you know,
I don't know.
I didn't know what the column, I mean,
other than the fact that they are, you know
I don't believe that we had actually capped it,
that we weren't calling detainees yet, but I said, you know
our guidance has been that we were treating them
in a manner consistent with the principles,
but we have been told that we are not applying
as a matter of law, the Geneva Conventions.
And I showed him the bubble chart and the whole thing
and them, I mean, not, you know--
Peter: Did anyone challenge you and say, well,
that makes no sense, you need to--
-: Not quite the contrary.
They said that sounds like a very reasonable approach.
Peter: Really?
-: Yes.
Peter: Is that surprising that the ICRC would accept
unclear status for the people that were captured?
-: At that point in time, they understood the situation.
They understood that these guys had just gotten there
and that...
These are very smart people.
And their real mission is to minimize
unnecessary pain and suffering and damage during war
and protect innocent people as much as they can.
And they take a very rational approach to things
if they take, that's been...
That was my experience with dealing with them
in other parts of the world.
And so I really did not expect anything different here.
And as long as we can articulate a rationale
for why we were doing things,
with a view that the more we learn about these guys
and the more that the things develop
and the more that the chaotic situation
begins to settle down into some sort of a routine,
which would give us then the opportunity
to find ways to increase benefits if you will,
for these guys, assuming they deserve it.
I mean, assuming that they're not actually...
Then that's what we're gonna do,
but for right now, today, these guys just got here.
And so, you know, the guidance I've been given
is principles.
Now, so the guys on the ground were actually very like
okay, you know, this makes sense.
We'll work with you.
That's not to say that ICRC in Geneva
wasn't already engaged with, or trying to engage with,
you know, DOD on the issue of status.
But that was at the, as I mentioned before,
that was at the strategic level of debate
and I was at the operational level.
And so I was aware that that was happening,
but I was not engaged or involved in that discussion.
But that was happening parallel to--
Peter: Were they having a discussion
on article five hearings, you think?
-: I don't know.
I mean, at the DC level I have no idea,
but like I said, I had already been, you know, told--
Peter: And no one brought that up to you
when you went down there.
-: Well, the ICRC guys on the ground,
there at the operational level, within the ICRC community.
So, you know, we were just dealing with
what can we do within our sphere of influence here
from their standpoint to maximize
the benefits for these guys.
And I'm saying, we will try to maximize
within the constraints of operational security and safety.
Peter: Good.
-: And then just look, we'll just deal with that.
And so, you know, some anecdotes or some things,
it's like, well, you know, these guys,
they can't sleep at night,
because you guys have these bright floodlights
and sound of machinery, building new cages.
All right, well,
how about if we give them some earplugs
and some eyeshade things, you know,
to try and help minimize the light and the sound?
All right, well that would help.
That's what we did.
These guys, you know, based on their cultural norms,
they do not get naked in front of other guys
because what we were doing is
we were taking them to take their showers,
but we had literally a guard with a detainee all the time.
And so there was an issue about,
that they were objecting to having our guards
watch them while they were taking a shower being naked.
And so what we did is, there were only men out there.
We did not have any women escorting these guys
to take their showers obviously.
What we did is we, you know, we had the shower stall
and we closed in like three sides of it.
But the four, one side was left open.
It was like a little cage essentially.
And then our guard could keep an eye on him,
but then we got all these gym shorts
that had been left over from the Haitian,
you know refugee thing back in the nineties.
And so we would give them the shorts
so that they could take their shower
with their shorts on and still wash up, but not be exposed.
There was an issue with regards to privacy.
You know, the ICRC really insisted on maintaining privacy
whenever they would have communications with the detainees.
That's reasonable,
but by the same token, you know, we wanted to make sure
that the ICRC reps would be safe.
Again we're thinking these guys could do something
to harm them, so we came up with...
And well, and the thing was that the ICRC reps
did not want them shackled or handcuffed
while they were talking to them.
Those are right.
Either they're going to be sitting, you know
either they're sitting down and they are you know,
somehow shackled to the floor
or handcuffed or something to where their movements
are restricted.
And then we can have our military policemen
standing you know, like 40 feet away,
or if you really insist on them not being shackled
then we're gonna put our guy 20 feet away.
And then you can whisper to them, you know,
but I mean we have to find some sort of compromise here
to where your safety is not going to be endangered.
And at the same time, we can offer you
some sort of privacy in your communications with them.
Peter: How was it resolved?
-: If I recall, they agreed that we would have
our MP at a distant distance where they could not hear.
This was all the initial intake,
because the ICRC, you know, was registering everybody.
And then there was questions about, you know,
we would like to see whatever documents you have
that pertain to these guys.
Initially it was just a lot of little issues
that were coming up all the time
that during those 10 days that I was there,
we were able to get through a lot of them.
But then I had to get back
and continue dealing with this issue.
But at the operational level, not at the...
Now I'm really at the tactical level
and decided to get back to it
and then also get back to dealing with, you know
Colombia and Argentina and other things.
So when, when I left, you know,
we had resolved a lot of initial issues,
but there were still many, many, many more
to come Obviously.
Peter: When the reports were written by the ICRC,
were you allowed to read them?
Were they sent to you?
-: Yes.
And in fact, you, I think you were,
at some point gonna ask me if I ever went back
to Guantanamo, and I will tell you that,
Yes, I went back twice more, I think maybe three times,
I can think at least twice for sure.
And one of the things that I dealt with when I'd go back
but for shorter periods of time, like three or four days
was to talk to the ICRC about their,
as they call them interventions,
where they write a report saying,
you know, here's the latest list of issues
and complaints or things that we think
you guys can do better.
And that was sort of the approach.
I mean, it was like here, we think you can improve
on these issues.
Peter: And you would talk to them about those issues?
-: Yeah, the vast majority of stuff I wasn't dealing with.
Again, they would talk to the JTF staff
and I don't know, but the majority of those issues
would be resolved at that level.
And then if the issue was not resolved at that level,
then you know, people on my staff
would get involved in it.
And then eventually at some point I might get involved.
I mean, I was only seeing the very few things
that were not getting resolved at you know,
two or three layers lower.
And if there was something, by the way,
that was at again at the strategic slash political level,
then I'd say, you know you've got to take this up
with the folks in DC.
Peter: Was the ICRC there constantly, continually?
-: Yeah, they were there constantly, continuously
for a fairly lengthy period of time.
While I was still at SOUTHCOM, in other words, through '03
because we're now talking beginning of '02.
I left in July of '03.
So basically for the 18 months
because I had to deal with this.
At some point, I don't remember when,
but at some point they did leave
without leaving anybody on the ground.
They were rotating people for quite some time
but I know that there was some gap
where they didn't have anybody there,
but then they would send somebody back again.
So, I don't know how long those gaps lasted.
And I don't even remember when the first one occurred,
but they were there on the ground continuously
I would say pretty well for sure
for at least the first three, four months.
