ClintWilliamson.mov / Williamson, Clint - Interview master file / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Good afternoon.

0:05

-

Afternoon.

0:06

Interviewer

We are very grateful to you

0:07

for participating in the Witness To Guantanamo Project.

0:08

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:12

and involvement with issues concerning Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:14

we are hoping to provide you

0:19

with an opportunity to tell your story in your own words.

0:21

We are creating an archive of stories

0:24

so that people in America

0:27

and around the world

0:28

will have a better understanding of what you

0:29

and others have observed and experienced.

0:31

Future generations must know what happened in Guantanamo

0:35

and by telling your story you are contributing to history.

0:40

And we appreciate your willingness

0:43

to interview with us today.

0:45

If at any time during the interview

0:46

you'd like to take a break just let us know

0:47

and if there's anything you say

0:50

that you would like us to remove, we can move it

0:52

if you let us know so that will be fine.

0:55

-

Okay.

0:57

Interviewer

And we would like to begin

0:57

with just some basic

0:58

information like your name, your birthday

0:59

and age, and education, if maybe you can start with that.

1:01

-

Okay, my name is Clint Williamson.

1:06

I'm 51 years old-

1:08

Interviewer

Your date of birth?

1:12

-

I had asked not to do that. (laughs)

1:13

Interviewer

Okay.

1:15

-

51 years old.

1:17

I went to undergraduate school at Louisiana Tech University.

1:19

I have a degree in political science from there

1:26

and then I have a law degree from Tulane University.

1:28

Interviewer

Okay, can you tell us

1:31

where you're currently located or you are living now?

1:33

-

Yeah, I am working for the European Union

1:35

as a Special Prosecutor based in Brussels, Belgium.

1:39

Interviewer

And a little bit about where you worked

1:43

before you started working in Guantanamo.

1:46

Just a little bit of background experience.

1:48

-

After I finished law school,

1:51

I worked as an Assistant District Attorney in new Orleans

1:53

for about five and a half years,

1:56

then as a Prosecutor in the US Department of Justice,

1:59

organized crime section.

2:02

(coughs) excuse me.

2:05

From there, I was detailed overseas

2:06

to the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia

2:11

when it was created in 1994.

2:16

Worked there until 2001.

2:20

Served for a year

2:23

as the Director of the UNMC Department of Justice,

2:25

the UN mission in Kosovo Department of Justice in Pristina.

2:27

From 2003 till mid 2006,

2:33

I was on the staff of the National Security Council

2:38

at the White House.

2:41

Again, detailed from the Justice Department.

2:42

Then from 2000, from July, 2006, until September, 2009,

2:44

I served as the US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues

2:51

in the Department of State.

2:53

And in that role,

2:56

I had responsibility for Guantanamo issues,

2:58

for negotiating transfers of detainees from Guantanamo

3:01

from the time I came into office until may of 2009,

3:07

at which point the Guantanamo responsibilities

3:13

were shifted from my office to a Special Envoy

3:15

who was focusing solely on that.

3:18

Interviewer

Can you tell us how it happened

3:21

that you were selected to be involved in those issues?

3:22

-

My involvement in Guantanamo specifically

3:29

was just by default.

3:31

My predecessor as Ambassador for War Crimes Issues,

3:33

Pierre prosper, I think had volunteered

3:37

to take on the role

3:41

of being the diplomatic focal point for Guantanamo issues.

3:42

So I had no background working on detainee matters

3:48

when I came into the job.

3:50

My background was very much focused on war crimes matters.

3:52

As I indicated I had been at the ICTY,

3:57

had worked in Kosovo, had worked on issues

4:01

at the National Security Council related to war crimes.

4:04

So I came into the job based on my expertise on war crimes

4:08

and that was the primary responsibility

4:12

that went with that office.

4:16

But as I indicated Ambassador Prosper had volunteered

4:19

to handle negotiations on detainee transfers.

4:24

So when I came into the office that function went with it.

4:27

Interviewer

What did you expect?

4:32

Did you give any expectations

4:34

as to what that would involve or...?

4:36

-

My focus and my interest was largely based

4:42

on my work on war crimes.

4:45

So I had not given a lot of thought to it

4:48

in advance of coming into the job

4:52

as I was being briefed for coming into office,

4:56

meeting with people in the office,

5:01

finding out what they were working on

5:02

and sort of what had gone on in proceeding months.

5:06

I became much more aware of what was involved

5:11

on the Guantanamo side.

5:14

And certainly I did preparation on this issue

5:16

in advance of my Senate confirmation hearing,

5:19

but my expectations were developed

5:23

really over this short period of time.

5:28

And were very much along the lines of just what

5:31

would be involved in negotiating transfers,

5:35

what were the priorities,

5:38

what were some of the difficulties

5:39

that I would face in that role?

5:40

But it was it at the point that I came in

5:44

a large number of people had had left the office.

5:50

It had never been a large office.

5:53

I think it at point sort of at its highest point

5:56

during Ambassador Prosper's tenure,

5:59

there were maybe seven people in the office.

6:01

Some of them were political appointees,

6:05

some were career staff who had rotated out.

6:07

But in any event, when I started

6:11

I think there were only three people there.

6:13

So my first priority was getting the office staffed up.

6:15

And, but there was not a lot of institutional knowledge

6:18

in the office that I was able to tap into on this issue.

6:22

So I really had to rely on other people

6:26

in the State Department who had been involved,

6:29

for example in the Legal Advisor's office,

6:32

in the various Regional Bureaus

6:34

and from the Defense Department,

6:37

but also a couple of other people

6:41

that had been involved in this,

6:43

for example at the NSC one person Sandy Hodgkinson there,

6:44

who came over initially as my Deputy.

6:49

Interviewer

Did you have a clear charge

6:52

as to what your role was going to be?

6:54

-

The instructions I were given were to try to get as many

6:59

people out of Guantanamo as we could.

7:05

Anyone who was cleared for release,

7:09

to move them as quickly as we could.

7:11

At that point, the focus was very much still

7:16

on repatriating people to their home countries.

7:19

So there was not...

7:23

The issue of third country transfers had not arisen

7:26

or had not come to our head, I guess at that point.

7:30

So the focus was much more on just getting governments

7:33

to take their own citizens back

7:36

but with an understanding

7:40

that there would be challenges involved in this,

7:41

from both sides.

7:44

Concerns on the US side

7:47

about the adequacy of assurances

7:49

or the abilities of certain governments

7:52

to take these people back and ensure

7:55

that they didn't engage in some sort of nefarious activity.

7:56

And also concerns about the ability

8:02

of us to transfer people to countries,

8:06

which might have spotty human rights records

8:10

and concerns about a convention

8:12

against torture obligations

8:15

and that sort of thing.

8:16

Interviewer

How did you assure yourselves

8:19

that the detainee you're releasing

8:20

wouldn't come back as a terrorist to the US

8:23

or cause problems for the US?

8:28

-

The focus was on getting adequate assurances

8:31

from the government of the country

8:36

to which the person was being sent.

8:40

In some governments, particularly in Europe,

8:43

we had a long track record of dealing with them

8:46

and so there were much less concerns in that regard.

8:48

Some of the Middle Eastern governments,

8:52

North African governments,

8:53

it was a mixture of looking at the assurances

8:56

they were prepared to give,

9:00

as well as their track record in the past.