Peter: We had heard from some of the detainees
we interviewed that they couldn't get,
either they couldn't get mail through the ICRC.
Or if they got it, it was redacted heavily by the U.S.
and so they didn't have much to read,
or similarly they sent it out.
Sometimes it wouldn't be sent out or if it was sent out,
it was just heavily redacted.
Did that issue come up in the reports?
-: Yeah.
Peter: Was that your job to respond to that,
or is that...
-: You know, first of all, our Intel guys
were the ones who were looking at this correspondence.
And, you know, under the circumstances,
I mean we were literally thinking
that there was a high probability,
a high possibility of an attack on the base
by terrorists to make a point,
interesting things like, you know,
coordinating with the Cubans on air defense,
you know, stuff like that.
I mean, this was serious.
So now I have no problem in redacting information
that our intelligence guys thought
should not be going out or coming in.
I mean, that's common sense.
Is that not?
Peter: But did the Red Cross ever say to you
there's too much being redacted here?
-: No, I don't recall that.
I do recall that there were issues
about just sometimes, you know, letters not getting to,
not getting there at all or something like that.
But in terms of what is, or what is not being redacted
I honestly don't remember having that discussion with them
other than the fact that what I just told you
of course, we're going to redact stuff.
If we think that if it's anything that could aid,
if somebody who might want to conduct an attack on the base
then of course we're going to redact it.
Peter: So that was the motivation, interestingly,
that was the much motivation for redacting
as any other thing?
-: Why else would you redact?
I mean--
Peter: Well, I don't know,
but I mean people thought there were reductions
for other reasons.
-: Like?
Peter: One person we interviewed said
that she thought everything was redacted.
So that the detainee would not know
that someone cared about him on the outside.
-: Well, you know, I don't know the answer to that
because I wasn't the one making the decisions
on what to redact or not redact.
If the intelligence folks were telling me
we're redacting information that is of operational security
or something like that, I have no problem with that.
If they're telling me that they're and they didn't,
and if that happened, it would have been later on
at this stage, you know,
the first three months of this thing.
We did not yet have an interrogation mission
that didn't come until much later.
And of course, no, I mean,
well, I mean, an official,
hey we're creating JTF 170 to do interrogations.
That didn't happen until I think
I think March or thereabouts.
Peter: March of '02.
-: Yeah.
Peter: So that's one month later.
-: Yeah well, they got there at the beginning of two months
and I'll tell you that every month there
seemed like, you know, half a year.
So, and emotionally in my mind
two months is a long time,
but the initial interrogation was completely ad hoc,
you know, very helter-skelter in terms of, you know,
we had intelligence people trying to get intelligence
for the war.
We had, you know, FBI and others
looking at it more from a prosecutorial standpoint
to build cases to prosecute these guys.
And so it was all over the place and, you know,
it created, you know, the confusion
was certainly not programmed.
It was natural.
And if it confused the detainees, well, you know
it confused us as well.
And, you know, there were times when intelligence guys
would come in and you know, ask a lot of questions
and certainly not in any kind of abusive way,
but in a kind of heavy handed
sort of interrogation intelligence way.
And then they would leave,
and later in the afternoon, or next day
the same detainee would be seen by law enforcement people
who at first they would actually start off
by reading them the rights.
Yeah, and you know, when we found out it was like,
you know, time out, this makes no sense.
And so there was a lot of work,
by General Leonard and his staff
to bring some sort of, you know,
uniform way of approaching this.
I mean, that was obviously insane to be doing that.
Peter: Why does it make no sense
to read them their rights?
And just so that people who are watching this
will understand?
-: I'm not saying that doesn't make...
I'm saying it makes no sense to have the same person
interviewed for intelligence purposes,
and then later that same person be interviewed
for potential criminal investigative purposes
and have their rights read,
because you're creating a dysfunctional situation,
the next day then the intelligent guy comes up,
he says, well, I've been told,
I have a right not to tell you anything.
And then the intelligence guys go, who's told you that?
Well the FBI guy who was here yesterday,
you know, so-and-so.
So, I mean, that's crazy.
That's why it makes it...
And the reason you don't get your rights read to you
when you are in an interrogation
for military intelligence combat war purposes
is because it doesn't apply.
The constitution doesn't apply to that kind of environment
nor does article 31 (b) of the Uniform Code
of Military Justice.
Peter: So, I mean, you've said it several times
and other people have said it as well
that everything was chaotic in the beginning.
And it was almost like the seat of your pants.
People were just day to day--
-: We were building cages that were being filled up
the next day as people were flying in.
-: Right.
-: We went from zero to,
I don't even know what the number was,
500 or something like this.
Peter: Why do you think your interrogations
didn't start until March?
-: Like I said, there was questioning by intelligence people
as soon as they arrived,
there was questioning by law enforcement people,
as soon as they arrived,
but like I said, there was a...
It was not coordinated.
It was not uniform in matter.
It didn't take long.
I mean, again, that may have only been going on
I don't know, for two weeks, something like that,
but it just seemed like a long time
because in my life that was a lot of hours
I spent on that issue.
And so we worked hard with General Leonard and his staff
and our staff at SOUTHCOM to figure out a way
to have combined teams
to where there would be representation
of both law enforcement, as well as intelligence people
on the same team so that you're doing it
in a coordinated fashion.
Peter: And just because you were down there so often,
-: I was only down there three times.
Peter: Three times, but you were so in touch with it
obviously rumors were coming out about mistreatment.
Did you hear those rumors?
Was that something that you were in charge to look into?
-: You said obviously,
but it wasn't obvious.
And I would tell you that any concerns about mistreatment
I don't recall any of those kinds of concerns
until you know, March, April, May, June timeframe of 2002.
That's when they first started surfing it.
At this point in time, we had not...
And General Leonard had made it very clear
to the military police who were doing the detention mission
that, you know, there will be none of that.
And if anybody does, they would be investigated.
Peter: But you were still there.
So in April, May, June, when it started coming out,
were you responsible to looking into it?
-: Okay, I mean, yes.
I had a level of responsibility,
but everybody has a level of responsibility.
Again this is the military.
So that at each layer, whether you're at the tactical layer
at the tactical level or at the operational level
where I was or at the strategic level,
everybody has a responsibility obviously.
So yes.
Any concerns about, you know, mistreatment
or something along those lines, if it wasn't resolved,
in terms of coming up with some, you know,
if the ICRC, for example had a concern or whatever,
and brought it up,
if it wasn't resolved at a tactical level,
it would eventually get to our level.
And then we would look into it.
To put this in context,
we started off with JTF 160, General Leonard,
Marine one-star,
who I believe his background was engineering.
And yeah, because it was an engineering unit,
actually a logistics engineering unit
that went down there to do this mission.
And we had a lot of MPs who,
military police from the army
and air force communicators and all kinds of peoples.
It was a joint operation, but his charter,
and the charter of JTF 160 was detention operations.
That's why, you know, intelligence people coming in
to talk to them or law enforcement people coming in
to talk to them.
We're not really a part of that JTF,
nor their mission.
He kind of brought it in or some sort of control
to kind of have it be coordinated.
You know, there were concerns about, you know,
what do we do to protect our own troops
so that the detainees don't make false accusations
of being mistreated.
And so, you know, but logistically it became very difficult.
We had these little wooden huts basically
where the detainees were being taken from Camp X-Ray.
I mean, they were adjacent to Camp X-Ray,
it was literally just walked out the gate,
and, you know, for these interviews, you know,
eventually when Camp Delta was built,
you know, they put cameras in all the interview rooms
so that there would be a visual record
of whatever was going on.
We were, you know, we were concerned about that as well
for the protection of our own troops
so that they wouldn't be accused of something.
Or, and for the protection of the detainee
in case one of our guys, you know,
got angry or lost control, and then did abuse somebody.
So it was really for everybody's protection.
JTF 170, I don't know.
I can't recall exactly when that was created.
I want to say that again,
it seems like it was much further down the road.
It was probably March, you know,
and that had the specific mission
of intelligence collection.
And that was the guy in charge of that
was a Major General Dunn Levy, Army Reservist
and a lawyer from New York and military intelligence officer
and all that kind of thing.
There were a number of issues,
a lot of issues, but basically, you know,
the mission of 160 to detain.
General Leonard was basically trying to sort of
keep the peace and just keep, you know,
keep things under control, if you will.
And General Dunn Levy,
who was trying to extract information.
Now, I am not an intelligence officer.
I trust that our intelligence officers
know what they're doing and are going to follow
our own U.S. military policies and regulations
and so on and so forth,
whatever was current at the time.
And I know that over the last 11 years, you know,
there've been a lot of changes
to those policies and those regulations,
but at the time that's what we had,
which by the way was still essentially focused
on a more conventional traditional kind of
combat environment,
fighting the military of a foreign nation
for an enemy nation,
like something similar to what we had
during the first Gulf War or something like that.
So it did not take long before there were some clear
friction between the two task forces
because the mission in many ways
was perceived to be, you know, naturally,
to some degree in conflict with each other.
When you're trying to do this, you know,
when you're you're trying to stir things up,
and all that kind of thing.
So, you know, we had each one of those task forces
had their own JAGs,
you know, at lower level.
And the way the JAG Corps in the military works
is they report to their commander, that's their boss.
I am their operational boss,
technical boss, let me put it that way.
I'm the technical boss.
He is there, or she is their actual boss.
So for any kind of legal issues and stuff like that
they're supposed to go up the technical, the chain,
the same way that their commander
would go up to our commander at SOUTHCOM.
And, you know, the friction between the missions,
which then translated into friction
between the two commanders,
which then translate into friction between the JAGs,
and everybody else,
caused a great deal of angst at SOUTHCOM
because both those task forces in theory anyway,
reported to SOUTHCOM.
And so, you know, on these trips,
I would go down there and literally have the two JAGs,
one from each, one from 160, one from 170,
and we sit in a room and say,
okay how are we going to resolve this issue?
And I can't even remember right now,
there was many.
And when I'd go down, we would hit, you know,
five, six, seven a dozen issues all at once,
of things that had popped up,
where I'd be getting a call from one
complaining about the other one or vice versa.
So it was really a frustrating time.
Peter: But when you heard,
I don't want to go into too much more,
when you heard about mistreatment,
because you obviously did,
you didn't have much...
That wasn't really your responsibility.
You said everyone has a responsibility.
-: Well yeah.
If I heard about it and you know,
if the ICRC or somebody's came or something had popped up
then I would go back to the JAG on the ground
and say, what the hell is going on?
What is this about?
What have you done?
Have you done investigation?
Have you interviewed these people?
Would, you know, what's going on
Because those are the questions I'm going to get
from the joint staff.
Jane's going to call me up and say,
what's going on about this?
Because it's hit the media, it's on the press or whatever,
what's going on?
So yeah, I mean, I certainly,
if my boss or even if my boss didn't ask me,
if I heard about something, I didn't want to get blindsided.
So I would try and find out what was going on
and I would go back.
I'm not there, so I have to go back to the people
that I have on the ground to say, tell me what's going on.
Peter: And have they told you, we did this,
we actually did this?
Did they acknowledge it, is it?
-: Well, yeah.
There was no case where I recall,
where other than for example, you know,
some guard maybe, and I don't recall.
I actually do not recall any case
where something like that came up,
but I suspect that it is probable,
that at some point somebody said,
hey, this guard you know lost his temper
and he, you know, pushed this guy or knocked him down
or something like that, you know,
in sort of a non-systemic way,
it's just somebody losing their temper kind of thing.
or just because he's a bad soldier,
who maybe has done this more than once.
I'm like, all right, get him out of there.
I mean, but in terms of the systemic government policy
of abusing detainees,
and mean I'll jump to that,
but that was later on in '02,
I think we were still in '02
I think it was either late Summer or Fall
or something like that, where a memo came up
from the joint staff legal, I'm sorry, from the JTF.
Well, by now there have been changes.
I mean, they had replaced General Leonard at some point.
I remember when, I wanna say maybe March or thereabouts
and they put in a General Bacchus, a one-star in charge.
That did not help, or that did not solve matters.
So, because General Bacchus is a national guardsman one-star
and General Dunn levy were having many problems
and issues with each other.
In continuation, and actually in my view,
it was even more aggravated than before
the friction became worse.
And so at some point General Bacchus
was also relieved of command.
And I believe that, I can't remember well,
at some point that they combined the two joint task force
in just to one, but I don't remember if that was...
At this point, this was still two separate task forces.
And so, the 170, General Dunn Levy's lawyer, sent this memo
Peter: That's Colonel Beaver.
-: Yes.
Lieutenant Colonel Beaver sent the memo that up
for our review, that had a a sort of
three different categories.
I'm sure I know this is all been declassified now,
at the time it was classified.
Three different categories of what they were calling
"enhanced interrogation techniques."
And, you know, I got it.
I gave it to my staff to look at.
Colonel Farrell, Captain Evans,
Mark Gengras, Wendy, Stafford.
They all looked at it.
We all got together and talked about it.
And, you know, the consensus amongst us was that,
you know there was stuff in the first category,
and I don't remember what they called it,
but whatever that first category was,
that quite frankly we really didn't object to.
And if the intelligence guys were saying
that this would help, then, you know, so be it.
Then in the second grouping of things,
there were some things in there
that were maybe caused more for concern.
And, we're past February 7th now.
Remember that was a magic date,
when the memo came out from the president saying,
they are detainees, the Geneva Conventions do not apply.
And I'm sure you've had people explain to the details
of that memo in terms of how they arrived at that
but nevertheless, I may personally disagree
with that conclusion,
but it is a reasonable legal interpretation.
One that I didn't share at the time.
And no one on my staff shared.
No one, but you can't say this is clearly illegal.
Who's to say?
I mean, this was all
where we were in uncharted territory here.