9:02

But the negotiations on the specifics for security measures

9:05

that would be taken in relation to any individual detainee

9:13

were primarily the responsibility

9:16

of the Department of Defense.

9:18

The Department of Defense was in the position

9:20

of making decisions on who could be released.

9:22

And ultimately this went up to the

9:27

to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

9:29

So the State Department,

9:32

were focused on the reaching a diplomatic understanding

9:36

with any given country

9:43

about allowing the people to come back,

9:44

satisfying ourselves that sending somebody back

9:47

would not violate our CAT obligations-

9:50

Interviewer

Could you for the audience-

9:55

-

Yeah, Convention Against Torture Obligations.

9:56

While the Department of Defense,

10:01

who often participated in these discussions

10:03

with third country governments,

10:05

was focused on the issue of the assurances.

10:08

And ultimately that was, for them, the deciding factor on

10:12

whether somebody would be approved for transfer or not.

10:17

So as I say, there were no standard criteria

10:22

that we were looking for from a country.

10:29

It depended much on their record

10:31

in the past dealing with terrorism,

10:33

I guess, how close their relationship

10:38

was with United States on security issues.

10:41

All of that factored into it

10:46

and we would perhaps start with kind of a standard package

10:48

of things we would be looking for

10:54

but the details of what would be agreed upon

10:56

were based on all of those factors taken together.

10:59

Interviewer

You're saying that the DOD,

11:04

Department of Defense would override the decision

11:05

by the State Department

11:09

as to whether to release this person,

11:10

if the DOD didn't like the fact

11:12

that this person should be released,

11:15

even though he was cleared for release?

11:16

-

It wasn't a question of overriding.

11:18

I mean, they had the decision making authority.

11:19

So the State Department had no authority whatsoever

11:22

in determining who would be released or not.

11:25

And during the Bush Administration,

11:28

we were not even seeing the entire files on these people.

11:35

So we did not have a complete picture, at times,

11:40

of who we were even dealing with,

11:44

which put us in a very difficult position

11:45

in negotiating with another government,

11:47

without knowing the entire background of the individual

11:50

you were talking about.

11:53

But the decision-making authority

11:55

and the whole process of clearing someone for release

12:00

was internal to the Defense Department.

12:03

So effectively what would happen is recommendations

12:06

would come from Guantanamo

12:11

or through internal assessments

12:14

within the Department of Defense.

12:17

These would then go up the chain of command

12:19

to the Deputy Secretary who would clear someone for release.

12:20

At the point they were cleared for release,

12:26

the State Department would be notified,

12:28

"All right, you can engage

12:30

this person's home country government

12:32

on their willingness to allow them to be repatriated."

12:35

We would then enter into those negotiations,

12:40

even if we reached an agreement that we were satisfied with

12:44

and whoever the Defense Department representative was

12:49

that was involved in the negotiations

12:52

was satisfied with.

12:54

It still then had to go back

12:55

to the Deputy Secretary of Defense

12:57

to clear the person for actual transfer.

13:00

So there was no decision-making authority whatsoever

13:03

that rested with the State Department at that point.

13:05

Interviewer

Did it frustrate you

13:09

that you didn't see the entire file of the detainee?

13:10

-

Yeah, I mean, it was a, it just puts someone

13:14

in a difficult position for negotiating

13:20

because a lot of times you don't know as much

13:22

about this individual as the people

13:24

in their home government.

13:29

A lot of these individuals had long records,

13:30

either of terrorist activity or just common criminality,

13:34

in their home countries.

13:38

And a lot of times we weren't aware of what evidence,

13:40

if any, had been compiled against them

13:44

at the time of their detention

13:47

or in subsequent interrogations.

13:48

And we would see summaries of the information,

13:50

but it was not...

13:53

I'm a career prosecutor,

13:56

it's not the sort of dossier

13:57

I would like to see about an individual

13:59

with whom I was engaging in negotiations on.

14:02

Interviewer

What would be the DOD's rationale

14:07

for not showing you the entire file?

14:10

-

I'm not sure exactly what it is.

14:15

I can speculate as to what it was,

14:17

but I think this was...

14:19

And again, it is speculation

14:23

because I was not involved in this during the first term

14:25

of the Bush Administration,

14:28

but there were...

14:31

My understanding is that decisions were taken at that time

14:34

that this was very much the responsibility

14:37

of the Department of Defense,

14:42

running this whole detainee operation.

14:43

And initially, I don't think anyone gave thought

14:47

to how you would get people out of Guantanamo.

14:52

It was just, how do we detain these people?

14:55

How do we contain the threat we perceive?

14:57

So the role where the State Department came into this

15:02

was perhaps a second thought,

15:04

but the primary responsibility for this remain

15:07

with the Defense Department

15:10

and they were the ones entrusted

15:12

to make decisions on people

15:15

and to do it based on their determination

15:17

as to whether this person would pose a threat or not.

15:21

Interviewer

Well, would you ever go back

15:24

to them and say, look, we need more information

15:25

in order to have a legitimate conversation

15:27

with the host country?

15:30

-

Yeah, on a number of occasions we would.

15:32

And a lot of times, as I indicated,

15:34

we would have somebody from the Defense Department

15:38

who would go along on negotiations.

15:40

So if specific questions would arise in the context

15:43

of a discussion with the government,

15:48

they might be in a position to respond or not.

15:51

But a lot of times we would get requests from governments

15:54

for further information.

15:57

On a number of occasions the governments

16:00

wanted to send people to interview

16:02

the individuals in Guantanamo before they made a decision

16:04

on whether they would accept them or not.

16:08

So it was a bit of a fluid process,

16:10

and I don't wanna imply that there weren't occasions

16:14

when we could get more information.

16:17

But as a general rule our starting point

16:19

was one with quite limited information

16:21

when we entered into negotiations.

16:23

Interviewer

Were the host country

16:26

always be permitted to interview their citizens

16:27

when they requested it?

16:30

-

I don't know that.

16:32

Interviewer

Was it their decision?

16:33

-

Again, that's the Department of Defense, yeah.

16:35

Because I mean, they were in control of the facility.

16:37

And I don't know.

16:41

I'm not aware of any situation

16:43

where a government was not allowed access

16:45

but I just don't know that for sure.

16:47

Interviewer

And was there ever a situation

16:49

where the government refused to have taken citizens?

16:51

-

Oh, a lot, yeah.

16:53

Initially I think a lot of governments were reluctant

16:56

to take people back.

16:59

Algeria was certainly not eager to get people back.

17:02

Some governments were very upfront

17:10

about the fact that they didn't want people back

17:15

because they saw them as a threat to their own security.

17:19

On other occasions, it was just our perception

17:22

that they didn't want them back.

17:26

You would get into these sort of endless

17:28

very prolonged negotiations at where it seemed

17:32

like they were just throwing up obstacles

17:38

to getting people back.

17:40

Interviewer

And what was your response

17:42

if a country like Algeria says,

17:44

look, we just don't want these people?

17:46

-

It would be trying to just convince them

17:51

that these were their own citizens.

17:54

They had an obligation to take them back.

17:56

That we would work with them on trying to mitigate any risks

18:01

to the extent we could,

18:04

but then ultimately they had an obligation

18:06

to take their own citizens.

18:08

But a lot of it just involved reassurance,

18:11

getting them to understand

18:15

what the situation was with the individuals.

18:19

And I always found that it was easier

18:22

to focus the discussions on individuals

18:24

and to look at the circumstances

18:28

related to that specific person,

18:30

as opposed to talking about this in a theoretical sense,

18:33

where the images tend to be a little scarier

18:36

than talking about certain individuals.

18:39

Interviewer

But there were situations

18:43

where you never were able to repatriate the person

18:44

because the country just refused to take them?

18:49

-

I think ultimately during my time,

18:55

I was involved in negotiations on transfers

18:59

approximately 250 of the detainees.

19:02

And almost all of these went back to their home countries.

19:07

I think by the end of my tenure

19:11

pretty much everyone had gone back to home countries

19:14

with the exception of Yemen.

19:17

And those that were determined to still be too much

19:21

of a security risk to transfer out.

19:25

There were a number of individuals that were still there

19:29

who we felt could not be transferred back

19:33

to their home countries

19:37

because of risk of torture or mistreatment.

19:37

And ultimately third country locations

19:40

were sought for them to transfer them.

19:43

But most of the people that we were able to send back

19:47

to their home countries,

19:51

I think those cases were resolved by the end of my tenure.

19:52

Interviewer

Why Yemen?

19:57

It was before 2009, December, 2009.

19:58

So we're holding up on Yemen?

20:01

-

Yemen for the same reason that it is still today in 2013,

20:03

there have been concerns consistently

20:10

about Yemen's ability to deal with terror threats.

20:13

This has been an issue that went back

20:21

to the very beginning of the transfer process.

20:24

I worked on it both during the time

20:27

of the second Bush Administration

20:30

and the first Obama Administration.

20:32

And we were constantly engaging the Yemenis,

20:36

trying to find a situation

20:39

where we believed the threats would be mitigated

20:42

to a level where people could be sent back.

20:45

And a large part of this focus was on sending people

20:48

through rehabilitation programs in Saudi Arabia,

20:51

trying to find other options

20:55

that did not necessarily rely

20:59

on the Yemeni security structures

21:00

as the sole means of mitigating threat.

21:02

But the Yemenis consistently were unwilling to have anybody

21:09

transferred to Saudi Arabia to go through this program,

21:16

just as a matter of national pride.

21:20

They were insistent that people come back to Yemen

21:21

but we never could get to the point

21:23

where within the US government

21:26

people were comfortable with that.

21:28

And as I say, that that was an issue

21:31

during the Bush Administration

21:33

that's continued to be an issue

21:35

during the Obama Administration

21:36

and the vast number of people

21:37

that are still in Guantanamo are Yemenis as a result.

21:39

Interviewer

And did the DOD express any concern to you

21:41

that when they approve you to release the Yemeni

21:44

that you couldn't get them out,

21:47

that they want you to repatriate

21:48

they wanted them out or they didn't even care

21:50

if you didn't succeed?

21:53

-

It wasn't a situation of them being unhappy

22:00

or happy about.

22:04

There were some Yemenis,

22:05

although at that point in time, it was a limited number

22:09

who had been approved for transfer.

22:12

But there was an agreement I think

22:16

in most of the inter-agency

22:20

that people could not be transferred back

22:22

for security reasons.

22:24

During most of my time as Ambassador

22:27

during the Bush Administration,

22:34

the primary responsibility for dealing

22:36

with Yemenis rested with the National Security Council

22:38

and with the Deputy National Security Advisor

22:41

and a Counter-Terrorism Advisor, Ken Wainstein,

22:44

and then this responsibility also remained largely

22:48

with the White House during the Obama Administration

22:52

with John Brennan having that duty.

22:55

I traveled to Yemen with John Brennan early on

23:00

in the Obama Administration,

23:04

I think in March of of 2009,

23:06

to take another shot at this

23:11

and see if we could get the Yemenis

23:12

to come to some sort of middle ground

23:14

that people would be comfortable

23:18

with in terms of mitigation of risk.

23:19

But unsuccessfully, no.

23:21

Interviewer

Could you describe the rehabilitation center

23:23

in Saudi Arabia and was it successful in your eyes?

23:26

-

I think it has a mixed record.

23:31

My impression at the time, during my time as Ambassador

23:34

that it had largely been successful.

23:39

I was always with the view that there was nothing

23:43

that was going to be risk proof with this.

23:46

And this was an argument I made during the transition

23:49

from the Bush to the Obama Administration

23:53

was that, if you were going to transfer people out

23:55

you have to recognize that this is not risk-free.

23:59

There are going to be people who are gonna be recidivist.

24:02

And I said, it's just like a domestic prison program.

24:05

If you parole people, some of them are gonna go out

24:08

and commit crimes again.

24:10

But in totality, I think the Saudi program

24:13

had been much more successful

24:16

than what most other countries had done

24:18

but for a variety of reasons.

24:23

And I think some of them were unique to Saudi Arabia.

24:25

But they looked at this from...

24:28

They really approached this in a global fashion,

24:31

engaging the family, the tribe of the person,

24:35

looking at employment for them,

24:41

looking at counseling with more moderate mullahs,

24:44

encouraging people to get married, even.

24:52

Lots of things like this that would create stability

24:55

in the people's lives.

24:58

And as I said, some of those things

25:01

were really dependent on the Saudi government's

25:04

ability to engage other actors in Saudi Arabia.

25:10

So I'm not sure how well this actually would've translated

25:13

to Yemenis or people from other countries.

25:16

But again, I think it was from both the Bush

25:19

and Obama Administration's perspective,

25:27

looking for anything to mitigate the risk in Yemen.

25:29

So although it would not perhaps have been as successful

25:32

as it was with Saudis,

25:35

it was better than anything

25:37

that could have been done in Yemen.

25:38

Interviewer

Did you visit the Rehabilitation-?

25:40

-

I did, yes.

25:42

Interviewer

And what did you observe?

25:43

-

I went there with John Brennan

25:46

on the same trip we had been

25:49

in Riyadh before going to Sanaa.

25:51

We talked with a number of the people

25:54

that were in the program.

25:56

Not all of whom had come from Guantanamo.

25:57

There were a number of people that were in there

26:00

that had been arrested

26:02

or somehow come into this terrorism program domestically.

26:06

So, it was...

26:12

I think in talking with most of the people,

26:18

it was quite positive,

26:20

seemed to be a program that was working.

26:23

So, it's difficult for me to say.

26:27

I since heard varying statistics on recidivism

26:29

and things like that that the program

26:33

has not been as successful as it was initially pitched,

26:34

but I think on balance it was better

26:37

than what many countries were doing.

26:44

Interviewer

Were some countries doing nothing?

26:46

-

There were a number of countries

26:51

that were doing very little in terms of rehabilitation.

26:51

I think some countries employed pretty robust

26:54

security measures in relation to return detainees,

27:02

whether it was surveillance or having people check in

27:05

or just whatever monitoring they were doing.

27:08

And again, there were varying degrees of that.

27:16

How well that was being done.

27:18

But yeah, I'm not aware of any other rehabilitation

27:22

program that was done on the same level

27:27

as what the Saudis did.

27:30

Interviewer

Did some detainees when they returned

27:32

did they go to prison?