There was no case law.
There was no precedence, there was nothing.
And so it was based on some rational argument
even though, you know, maybe not the best one.
Alright so fine.
They're not POW's.
So if they're not POW's,
then these enhanced interrogation techniques
in category number two,
which would probably be violative of the Geneva convention
for a POW, well, you know,
I've already been told they're not POWs.
So legally then these things don't apply.
And that whole thing about, you know,
principles of Geneva.
We were past that now because the president said
here's actually what they are.
All right.
Then that got us to category three.
And within category three,
there were some things in there that,
we're a lot like category two stuff.
In other words, that, yeah, they were POW's
I'd say this is definitely not good,
but otherwise I can't say it's illegal, in my view.
But there were other things in category three
that I thought, hey, you know
forget the Geneva conventions.
Let's just talk about U.S. law.
You know, this violates U.S. law.
So we, you know,
I expressed that opinion to RJ2,
to our chief of intelligence,
and I expressed it to our commander
who by now, we had gotten...
So I guess timing wise,
while General Hill was now in command.
So whenever General Hill got there
and I think it was late Summer.
So this had to be sometime in the late Summer, early Fall,
this event,
maybe you could help me out with the date,
but whatever it was.
So I expressed it to him.
He looked at it and said,
yeah, I agree that, I'm troubled by some of these things.
I think, I don't remember exactly
which one kind of jumped out,
but I remember he even said I'm particularly troubled,
maybe it was the, you know, using dogs,
military dogs, you know, tact dogs to intimidate
obviously not to actually turn them loose, but to intimidate
with the barking and growling and all that.
I don't know.
But this was the list that contained that,
and it contained the waterboarding,
it contained a number of other threats to life
the rest of the lives of your family, things like that.
And so he asked me to put a memo together, which I did,
and you know, the way you work on that stuff,
is you put the memo,
and in those days you use a floppy disc
so that they can make, so that his staff,
his immediate, you know personal staff
can make whatever edits he wanted to the thing.
So I put the hard copy in there.
I put the floppy disc in there and send it up.
And then he ultimately sent a memo.
It had been modified somewhat from what we gave him
but basically he sent it back to the chairman saying
I am concerned with some of the interrogation techniques
that are enhanced interrogation techniques.
And, you know, it left the operational,
it left the task force level to us,
it left the operational level
went up to the strategic level.
And then that's where it got into the realm
of you know, the politics of it to some degree.
Now, as I mentioned to you
we have the different levels,
and so I feel confident that I could go
to the judge advocate general of the army,
and at the time was Major General Tom Romig
and the deputy judge advocate general of the army,
General Marshawn.
And to one of my mentors that I had known
for a very long time in the army JAG Corps,
who was really a real knowledgeable
experienced international law guy,
who've been doing it for many, many decades actually
and go to them and say, hey I just sent this memo up
on this issue, which is really troubling.
So, you know, heads up be on the lookout.
And here's what I said.
Or here's what we said, here's what the boss said.
I mean, I may have dropped.
And they said, okay, you know,
we'll be on the lookout for it.
And it was, I was actually more concerned about that
than the whole thing about inviting ICRC.
Because when that happened, it was all,
it was also fast, first of all,
and second I did to some degree I guess,
I was ignorant of what was happening back in Washington
in terms of what people were thinking and planning.
And I didn't know.
So, but this, by this time,
I was very concerned because it was obvious
what they wanted to do.
And, you know, I went home, you know, my wife is here,
and I went home and I told her, I said, you know
I didn't go into any details obviously
because it was classified information.
But I just said, you know, today, you know,
an issue came up having to do
with the treatment of these guys
and you know, we sent a memo forward,
but you know, my point to her was, you know,
I don't know how this is going to play out,
but if it plays out the bad way, then you know
I think it's time to retire and, you know,
find something else to do.
You know, fortunately, fortunately,
it took a long time and I was not privy
to what was happening in Washington,
but I do know that the uniformed judge advocate generals
not just the army one, but the Air Force
and the Navy and the Marine,
you know, the senior uniformed lawyers
as well as Mr. Maura,
who was the Navy General Counsel at the time,
all engaged with the DOD General Counsel's office
and with the inter-agency with justice,
with state department
and ultimately whatever was happening,
which I was not privy to in Guantanamo,
they I believe were successful at ultimately, you know
putting a stop to it,
at least by the military people, you know,
whatever the military forces were were being ordered to do.
I certainly don't know what was being done
by any other agencies or what was being done.
You know, there were some detainees
that were transferred out of Guantanamo,
that I know because, you know,
we were concerned about...
We weren't told where they're going,
but we were concerned,
I mean, in my staff, we were concerned about,
well what if they're going someplace where, you know,
they may not be treated well or something like that.
I mean, tortured.
And so we actually developed a document that you know,
when we the military were handing custody over,
it's like a chain of custody, if you will,
for these people, that whoever,
to whatever, you know, other U.S. government agency
or foreign government, whatever,
anybody that was taking physical custody
and responsibility for these people, you know,
that we prepared a document that basically said
you understand that there's a responsibility
to maintain these people and you know, protect them
and so on and so forth.
So, yeah.
Peter: Two quick questions.
One is, do you know if John you worked on that memo
with Diane Beaver?
Do you know if she was influenced?
-: I do not know.
That's a very good question. I don't know.
Peter: And with General Miller, when did he come down?
Did you interact with him?
-: A little, not as much as with General Dunn Levy,
General Leonard or General Bacchus,
but General Miller showed up.
If I recall the sequence, I think General Bacchus left
and then shortly thereafter, I don't know,
two weeks, something like that,
but at some point then General Dunn Levy left
and then General Miller came in
and he took unitary command so that the two task forces
were blended into one.
Before he went down there, I know he came by SOUTHCOM
and I remember he came by my office and we talked
and I basically tried to explain to him, you know
everything I've been telling you now
in terms of some of the frictions that had occurred
and competing interests and so on and so forth
and that, you know, you'll have your own lawyer
but we're here obviously to support you.
And clearly, I mean, this is come out quite a lot
that one of the issues with JTF 170
which under General Dunn Levy,
is that he had direct access to DOD
and you know, in the military,
we're very much about following the chain of command.
And so by going directly to DOD
he was bypassing the operational command of SOUTHCOM
and he was bypassing joint staff
because we then sent stuff up to the joint staff.
So that created enormous angst and consternation
and problems all the way around.
And so that was, I think one of the things that General Hill
made it a very strong point to General Miller is, you know,
you got to follow down,
Now General Hill has got four stars.
It was a very different dynamic, you know,
when he got there,
in terms of being able to have more influence, I guess
directly over General Dunn Levy.
And then, you know, the General Miller...
I'll be honest with you,
I didn't have much interaction with General Miller
personally, other than like I said
that particular visit to my office
and then maybe a few others here and there.
I think I may have gone down to Guantanamo once
when he was down there.
I don't recall exactly,
but his lawyer who I can't remember right now, the name,
but he replaced...
I mean, General Diane Beaver left,
and then somebody else came in and, you know,
we communicated fairly well with that lawyer.
Peter: Were you still in SOUTHCOM
when the information came out about our detainee 63,
the person who is considered the 20th highjacker
and how he was treated?
Do you know that Time Magazine issued the log
to show his treatment?
And I can't remember what exactly when that was
if you were so present then?
-: I was not personally involved in any kind of discussions
about, you know, this particular detainee.
I will tell you that within my staff, Mark Gengras,
Lieutenant Colonel by now, Mark Gengras,
I kind of made him...
Because like I said, we had other stuff going on
and we could not all focus on Guantanamo.
So Mark became sort of the lead within our office
for Guantanamo issues.
And he developed a very close relationship with RJ2,
our intelligence people.
There are certain classifications
of intelligence information, you know,
that are on a need to know basis, a top secret.
Now I hold, or at the time I held
a top secret security clearance that doesn't...
But that just means that I was eligible
to be read into certain activities and certain programs.
In order to not diffuse that kind of information too much,
our policy or the intelligence policy was that, you know,
within the JAG, you only needed one person to do this.
So I had other programs that had nothing to do
with Guantanamo, that I had to do
because it required somebody of a more senior rank
or required the staff judge advocate.
But for this, you know, Mark had developed
a very good relationship with RJ2 at SOUTHCOM.
And I trusted him and I still do that, you know
that he was going to do the right thing.
And so he had a lot of interaction with them.
With regard to detainees 63 or what may have happened.
Like I said, I feel, I don't know for a fact
but I feel pretty comfortable in thinking that
at some point once that,
when that enhanced interrogation technique memo came up
and we sent it up, my boss ended up basically saying,
Hey I have problems with this, you know,
I think from what I have been told,
not that I know firsthand
but from what I've been told them, what I've read that.
In fact, somebody up there made a decision
to begin to implement that.
I know there was a lot of pressure to begin,
even though we were being,
and I was being specifically pointed out
for being a roadblock on some of this stuff,
but that some of this stuff I've subsequently learned,
you know, were started.
And the judge advocate generals as well as Mr. Maura,
and I don't know who else,
but we're also led to believe
that there was going to be a commission
or some sort of study or working group or something
to figure out what we were going to do.
And in the meantime,
none of this was going to be implemented,
when in fact I think, the order had been given
to begin to implement it.
And maybe it was on this guy, on detainees 63,
whereas the rest of us all thought that,
that it wasn't happening.
And then it somehow came out that,
Hey, you know this really is happening.
And then those guys with all the stars on their shoulders
and Mr. Mauro as the senior Navy counsel all said,
Hey, timeout, you know, this is...
And then that's when things...
At least from the military uniform
interrogation thing changed.
So what that time period was, I don't know.
I don't think it was very long where,
and whatever, you know, whatever was going on,
this guy, if it's what I think you're thinking about it
and I've read the same articles you have with regards to,
you know, waterboarding or something like that,
you know, we were not made privy to that.
And you know what I've learned,
I've learned after the fact that, you know
when I read about it in the press.
Peter: Yeah, so I mean, I think,
I don't know how much more we have,
but looking back from your perspective today
I mean, you probably see a very different picture
of Guantanamo from what you were in,
when you were so involved in other items too,
like you said, Columbia and such,
and so much chaos was going on and things are moving so fast
and it's a need to know as well.
So at some level, now you have a much better view
of what happened and then you did there.
-: In all honesty, I have not made it a point to become
like a, you know, by reading a lot on this,
or, you know, some of it is I suppose,
I mean, obviously it's by choice,
but from there, I got very busy, as I said, you know,
going to school or being a XO of the Army General Counsel
or being a senior lawyer in Afghanistan
where I had other detainees issues to deal with
at Bagram and other places.
And where we did have some instances of abuse,
well we did prosecute the people who were involved
in that abuse, abuses if it happened more than once,
but then you know, but then when I retired,
you know I did not make it sort of a point in my life
to stay informed if you will.
So to answer your question, I guess is,
in the 18 months basically from January of '02
until the time I left in July of '03,
there was a lot of change that took place.
I mean, already within that timeframe
from absolute chaotic,
oh my God, all these people are coming,
where are we going to put them, you know
to at the end, one of the things that,
my legal staff was pushing for,
and that I was lobbying for,
not in concert with,
but certainly with the support of the ICRC,
with the support of others was
look, it became obvious after some time
after a few months, actually, not even weeks
that some of these guys shouldn't be there, you know,
that they just shouldn't be there.
They had no business being there.
They were at the wrong place at the wrong time,
and it ended up there.
Or somebody ratted them out,
because they had a vendetta against them, or God knows what
but the point is they shouldn't be there.
All right.
Well, you know, once you have these guys
under these circumstances,
it's not so easy to put them back
depending on the nation they're coming from.
And, you know, the wiggers was a huge mess, you know
what are you gonna do with them?
And so now we had built Camp Delta,
which was the, you know,
we went from X-Ray fairly quickly into Camp Delta
which was a kind of a maximum security prison,
essentially were each detainee had their own cell,
which, you know had their own bunk and toilet
and running water and stuff like that.
And there were some cells that were, you know
isolation cells where they couldn't communicate with others
but most of them were open where they could talk to
at least the guy at the next cell and the guy and the other
on the other side, but they were individual.
And, but it was still very, very manpower intensive
because to get anybody out of the cell to go exercise
for example, or to go take a shower,
was always, you know two guards was the protocol
and the handcuffs and the whole thing.
And then one guy, one on each side and you escort him down
and blah, blah, blah.
Very manpower intensive.
And it limited the amount of time they could exercise
or shower or anything,
and the food was brought to them,
so it was intensive to...
All right, now from a legal standpoint,
the intelligence people, the criteria was,
if they no longer have intelligence value,
and if they're no longer a threat to the United States
I.e, we don't really believe that these guys
are going to go back on the battlefield
based on everything.
Again not my call, Intel guys.
If they meet those two criteria, then it's like,
all right, how do we get them out of here?
How do we get them home?
And in many cases, like I said, it was very difficult
to get them home and it was gonna take a long time.
So I talked to,
I think General Dunn Levy was certainly still there,
maybe General Bacchus was there still.
So this would have been sometime still in late '02
or mid '02, something like that.
I think it was mid '02,
because we had already started to figure out
that all of these guys shouldn't be here.
Well,
remember the bubble chart with the green, yellow, red?
Well, if these guys really are not a threat to us anymore
and if they don't have any intelligence value anymore
then why don't we build a traditional, more traditional,
not entirely, not exactly,
but much more traditional facility for them
that they could be in
because that would be more consistent
with Geneva Conventions and all that.
We pushed that for,
or we argued that for a while
and didn't make much headway.
I have all the documentation on this.