27:34

-

Some did, yes.

27:37

And this was an issue that we had talked about

27:42

with various governments.

27:45

But my recollection is that people

27:49

that did go back to prison were people

27:53

that were already facing charges in these countries.

27:55

A lot of them for common criminal offenses

28:00

and a number of the people that we dealt with

28:04

had initially left their countries

28:08

after being charged with common crimes.

28:09

So their history in their Homeland

28:12

had been one of engaging in theft

28:17

or robbery or something else.

28:21

They then fled the country

28:25

and then ended up getting caught up in other things.

28:27

So in many cases, they had existing warrants out

28:30

for their arrest, or even had been convicted

28:34

and had fled awaiting sentencing,

28:37

or had escaped or something like that.

28:39

So there were circumstances where people went into prison,

28:42

but it was a relatively small number.

28:47

Interviewer

Would you know that when we sent them back?

28:49

Would you be aware that would happen?

28:52

-

Yes, I mean they would...

28:53

And again, that would be a big concern in relation

28:56

to Convention Against Torture.

29:00

You would look at what the conditions were in prisons.

29:01

And if people who were detained

29:05

were subjected to mistreatment,

29:09

and that would factor into decision-making

29:12

whether people would go or not.

29:13

Interviewer

So even though we'll talk about

29:16

third party acceptances in a little bit,

29:18

but if you saw that the country was not acceptable choice

29:20

because they were torture or some other misbehavior

29:25

you'd have to think then we have to find

29:29

another country for these men.

29:31

It had to be on the radar right-

29:33

-

Yeah, absolutely.

29:35

And in the Chinese Uighurs were at the top of this list.

29:37

We knew from day one that these were individuals

29:41

that could not be sent to China.

29:45

So I invested a lot of time

29:48

and energy in trying to find locations

29:51

where we could send them.

29:54

Likewise, we were unwilling to send people to Libya.

29:57

We were unwilling to send people to Syria.

30:00

There were concerns about some other countries

30:04

that we were eventually able to overcome.

30:06

But this was, I guess in going back to your earlier question

30:10

about where you said the Department of Defense

30:14

could overrule a State Department decision

30:19

on transferring someone.

30:22

The extent to which the State Department did have a say

30:24

was where there were concerns about torture.

30:27

So a lot of times, even though DOD might be comfortable

30:30

with somebody being transferred

30:35

and happy with the security arrangements,

30:37

we would have concerns about the human rights implications

30:39

of doing that and would stop a transfer.

30:44

There was also a situation where people

30:47

would be given exit interviews when they left Guantanamo.

30:49

And this was a bit of a point of contention

30:55

between the State Department of Defense Department

30:58

because sometimes in these exit interviews

31:01

individuals would express fears about mistreatment

31:03

or other things that we felt we had an obligation

31:06

to investigate further before agreeing to the transfer.

31:09

DOD was unwilling to do these interviews

31:15

too far in advance because of security reasons.

31:20

They said they didn't want people to be aware

31:23

that they were about to be transferred out

31:25

until sort of the last minute

31:27

but it put us in a very difficult situation

31:30

because if fears were expressed,

31:32

we wouldn't get notice of it until right at the last minute.

31:35

And then we would really be scurrying

31:38

to try to substantiate these claims or not.

31:40

And a lot of times they would bring up issues

31:42

related to specific things that had happened in their past,

31:46

which weren't a matter of public record.

31:50

And we would then have to go back very quickly

31:51

to our embassy in the country

31:53

and try to find out the facts

31:55

and whether this was justified or not.

31:57

And so this resulted at times

32:00

in a bit of a divide between State and Defense

32:03

at the last minute before transfers were supposed to happen.

32:06

Interviewer

Did you ever change your opinion

32:09

or at least not transfer the person

32:12

because the detainee pointed out some issues

32:13

that you weren't aware of?

32:16

-

Certainly.

32:18

We clearly had delays in transfers going back

32:19

and I don't recall whether there was ever a situation

32:26

where somebody was never transferred because of that.

32:32

But my view was always that anyone that was in Guantanamo

32:35

was pretty eager to get out.

32:40

And so if they were expressing these kinds of concerns

32:42

that in and of itself gave some degree

32:45

of validity to what they were saying.

32:48

You couldn't just take it at face value,

32:49

but I always felt like we had to give some credence to it

32:52

and give the benefit of the doubt

32:58

until we were able to research it further.

32:59

But there were certainly times

33:02

where transfers were stopped as a result of that issue.

33:04

Interviewer

Well, I read in the paper,

33:08

I don't know if it was during your time you were in charge,

33:10

where in fact the detainee was absolutely clear

33:12

he did not want to be returned

33:16

and the government overrode his concerns

33:18

and sent him anyway.

33:22

-

Yeah, I don't know the specific case.

33:24

I mean, I can't say for sure.

33:27

There were some situations where individuals might've said

33:31

something that was just clearly without foundation

33:37

and it might've been overruled

33:42

but I don't recall a situation like that occurring.

33:43

Interviewer

I mean, like you just said

33:47

what could be their motivation to not be returned

33:48

if in fact they were in Guantanamo,

33:52

which is pretty horrible, and yet...

33:54

-

Exactly, I think there were in there...

33:58

We got to a situation where there was a certain degree

34:02

of gaming and of lading in the Bush Administration

34:05

in early in the Obama Administration,

34:08

where some of the detainees who eventually were transferred

34:11

to a third country were maybe playing it a little bit

34:18

hoping to get a better location for transfer,

34:21

but in terms of going back to their home countries,

34:24

again, I think that we gave a lot of credence

34:29

to where concerns were expressed about mistreatment.

34:31

But I can't tell you specifically every case.

34:35

I just don't remember them in that degree of detail.

34:38

Interviewer

Did you contact the families

34:41

of the detainee to see if they would be welcoming

34:43

before you sent them home?

34:47

-

We had no role in that, no.

34:49

Interviewer

Did the families even know that their son

34:51

has been, would be returned?

34:55

-

Well, we often had contact

34:58

with Defense Attorneys for detainees,

35:01

and in many cases these individuals

35:06

were in contact with the families.

35:08

We also dealt with a number of NGOs,

35:11

particularly Human Rights Watch,

35:15

we worked very closely with

35:17

and HRW had contacts with family members

35:20

a lot of times in countries.

35:25

We certainly relied on reporting from HRW

35:29

and other groups about what happened to individuals

35:32

after they were sent back,

35:35

in addition to whatever we got from embassy reporting.

35:37

But most of the contact with Defense Counsel

35:42

went through the Justice Department

35:45

and through the Defense Department,

35:48

but we had no direct contact with family members.

35:51

Interviewer

Okay, what role did the attorneys have?

35:55

Where they there to assist you

35:58

and if their client resisted returning,

36:01

did they also voice that to you?

36:04

Did they play a very active role in these kind of stuff?

36:07

-

It depended, it was very much personality driven.

36:11

In some cases it depended on the detainee themselves

36:15

as to how much they wanted their counsel to do

36:17

or if they even had counsel.

36:20

In most cases it was a very cooperative

36:24

working relationship with Defense Attorneys

36:27

and they were interested in getting their clients out.

36:32

And we were interested in also getting people transferred.

36:34

So it was quite cooperative in that regard.

36:38

Certainly there were situations where Defense Counsel

36:44

raised concerns about people.

36:47

And like I said, it led to us taking a closer look

36:48

at specific countries

36:53

and in some cases saying we're not gonna transfer

36:54

anyone to those countries.

36:57

Interviewer

Why do you think the US wanted to...

36:59

This might seem obvious

37:00

but I'm not sure it is.

37:02

Why do you think US wanted to release these men back home?

37:03

Why did they feel it's so important

37:09

that they release these people?

37:11

-

Again, this is speculation on my part

37:14

because I wasn't privy to the decision making on this.

37:17

I think people came to the conclusion that Guantanamo

37:22

was just an untenable proposition.

37:25

That this was not a long-term solution.

37:27

I know in my discussions with Secretary Rice,

37:32

she was certainly concerned about the implications

37:38

on US Foreign Policy and on the US image.

37:40

She was very interested in getting the numbers down

37:45

as much as we could.

37:48

And I think among most of the actors

37:51

in the executive branch, they came to that conclusion.

37:55

At least during the second term of the Bush Administration.

37:59

There were certain people who remained

38:02

very wary of transferring detainees out,

38:05

particularly the Office of the Vice President

38:10

and some of the actors in the Department of Defense.

38:13

They just felt like the better approach

38:17

was and the safer approach was keep everybody there.

38:19

But I think within the State Department, particularly,

38:23

and within most of the people at the White House

38:29

by the end of the second term of the Bush Administration

38:37

they'd come to the conclusion

38:39

that we needed to downsize it as much as possible.

38:40

And President Bush said that as well.

38:43

We need to get to the day when we can close it.

38:46

So there was never, I never felt pressure exerted

38:48

in the other way, from within my chain of command

38:56

to not do this.

38:59

In fact, it was quite the opposite from day one in this job,

39:00

the push from within State Department

39:05

was move as many of these people as we can.

39:07

There was pushback sometimes in the inter-agency

39:12

but it usually manifested itself in discussions

39:15

about a particular individual, about being transferred,

39:21

as opposed to the general policy approach

39:23

of getting people out.

39:26

With the one notable exception

39:28

being the Vice President's office,

39:30

who was just opposed to people being removed.

39:32

Interviewer

How do you know that?

39:34

-

Just being in inter-agency discussions

39:36

where people from that office were present.

39:38

Interviewer

And why wasn't he able to control

39:41

that situation and essentially put our halt

39:44

to the men being released?

39:48

-

Well, I don't know what had happened early on

39:52

in the Bush Administration,

39:56

other than what I've seen in press reports

39:57

and interviews with other individuals.

40:00

But I think the Vice President's influence

40:05

waned somewhat by the second term.

40:07

Certainly Secretary Rice had very strong views

40:11

on the subject and was willing to push those views.

40:15

And ultimately the president came around

40:19

to the point of saying,

40:22

we need to get to the day when we can close it.

40:23

So which implies moving people out.

40:26

So, I think it reached a point where the Vice President

40:30

and others in his circle recognized that policy

40:42

had moved a little bit

40:47

and it just wasn't tenable for them

40:49

to try to block this whole process.

40:52

But it then became more about specific individuals.

40:54

Interviewer

Was Rumsfeld still Secretary of Defense

40:57

when you started?

41:00

-

No, well, he was, I guess for a short period of time.

41:01

I think he resigned right after the 2006 midterm elections.

41:12

And I had become Ambassador in July of 2006.

41:17

So overlapped for three or four months it appeared.

41:21

Interviewer

I had heard that a reason

41:25

why a lot of men were released from Guantanamo

41:27

was because the nations asked

41:29

for their citizens to come back home.

41:31

Is that what you understood?

41:33

If that might have been true when you were in charge,

41:34

might that have been true before?

41:38

-

It was a mix.

41:42

As I said, there were some countries

41:43

who were not enthusiastic about getting their national back.

41:44

There were other countries

41:48

which this was a high national priority.

41:49

Some other countries, particularly some of the Gulf States,

41:54

made this a very high priority.

41:59

Their ambassadors would come and meet with me

42:01

on a regular basis and to talk about this

42:04

and how we could facilitate transfers.

42:06

So in a lot of cases,

42:11

it was really pushing on an open door

42:12

to get countries to accept people.

42:15

The much more difficult part

42:17

was doing the third country transfers.

42:18

Interviewer

Well, we'll get to that.

42:21

But the countries that spoke to you

42:22

and said we want our men back home,

42:23

would you then go to the Department of Defense

42:28

and say, look such and such country have asked,

42:30

can we move this forward?

42:33

What would be the process?

42:35

-

I was aware of which individuals were on a cleared list

42:38

and which ones were not,

42:41

again subject to final approval by DOD.

42:43

So the fact, as I mentioned earlier,

42:46

that we were cleared to negotiate their transfers

42:49

still was not the final decision

42:52

on them being cleared for transfer

42:54

but I was aware of the people that fell into this category.

42:56

So I could certainly discuss

42:59

this with diplomats from those countries

43:01

and say, this individual is cleared.

43:04

We're certainly happy to talk about them

43:09

but they also recognize that the decision-making rested

43:11

with the Department of Defense.

43:14

So they were engaging Defense as well.

43:15

I think at times they perhaps were more effective in that

43:19

than the State Department engaging the Department of Defense

43:22

because they had defense relationships

43:24

that the DOD cared about.

43:27

But it was...

43:30

If an ambassador came to me and said,

43:33

we have these individuals, we really wanna get back.

43:37

We would certainly talk about it

43:41

with the Defense Department

43:42

but both the ambassadors

43:44

and us recognized that the decision rested with DOD.

43:45

And as I say, most of the time

43:49

they would engage DOD directly to try to get people

43:50

to the point of being cleared.

43:54

Interviewer

What I heard was that decision

43:56

often rested with Bush

43:57

and if some senior diplomat came to Bush and said,

43:58

I need my men home, that would be enough to move it forward.

44:02

-

I wouldn't say that the decision rested with him.

44:07

I just don't think he got involved

44:14

in this decision making process,

44:16

but there were exceptions to that.

44:19

And I think there were certain cases

44:21

where usually heads of state or heads of government

44:23

would make a personal request to him

44:28

and he might make inquiries about it or push on it.

44:31

But I think that was in very limited circumstances

44:35

but it was certainly not a situation to my knowledge

44:38

where decisions went up to him on a routine basis

44:42

as to whether to release someone or not.

44:45

I just don't think he was nearly

44:47

that engaged in that process.

44:48

Interviewer

But if he did make inquiries

44:50

I assume that DOD would then respond to that. (chuckles)

44:53

-

I would think so.

44:57

Interviewer

But you don't know that?

44:58

-

I don't know that for sure.

44:59

Interviewer

Did you deal with Russian detainees at all?

45:07

-

No, I did not.

45:14

There was a detainee that was sent back

45:17

to Russia prior to my tenure.

45:19

And then as a result of that,

45:24

we were unwilling to send other detainees to Russia

45:26

because there were allegations

45:29

of mistreatment of this individual.

45:31

Again, this is something where we'd worked very closely

45:35

with Human Rights Watch

45:37

and with our embassy in Moscow to try to document this.