I mean, not somewhere, I guess, I don't know,
but eventually, sometime by early '03, I changed approach
or I changed the way that I was advocating for this
from a, you know,
I should've put a legal principle position,
which it is,
but more from the practical standpoint of look,
if we build a facility where they can basically, you know,
where they live, like in a barracks, you know,
kinda like things tall, like 17,
if they live in a barracks, you know,
you put a big wire around it
so that if they want to be outside, they can be outside.
If you want to be inside, they're inside.
Think of it, and at this point, you know,
we were pretty...
Everybody knew we were going to kick...
The war was going to start in Iraq
and we were going to be really short of people
because last time we fought in Iraq
the one thing we didn't have was enough MPs,
so they're real limited commodity.
So think about how much of a savings that is,
if you can just have these guys basically on mingling around
and say, and you put a little boho, a little hut,
you know where they can sit under the shade,
play backgammon and kick a soccer ball around,
we don't care.
We're still not going to give them a kitchen.
We're still not going to give them knives.
But when we bring the food, we bring in one big pot
and just later lay it all out, it's a lot faster
than making individual little airplane meals,
you know for these guys.
So I made the argument that
it was going to be saving a huge amount of manpower.
And that was, that was big.
That got a lot of attention.
And then the other one was,
if you guys are going to...
If these guys are still in the same location
with everybody else in their same individual little cells
and they talk amongst themselves, so they know,
and they know why the hell is this guy here?
He's not really with us.
I mean, you know, he's wrong place at the wrong time.
Why is he still with us and all that?
Or the guy who's marginal
who was just maybe a trigger puller and really,
yeah, okay, he was involved with the Taliban
or he was involved with, but he was a very low guy.
And if you don't give them some sort of a goal
some sort of a, hey there's a light
at the end of the tunnel kind of thing,
then what's the incentive to talk?
So the Intel guys agreed that,
all right if we create this other facility
which is clearly better and more comfortable to be in
and it's seen as sort of a halfway house
to being released,
then that might actually incentivize some of these guys
with not a stick, but with a carrot that, you know
it behooves you to cooperate.
Ultimately the bottom line is they built Camp Four,
that's what's what they called it.
And that was basically one big wire
and they had four, you know,
four barracks like at each corner.
And then it was like subdivided
so that people would stay in their barracks,
but each barrack would have a time
that where they could be outside and all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, from what they were told me
I never actually witnessed this happening.
But from what I was told is that
when somebody had sort of crossed the threshold
to where we're going to put them in Camp Four,
it became like a ceremony where they would take, you know,
they would change their orange jumpsuit to a white robe.
And all the other detainees would applaud
as this person would be escorted by just one MP, you know
to the new facility and all that kind of thing.
Peter: And so it was your idea.
-: Well, you know, our idea in my office was
why are we still keeping these people here,
when all along we were going
with the green, yellow, red thing.
If these guys should be basically having
a bunch of green bubbles all the way across the board
because they don't belong here anymore,
or it was a mistake they have them here in the first place
or whatever,
not our call, their call.
Our Intel guys are saying,
we don't want this guy here anymore.
Then, why not grant them the kind of benefits and privileges
that are as similar as possible to the Geneva conventions.
So it started with kind of a principled legal view,
but in order to to have it resonate to some degree,
there had to be some sort of practical advantages
to it as well.
Not because people were resistant to it,
it was just like, you know,
everybody's busy and there's stuff going on.
And it's like, no, don't...
Peter: Did you deal with people
who on hunger strikes and the force feeding ?
-: Yeah, I mean, you know,
I didn't go down there and do it myself,
but I mean, the issue came up to us.
What are we gonna do with these guys?
And so the legal question came up
can we do force feeding?
And our answer was, yes.
Peter: Did you know about the Tokyo convention
which kind of said what it is,
I don't think the years of salary
but which we says that maybe you can't force feed people
if they want to choose to die by not eating that's okay?
-: Well, like, as you mentioned,
we were not signatories to that, number one,
number two, you know what, again,
from if the intelligence guy is telling me
this guy is important and we need to have his information,
you know, can we keep you know,
no I'm talking about torturing him, basically.
Can we keep him from killing himself?
From you know, intelligence, operational perspective,
this this isn't about just a normal prison someplace.
That's not what we're talking about here.
It's not, you know, it's not San Quentin, it's not Alcatraz.
These are people that our intelligence people
believed had valuable information
vital to the national security of the United States.
So, no, we were not gonna let these guys die.
Peter: Did you ever speak to a detainee on your own?
-: No.
I mean, not in Guantanamo,
I mean, in Afghanistan, I did.
Peter: And I guess I'll just ask you the EARTH program.
Was that also through your position
in terms of you have to approve that or is that a term
where they would, if some detainee didn't act in a way
that some military person wanted them too,
they would bring in six men in riot gear
and pull them out of their cell?
Mason, pull them out of the cell and apparently beat him.
At least that's what we were told by detainees
what happened if they didn't do
whatever they were asked to do.
The emergency reaction force.
-: Yeah,
but an emergency reaction force, is there to,
like if there was some sort of riot,
if there was some sort of physical altercation
where a detainee could not be controlled
let's say by one or two of the Mps,
then yeah, these guys go in.
But to say that they were then to be beaten,
no, I totally disagree with that.
If you have any evidence of then show it to me.
Because I'm not aware that the policy
now that's not to say that people weren't,
if a scuffle took place,
but you're implying, which I totally disagree with that.
There was a policy in place.
Peter: I don't know if there was policy
I know detainees told us that what happened to them.
And I was just asking if--
-: Did you ask them if they kicked any of the MPS
in the groin?
Or did you ask him if they tried to choke anybody?
I mean--
Peter: Well they said no.
I mean, right.
-: Okay.
-: But, okay.
So yeah, I just,
I thought I'd get it from your viewpoint because clearly--
-: I was aware that there was a quick reaction force
as you would have at any such facility, you know
but there're rules of engagement or like anybody else's,
it's basically to come in with overwhelming force
to quickly put down any kind of disturbance
that might be starting to happen.
And, you know, to say that then, okay.
So I mean, that's what their purpose is.
If they went beyond that or if there's any particular case
where anything went beyond that was not justified,
then I would presume that there was, you know
some sort of witnesses or video or something of that,
and then we would have done something about it.
During my watch when I was there,
I don't recall ever having any accusation,
And again, I'm not saying that it didn't happen.
I'm just saying, it never got to our level
where there was an accusation made
that this quick reaction force was going in
and somehow designed to beat or abuse of anybody.
Peter: Good.
You know, I have to say you've been incredibly valuable
and just in what you've been giving us
because we haven't gotten
a lot of what you've been telling us.
This has been great.
This is something I have,
I might have a few more questions
but there's certainly a lot to pull the work
that you want to address before.
Because I kind of...
Excuse me for one minute, Johnny how's that time?
Johnny: We have 25 minutes.
Peter: Okay.
-: No, you know, it was just, again,
just really reiterating what I've said before.
There were a lot of complexities to this.