45:38

I believe there was one other individual

45:46

that I negotiated a third country transfer for,

45:48

who was Russian, but in terms of,

45:51

I never negotiated with the Russian government

45:55

or got to the point where we were comfortable

45:57

with transferring detainees there.

45:59

Interviewer

Just for public record

46:02

can you explain a little bit about

46:04

how you looked into human rights issues

46:06

before you would transfer someone to those countries.

46:08

What exactly were your concerns?

46:11

And have you researched that issue?

46:12

-

We look at a number of different things.

46:17

Our starting point would be our embassy in whatever country.

46:20

Looking at reporting that had come out of there.

46:26

We would look at the annual report

46:29

from the Democracy Human Rights and Labor Bureau

46:31

and DRL that Bureau really had the lead responsibility

46:35

on this issue.

46:41

I wouldn't say certifying a country or not

46:44

but their opinion was weighted much more

46:46

than anybody else on this issue.

46:50

So a lot of times we would work very closely

46:53

with DRL on this,

46:57

and they would be intimately involved,

46:58

if we got into these situations where an individual detainee

47:00

would raise human rights concerns

47:05

in advance of his transfer,

47:07

but we would look at what they had.

47:10

We would look at information that came from NGOs,

47:13

from ICRC reports, just a variety of sources out there.

47:19

Certainly if individuals

47:28

had been sent back there previously,

47:29

we would look at what had happened to them.

47:31

That was probably the strongest indication

47:34

of how things would work.

47:36

And as I said, in the case of Russia,

47:39

that led to a decision not to send other people back.

47:41

And I think that was the case

47:45

with some other countries as well,

47:46

I just don't recall off hand.

47:48

Interviewer

Would you say to the country,

47:50

look we can't release the men to you

47:51

because of your human rights record,

47:53

would you actually say that to them?

47:55

-

Absolutely, yeah.

47:56

Interviewer

And did they ever respond saying

47:57

we're looking at your record,

47:59

did you ever get that response?

48:01

-

Not so much in that type of form,

48:04

not in a diplomatic negotiation.

48:07

I would get questions like that as a US diplomat going out

48:12

and doing public speaking

48:15

and doing question and answer sessions, that type of thing.

48:16

But not really in diplomatic negotiations.

48:20

And I mean, I would be very frank with my interlocutor

48:23

from the foreign government

48:28

and say, we have concerns about this and this and this

48:29

and you can do it in a polite way.

48:33

You don't have to throw it in their face

48:34

but they understand the point.

48:37

There's a diplomatic way of conveying these things.

48:39

But nevertheless, making them understand

48:43

that until these things are fixed

48:46

or until we feel that appropriate safeguards are put in,

48:48

we can't transfer anymore.

48:51

Interviewer

What kind of safeguards

48:54

could they assure you with?

48:55

-

Well, perhaps the strongest one was allowing

48:57

some sort of third party monitoring of the individual,

49:06

whether it was from a human rights NGO,

49:11

something like that, ensuring embassy visits

49:15

to these people to check on them,

49:19

just putting in place some system for assuring

49:23

that the person hasn't been taken off

49:29

into secret detention and never seen again.

49:32

And as I said before,

49:36

we worked a lot with international human rights NGOs

49:39

on these issues to try to find ways of doing this,

49:42

groups like HRW that had presences

49:46

in these countries had a good feel

49:49

for what might work or not work in terms of local NGOs.

49:52

We would give a lot of credence to that.

49:56

The embassies, the human rights officers at the embassies

49:59

who worked on these issues.

50:02

Again, there's no one size fits all approach to this.

50:05

It was very much dependent on an individual country.

50:08

Interviewer

Did anybody in the administration resist

50:12

you're working with something like Human Rights Watch?

50:14

-

I'm sure people weren't happy about it.

50:17

But it's the background which I come,

50:24

of doing war crimes issues,

50:28

war crimes investigations, and prosecutions.

50:30

So I've worked with these groups for a long time.

50:32

I as Ambassador, one of the first things I did

50:36

was set up a monthly meeting

50:40

with all of the human rights NGOs

50:42

that were focused on war crimes and detainee issues.

50:44

And I would bring them together in Washington,

50:49

only two out of three meetings.

50:51

And then maybe the third meeting we would do in New York

50:52

because a lot of the groups were based there.

50:55

And just have it as sort of a free flowing

50:58

discussion on issues of concern.

51:00

So I had a long history of working with these groups.

51:04

They were very activist in this.

51:09

So within the State Department,

51:14

there was never any concern whatsoever about that.

51:16

I think people were very happy with us having a good working

51:20

relationship with these groups.

51:25

I'm sure there were others in the administration,

51:28

perhaps in the Defense Department and other places,

51:30

that were not as happy about it

51:34

but they probably tended to see us

51:36

in the same boat as those NGOs anyway.

51:38

So I don't think it really made

51:40

much of a difference to them.

51:42

Interviewer

So it was your initiative

51:44

that brought in these NGOs

51:45

and these human rights organizations?

51:46

-

I wouldn't say that.

51:49

They had been very involved on the detainee front all along.

51:50

I think the thing that was my initiative

51:53

was doing these monthly meetings

51:55

of having these groups come in.

51:57

It tended to largely be focused on war crimes,

52:00

which was still in my day job.

52:02

And, there were a number of issues of concern

52:06

during my tenure on the war crimes front

52:09

and that we were very actively engaged on

52:12

but at the same time,

52:16

they would also raise a lot of the issues

52:17

on detainee concerns as well.

52:20

Interviewer

Were there any,

52:30

before we get to third party,

52:31

were there any particular instances,

52:32

since we haven't really talked about countries,

52:34

any particular instances

52:36

that might be interesting just anecdotally

52:37

that might help people understand the difficulties you had

52:40

or a situation that might've been interesting

52:44

just to you know...

52:47

-

I think more came in the context

52:51

of third country transfers than it did on the transfers

52:54

of people back to home countries.

52:58

Frankly my biggest difficulties tended to be

53:06

in the inter-agency process,

53:09

I think rather than dealing with the foreign governments.

53:11

But I felt like the approach that had been set up,

53:16

where decision-making rested solely

53:24

with the Defense Department on these issues

53:29

was a skewed approach.

53:34

And this is one of the things that I argued very strenuously

53:36

during the transition from the Bush

53:40

to the Obama Administration

53:42

is that there needed to be a real

53:44

and effective inter-agency process dealing with this

53:46

because the Defense Department we're not the only ones

53:48

that had equities in these issues.

53:51

There was the State Department,

53:52

there was the Justice Department,

53:53

the intelligence community, the White House.

53:55

All of these different bodies needed a seat at the table.

53:59

And I think this is one of the things

54:03

that was a very positive development

54:05

after the administration change

54:07

of setting up a robust inter-agency process

54:09

for dealing with these cases.

54:13

Looking at them from all of these different perspectives

54:14

and then reaching a consensus decision

54:18

on how to deal with the people.

54:20

I'm sure there are anecdotal issues,

54:25

anecdotal accounts that I could think of

54:29

but the none popped to mind right now.

54:31

Interviewer

So was Justice involved

54:33

in your decision making too?

54:36

How would Justice be concerned?

54:38

How would the Justice Department

54:40

be concerned in these issues?

54:41

What would be their issue?

54:42

-

They were very involved in it.

54:46

And in fact, the lead role on decision-making

54:48

shifted from the Department of Defense

54:53

to the Justice Department

54:55

after the change of administration.

54:57

So ultimately as the Attorney General

54:58

that had the say on this,

55:00

whereas previously it had been

55:01

the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

55:02

And I think that was more,

55:05

it was part of an effort to bring this back

55:09

into more of a rule of law approach,

55:11

as opposed to a security approach

55:15

run by the Defense Department.

55:19

But during my time there were...

55:22

I mean, I was involved in it during

55:27

the Obama Administration as well,

55:29

but during the Bush Administration

55:31

the Justice Department role

55:33

came from a variety of perspectives.

55:36

One was the security concerns

55:39

they had about these individuals.

55:42

FBI was involved in that, the counter-terrorism people

55:44

at Justice we're concerned.

55:48

So they also were offering input

55:51

into the security structures or mechanisms

55:55

that were being set up by the receiving countries.

56:02

Over time, the Justice Department role

56:06

became much more active

56:09

because of all the litigation

56:11

that was ongoing with the detainees

56:12

and particularly after the Boumediene case

56:17

and what followed onto that,

56:20

Justice had huge equities at stake

56:23

because they had ongoing legal matters

56:26

with these individuals.

56:29

Interviewer

Did Justice try to Vito

56:31

some of the decisions of releasing the men too?

56:32

-

During the Bush Administration

56:37

Justice was not particularly

56:39

forward leaning on transfers.

56:40

They tended to be more along the lines

56:42

of where DOD was on this.

56:46

Again, it was largely personality driven.

56:49

Justice probably more than any other agency

56:54

had political appointees dealing with these issues

56:57

within the State Department.

57:00

It was a lot of career people,

57:01

within DOD was a lot of career people.

57:04

Although many of the career people had been also involved

57:07

in the initial decisions to set up Guantanamo.

57:11

So while they didn't necessarily have a political agenda,

57:13

they were vested personally in the decisions

57:18

where this had been set up.

57:21

But from the Justice form of perspective,

57:23

they were not always helpful.

57:26

And I think one of the...

57:30

A point that for me was really a no brainer,

57:32

but we had a lot of difficulty

57:39

getting the Justice Department to come around to this,

57:40

was looking at cases where there was ongoing litigation

57:46

and assessing these in a very real sense,

57:53

if they were likely to lose these cases on habeas petitions

57:56

because it was much easier for us to go out

58:01

and try to engage a foreign government

58:04

before such a decision came down.

58:08

And if one was likely it made sense for us to know about it.

58:10

And so that we could start making approaches

58:14

to that government

58:16

rather than having a court order a release,

58:17

and then having to get on a plane the next day, go out there

58:19

and try to work out arrangements for them to come home.

58:23

And it just took forever to get Justice

58:28

to kind of focus on this.

58:30

And they really never did

58:32

during the Bush Administration,

58:34

but shifting this into this meaningful inter-agency process

58:37

that occurred after the change of administration

58:42

helped on that issue as well.

58:43

Interviewer

Can you tell us some

58:45

of the personnel in Justice that you're describing?

58:46

-

I don't recall most of the names

58:51

but it was from a variety of different offices,

58:54

the Office of Legal Counsel-

58:57

Interviewer

They were involved?

58:58

-

They were involved because of the litigation.

59:00

And there was a representative

59:06

from the Deputy Attorney General's office.

59:07

I just don't recall names really.

59:12

Interviewer

Was the CIA involved in these issues?

59:13

-

CIA was involved to a certain extent.

59:17

My recollection is that CIA

59:21

was rarely offering opinions on

59:26

whether somebody should be transferred or not.

59:28

And they were much more...

59:31

My recollection was much more of almost a technical role

59:35

of providing assessments on certain things,

59:40

whether it was the country receiving them

59:43

or on the individual involved

59:45

but it wasn't really an issue of CIA

59:48

kind of staking out ground

59:53

and saying, this person should go or not go.

59:54

Interviewer

If their assessment was a negative one,

59:56

would that be taken more seriously

59:59

say than an assessment from some another agency?

1:00:01

-

It's hard to say.

1:00:05

I think it depended on the totality of circumstances.

1:00:07

Interviewer

Okay, well, let's go into third party

1:00:11

because that is the most interesting in a way,

1:00:12

how do you persuade these countries to accept people.

1:00:14

And along those lines, I assume they ask you why

1:00:18

wouldn't America accept any?

1:00:22

So maybe you can just talk about that.

1:00:24

-

Yeah and this was...

1:00:26

And there were a number of individuals

1:00:28

that were at Guantanamo that were cleared for release

1:00:33

but we recognized that they could not go back

1:00:38

to their home country for whatever reason,

1:00:44

but usually because of concerns

1:00:46

about torture or mistreatment.

1:00:48

I've already mentioned the Chinese Uighurs

1:00:52

that fell into this category

1:00:54

but there were a significantly larger group of people

1:00:56

that fell into this category.

1:00:59

When I first came into office,

1:01:05

there were a group that the Department of Defense

1:01:08

had categorized as NLEC'S,

1:01:11

which was a bit of a misnomer,

1:01:15

but the acronym was No Longer Enemy Combatants.

1:01:17

So these were people that they had determined

1:01:22

there was no evidence for continued detention.

1:01:25

And this had been determined

1:01:28

in the internal DOD assessment process.

1:01:29

I say, it's a misnomer because they were effectively

1:01:36

saying there was no evidence that these persons

1:01:39

were ever enemy combatants,

1:01:41

but the the acronym they gave

1:01:43

was no longer enemy combatants.

1:01:45

And when I first came into office,

1:01:48

there were, I think, four of these individuals,

1:01:50

maybe five, I don't know.

1:01:53

It was somewhere between three and five.

1:01:57

And there was a lot of pressure to find a place

1:02:00

that would take these individuals.

1:02:03

And ultimately they were resettled in Albania.

1:02:05

So this was the first negotiation I did

1:02:08

for any kind of third-party transfer.

1:02:10

Thereafter, I continued to work

1:02:14

on getting the Uighurs resettled somewhere

1:02:19

and other individuals.

1:02:23

Some were Syrian, some of the Libyans,

1:02:25

I think there was a Sudanese.

1:02:29

There were a list of individuals

1:02:34

from a number of different countries.

1:02:36

And so we were going out

1:02:38

and trying to negotiate with countries

1:02:40

that might be willing to accept them.

1:02:43

Again, because we were concerned about

1:02:46

the human rights implications of sending

1:02:51

these people back to their home countries.

1:02:53

We were very concerned about the receiving country

1:02:58

being a place that had stellar human rights records.

1:03:03

So we were generally engaging European governments,

1:03:05

some other governments in Africa, in Latin America,

1:03:11

Australia, other places,

1:03:17

where we felt that they had

1:03:19

a very strong record on human rights.

1:03:21

And there were no concerns

1:03:22

about these people being abused.

1:03:24

So as you pointed out, the issue quickly became one,

1:03:28

when I would start these discussions

1:03:34

well, why won't the United States take them.

1:03:36

And there's no good answer to that question.

1:03:40

And this is a point that I raised very early on

1:03:46

in memos to Secretary Rice

1:03:51

and to the Deputy Secretary of state saying,

1:03:53

this is the most significant hurdle

1:03:56

to any type of diplomatic progress on these cases.