I mean, even things like, you know,
if an attack is coming from the sea, you know,
then law of the sea questions,
I spent a fair amount of time on the very interesting case
of Guantanamo and the fact that it has
a very different perimeter in terms of, you know
most places you have a 12-mile territorial,
while in Guantanamo it was actually three.
And then because of the treaty with the Cubans
and just dealing with the Cubans and you know,
those kinds of things.
Peter: That's really important that you emphasize that,
I'm glad you did, that in fact,
people were really worried about that.
-: Oh yes.
Oh yeah, you know,
whether it was from airborne or seaborne attack
that was a very serious concern, you know
the issues about what happens if somebody dies, you know
the mortuary affairs, what are we gonna deal?
How are we gonna deal with that?
Peter: Did suicides come up?
-: Yeah, of course.
I mean, the potential suicide to making sure
that they didn't, that's just did.
Keeping them from having a sharp instrument
was not just because of the potential of attacking our guys.
It was potential of attacking each other.
These are people from all different parts of the world
and there was...
Or from just killing themselves.
The suicide was basically, the hunger strike
you know, there was one detainee that was very, very old.
God knows how old he was, but he was very old.
And, you know, we feared,
he might just pass away of natural causes.
I'm sure you've heard that most of them,
the majority of them gained a fair amount of weight
because they weren't doing anything.
And they were getting a lot of, you know, good diet.
We modified the diet to be less, you know,
based on complaints that they were giving the ICRC
we modified the diet to be less, you know, health conscious
and more what they wanted.
You know, the questions about prayer.
And there were a lot of issues concerning
the chaplain, the Muslim chaplain that we had down there.
We had several, but I mean, the first one that came in
and they were, you know, there were issues about that.
Peter: Were you involved in that GMC issues?
-: I'm sorry, what issues?
Peter: GMC, right?
-: Yeah. Yeah.
To some degree, but I mean that quickly became...
That got elevated to to the political level
slash strategic level.
But initially, you know, the questions about confidentiality
between a chaplain and a detainee
and what is his role?
Is he there really as primarily an advisor to the commander
or a religious person for the detainees?
I mean, there were a lot of inherent conflicts and friction
in a lot of this stuff, because it was all new.
This is not, you know, World War II.
This was not even the Gulf War
where we had fairly clear understanding of how you engage
how you deal with prisoners of war
from a nation that is engaged in a war with you.
Peter: I'm sorry, please.
-: No, no, I'll stop there.
Otherwise I could--
Peter: No, yeah.
Well, I'm just thinking about the chaplain.
So what was his role?
-: His primary role was,
he went down there to be an advisor to the commander
on matters concerning Islam and the detainees.
And he was told that,
several times,
by several people
including me,
within bounds, of course,
I mean, you know, don't be getting into stuff with detainees
don't go down that road
if you don't want to have to disclose it.
So it's, you know, use your common sense,
and that's the thing.
These guys were kind of young.
Peter: So interesting.
Okay. Is there something else?
-: No, I'll answer any other questions
but I think that's, you know, those natural frictions
between the military and civilian intelligence
versus the law enforcement community upfront
at the beginning,
and then later on sort of that conflict
between the military legal community,
the senior judge advocate general's
and the civilian legal folks.
Peter: Did you ever sit in on an interrogation?
-: No.
Peter: And when the inches came down,
that you had no control over what agencies would come down
right, I mean, they could--
-: I wouldn't even know.
Peter: You didn't even know.
And when people were transferred, I mean, again
if the people above you did that, you had really no say?
-: That's correct.
At the very beginning, I remember we prepared the document
that was supposed to be executed, that transferred custody
and it, you know, I mean, I was trying to be,
I was trying to the extent that it...
To some extent, and by this time, by this time, you know
whatever potential innocence or naivete I may have had,
you know, had pretty much evaporated.
So this document was intended within what we could
to try and protect the detainee to some degree,
but also it was a matter to protect us as well.
You know, that in bias I mean, U.S. Southern command
my boss saying, look, you know,
you're saying that you're going to take
good care of these guys.
So, you know, but I remember preparing the form
and I think I remember maybe one or two being executed
actually executed, but then after that
it all just, I don't remember any more after that.
I mean, so I don't know if they just stopped doing it,
or if it was at a time when I had left
and moved on to my next assignment, I don't know.
Peter: You ever on any of the flights
that took these men to--
-: No, no.
Peter: And when you mentioned the weakers before
why was that early on?
People realized that weakers are really not--
-: No, that I'll be honest with you
that I didn't really, to me personally,
I didn't realize that it became an issue
until I got to Afghanistan.
Peter: And when now they came that was
you were already up from Guantanamo.,
because that was--
-: I was at the school.
I was at the National War College.
Yeah.
Peter: So looking back, Colonel,
if, you know, did you expect Guantanamo was gonna be closed
at some point?
Did you think that this was a short term operation?
-: No. Short-term no.
Someday closed, yes.
I remember at the very, towards the very beginning
of this thing, back in January of '02,
we were given the mission to design a courthouse
for the the trials.
And so the engineer and I were told, you know,
you're the lawyer you figure out what you need
in a courthouse.
You're the engineer, you figure how to make it happen.
So the two of us, we went to his room and his office
there had a conference table
and we were got a piece of paper
and we started sketching things out.
And I do remember thinking, I said,
I told this guy, I said,
I'll retire before these guys ever get prosecuted.
It turned out to be true.
I mean, actually, you know
to have a final sort of con...
And my point being that, you know,
we're still trying to figure out,
you're still busy building cages
and I'm still busy trying to figure out their status.
And, and we're being tasked to, you know
get ready for the trials.
It just seemed like it was premature a lot by a lot.
We did anyway.
I mean, we drew it out and ultimately, you know
ultimately that was, that's what was built
Peter: But some people were being held early on
for military tribunals.
So there was some thinking
-: Oh yeah, no, from the very beginning,
of course we captured people who we believed
had been responsible for the attacks and so on and so forth.
And so at some point there would be a trial
a military tribunal, whatever, they hadn't even decided
what they were going to do yet.
I mean, I'm talking January of '02.
So it just seemed very premature,
to be talking about building a structure
to conduct these hearings,
but we did.
Peter: Looking back to, I think I know your answer.
I think it'd be interesting for our viewers,
if you were in charge, would you have given them status
or did you think we actually did the best we could
given that it was a new type of war?
-: I would have conducted article five tribunals
and on a case by case basis, you know,
determined whether or not
or what kind of status they would deserve.
I mean, to sort of in a blanket way,
just throw everybody paint everybody
with the same paintbrush
didn't seem at the time.
And, I'm more convinced of it now
to have been the most prudent way to proceed.
I think if we'd had done,
if we'd have taken the time and trouble
to have done the hearings
which ultimately later the Supreme Court said
you got to do them anyway, you know,
but if we'd had done those upfront
then perhaps some of those guys would have,
who clearly shouldn't have been there in the first place
could have immediately been ejected
and sent back home without the difficulty
of having been in Guantanamo for a few months
and then being sent home, which now is much more difficult.
So, and yeah,
I suspect we would've found some that,
Hey, you know what,
this guy was just basically a trigger puller.
You know, he's appealed obviously.
This other guy here, okay,
maybe he is a POW, but he committed, you know
these work he committed,
or he's suspected of having committed these war crimes
while engaged in combat, you know
against the Mujahideen or against the whoever.
I mean, the point is some sort of a triage
kind of initial screening of people
so that you're not throwing them
all into Camp X-Ray initially,
and then into this maximum security cell system
which was, you know, costly
in terms of manpower and resources and everything else
Peter: Any other, did you think Obama
and his team is gonna close Guantanamo,
or if he was going to succeed?
-: I thought it was gonna take him some time,
but yeah, I thought he would.
I was surprised, I guess,
maybe disappointed at the lack of political will
to shut it down and actually put these guys,
bring them into a maximum security facility
in the United States.
I know that there were at the time
that this debate was going on
and there were arguments about,
well these guys are just too dangerous.
I'm thinking really, you know, come on,
I would put, you know,
five of our most regular dangerous people
against the, you know 20 of these guys.
And I mean, that seemed to be somewhat
of a disingenuous argument by both sides.
I'm not saying I'm not picking political sides here.
I'm just saying there was a political consensus
that we're not going to bring these guys
to the United States for many reasons.
And I think that's unfortunate
because the stigma of Guantanamo in and of itself
and here we are talking Guantanamo.
There were many many more issues I think
and many more people at Bagram,
nobody talks Bagram.
You know, it's just that this has become
the you know the cause celeb, if you will, to talk about.
And as a result of that,
I think it would be healthy for the United States
and for the rest of the world,
if we were to in fact be able to just shut it down
entirely and move on.
Peter: You know, Bagram is outside
the scope of this project,
and people do know how much bigger it is and such.
And I'm sure you can compare this to say that ,
but perhaps people could understand why Guantanamo
became the essence since it was right after 9/11.
-: Yes, and I hope people can,
again try and put themselves back in the timeframe
of December '01, January, February March of '02,
in terms of the chaos that we were trying to deal with
never having experienced anything like this
dealing with people.
Yes, we were told that these guys were highly dangerous
and you know what I mean,
there was evidence to believe that
and it took some time to segregate
and put them in a, you know centrifical force machine
that kind of separated them out
into the various different kinds.
And some of them in fact are really dangerous people
and deserve to be prosecuted
to the maximum extent of the law.
And other guys, like I said, were, you know,
the wrong place at the wrong time,
and then there's everybody in between .
But it took some time to get that kind of clarity.
Everything was not in focus.
And when it's not, you would be foolish,
irresponsible and criminally negligent.
If you didn't treat everybody initially
as if though they are a major threat,
and then you have responsibility,
I think to immediately begin to try and speed up the process
of figuring out who's there,
that's where the article five tribunals would have helped.
It should have actually been conducted in Afghanistan
before they even got to Guantanamo, I mean,
the article five tribunals I'm talking about.
It should have been held over there.
Peter: Right.
-: Well, at least under, just common sense, you know,
don't...
Peter: Looking back at, listening to you,
I'm thinking, did you like change
as a result of your experiences in Guantanamo?
What did you change? I should say.
-: I don't know. That's a good question.
I suppose, I'd have to ask my wife.
Peter: Well, do you see the world differently
You think after?
-: I have been very privileged to have, you know
through my military career and just because I
when I was younger traveling and whatnot
but I've been to 61 different countries around the world.
I've been, like I said, I was involved in this,
I was helping the Philippine Army and their insurgency
in the late eighties,
the Peruvian army in the mid nineties,
the Colombians in 2000
and aside from insurgencies and other conflicts
and stuff like that,
disaster relief missions and all over the place.
So my point is, I guess that I don't think that it
I don't think that Guantanamo radically opened my eyes
to something that, oh my God, I'd never...
No, but it certainly gave me additional data points
and a more nuanced approach.
And certainly with regards to the interaction
our civilian political leaders
and their interaction with uniformed leaders
that I had not experienced before.
That was new.
And it became a valuable lesson when I went to Afghanistan,
I had already had that lesson in my belt.
So I believe that it made me more effective
when I got to Afghanistan, having already been through it.
And, oh, by the way
it was the same group of people for the most part
Peter: At least now you knew what
had the lay of the land.
-: I had a better idea of what was happening
Peter: Well, Colonel if there's anything else
that I didn't ask that you want to say,
we'll probably be almost out of tape.
-: Nope. Thank you very much for this opportunity.
I applaud your efforts
and University of San Francisco Law School's efforts
to document all this.
And again, just cautioning that folks need to
listen to all of these interviews
and the context of putting themselves
in the emotional and intellectual frame of mind
that existed back then, and not now,
and you know that that would make it for a more complete
and accurate understanding of what happened.
Peter: And so people, 50 years to now
who are watching this,
do you want to just emphasize
that they might not be aware of how we felt that day or not?
-: I suspect that there are many, many, many more pointed
and emotional evidence that will be preserved forever
far more than mine.
And so I'm not going to try and add to that.
So many of the family members who lost, you know
their husbands wives, children.
So my points are, would pale in comparison to that.
I would say though, that at the end of the day,
you know, having confidence in, and again
in the U.S. military U.s. government, military included
we only swear allegiance to the constitution
of the United States.
That's it.
We don't swear allegiance to a king, queen, flag, a nation.
We don't, it's only the constitution
and the principles in that constitution.
And I would just say that the vast majority,
the vast majority of people who were engaged
in all of this Guantanamo stuff,
even those who did things that maybe I disagree with
believed that they were doing precisely that.
And it's really just a matter of degree.
We all believe in the same thing.
We're all trying to preserve the national security
of the United States and the constitution
and the values and the principles.
And then it boils down to a question of the balance
between tilting too far towards
the security side of it, if you will,
and versus on the other side,
maybe protecting certain values and principles,
knowing that if you degrade them too much,
that creates more of a risk than not.
And that's what we disagreed on.
It wasn't really on the end state,
it was on how to achieve the same common goal.
And so I don't fault any body at all
for things that they did or didn't do
that in retrospect, you know, I may disagree with.
It was their view at the time.
And, you know, mine was different
and, you know, doing certain things like either, you know
calling ICRC or, you know, pushing back on that memo
on the enhanced interrogation memo, you know,
you just do it and, and feel like,
at the end of the day, you got to feel comfortable with it.
You don't want to just roll over
and just do what you're being told.
You have your own individual responsibility to...
I swore allegiance to the constitution.
And when it gets to that point, you know
where you really feel, then that's what you do.
And I think that the vast majority people did exactly that
and would've done the same thing, you know
under the same circumstances.
Peter: That was great.
To be able to end Johnny needs 20 seconds
of quiet time, room tone.
-: Okay.
Johnny: Begin room tone.
End room tone.