1:03:58

In fairness to them, to Deputy Secretary Negroponte

1:04:03

and Secretary Rice, they both recognized that.

1:04:07

And Secretary Rice became very much a proponent

1:04:10

for the US revising its policy in this regard.

1:04:14

And I went with her to a principals committee meeting

1:04:19

at the White House where she argued this,

1:04:22

quite forcefully and said,

1:04:24

"If we're expecting other countries to take these people,

1:04:27

we have to be willing to take some ourselves."

1:04:30

And I mean, it was shut down

1:04:34

and she, she said, "Look, that's fine

1:04:36

but you have to understand

1:04:39

that if you were unwilling to do this,

1:04:41

you are crippling our diplomatic efforts."

1:04:43

So we were constantly looking for countries

1:04:49

that might be willing to take people,

1:04:53

contacts were made with Pacific Islands

1:04:59

like Kiribas and Palau and other places.

1:05:02

But I was constantly raising this in Europe,

1:05:07

meeting with a number of European governments,

1:05:12

oftentimes at very senior levels.

1:05:16

And sometimes we would get into situations

1:05:20

where the Prime Minister's office

1:05:23

would be willing to do this

1:05:26

but didn't want the Foreign Ministry involved.

1:05:27

It was quite delicate diplomacy

1:05:31

because this was a very sensitive issue.

1:05:33

And particularly because of the unpopularity

1:05:37

of president Bush in Europe, it was a difficult sell.

1:05:40

As we got closer to the end of the Bush Administration,

1:05:46

I think a lot of these governments

1:05:52

were willing to talk to us about this

1:05:56

but had already decided at that point,

1:05:57

look we're not gonna make any decisions on this,

1:05:59

we're gonna wait.

1:06:02

And if we're gonna do a favor,

1:06:03

we're gonna do it for the new president.

1:06:04

After president Obama's election,

1:06:07

and the fact that he was quite popular in Europe,

1:06:12

a lot of governments

1:06:15

became much more receptive to this idea.

1:06:17

In the period between his election

1:06:20

and the end of the Bush Administration,

1:06:22

I had a lot of promising talks

1:06:26

with member state governments,

1:06:29

I'm sorry, with EU member state governments

1:06:32

and with the EU itself,

1:06:36

in trying to move this forward.

1:06:38

When people were being more forthright

1:06:43

they would basically say, look, Clint,

1:06:45

just wait until the administration changes

1:06:47

and then we'll be prepared to do something on this.

1:06:50

And when the administration did change,

1:06:53

I came into my office on January 21st of 2009,

1:06:58

I think I had five voicemail messages

1:07:03

from different governments saying,

1:07:05

okay we're willing to talk now.

1:07:07

So we very quickly went out

1:07:09

and I started engaging these governments.

1:07:12

During the transition I had made the argument,

1:07:16

as I had very early on in the Bush Administration,

1:07:20

that the responsibility for detainee

1:07:23

transfer negotiation should not rest

1:07:26

with the Ambassador for War Crimes

1:07:28

but that this should be a separate function.

1:07:29

They were both full-time jobs

1:07:32

and having a combined in one person

1:07:34

did a disservice to both functions.

1:07:36

I never gained a lot of traction with that

1:07:39

during the Bush Administration

1:07:41

but on the first day of the Obama Administration,

1:07:43

Secretary Clinton told me, "I agree, I get your point.

1:07:47

I think it's right, we're gonna switch this."

1:07:51

But she asked me to continue doing it

1:07:55

because of my institutional knowledge

1:07:57

until they had somebody in place.

1:07:59

So I did continue working on it through March,

1:08:01

well, actually through may of 2009.

1:08:05

Dan freed, who came in as a full-time Guantanamo

1:08:07

Special Envoy was named in March.

1:08:11

But in between the point that he was named

1:08:14

and was able to switch over into the job in May,

1:08:16

I continued doing a lot of the overseas engagement.

1:08:20

Dan started going to meetings in Washington,

1:08:23

but a lot of the contacts with foreign governments,

1:08:26

at least outside of Washington,

1:08:30

was still being done by me.

1:08:32

During that time, we worked a lot with France

1:08:37

and they were in fact the first European country

1:08:41

to agree to take someone.

1:08:44

And this took place shortly before I disengaged with this.

1:08:46

We had had extensive negotiations

1:08:50

with the French government in Paris,

1:08:52

and then with their ambassador in Washington.

1:09:00

And they notified us that they would be willing

1:09:03

to take an individual.

1:09:06

And so a lot of these things we had worked on

1:09:09

and then Dan was able to continue this process

1:09:12

after he came into the role.

1:09:15

Interviewer

Just going back to the beginning

1:09:17

of your tenure when you were looking at third countries,

1:09:19

when they did say to you,

1:09:23

why wouldn't US take them,

1:09:25

did you report to them, well look,

1:09:26

Secretary Rice tried and she was turned down.

1:09:29

-

Usually my position on this

1:09:35

was that the US has taken on the responsibility

1:09:37

for a number of these individuals.

1:09:43

And there are some that are gonna be very difficult

1:09:45

to deal with over time

1:09:47

because of the security threat that they pose,

1:09:50

the unwillingness of countries to take them.

1:09:52

The United States will ultimately

1:09:55

have to find a solution for these people

1:09:57

that will probably involve the US

1:09:59

taking responsibility for them.

1:10:01

And so, as a result, the US is going to have responsibility

1:10:03

for the worst of these people.

1:10:07

What we're asking you to do is help us out as a partner

1:10:08

and take on some of the responsibility

1:10:13

for the people who post the least risk.

1:10:14

In particularly, in the form of the Chinese Uighurs.

1:10:16

Interviewer

Did people hear that?

1:10:19

-

I had a couple of people say it's a very clever argument,

1:10:21

but, ultimately where...

1:10:24

I think their concerns were largely domestic

1:10:27

and what I recognized

1:10:31

and certainly that Secretary Rice recognized,

1:10:34

was that, and it was true even

1:10:38

during the Obama Administration as well,

1:10:41

we really were in a very difficult

1:10:44

negotiating position with this.

1:10:48

We had no incentive to offer countries to do this

1:10:50

and we had no leverage to bring to bear.

1:10:53

So it was really just asking countries to do this

1:10:55

out of their goodwill toward the United States.

1:10:58

And the period in the immediate aftermath

1:11:02

of the change to the Obama Administration

1:11:06

presented perhaps the best window

1:11:08

for moving this forward,

1:11:10

because countries were, I think inclined to do favors

1:11:11

for the new president.

1:11:16

And also if they were gonna do this,

1:11:17

it was the time to do it,

1:11:21

where they have somebody who's gonna be in office

1:11:22

for the next four, perhaps eight years.

1:11:23

So they get the credit with him,

1:11:25

rather than with somebody who's on his way out the door.

1:11:27

Interviewer

I have heard from several people

1:11:31

that the US did give money along with the detainees

1:11:34

to help resettle them.

1:11:36

Is that true?

1:11:39

And is that incentive at all?

1:11:40

-

There were certainly some funds

1:11:45

that went with transfers to help with transition

1:11:50

and that sort of thing,

1:11:52

but this would not rise to the level

1:11:54

I think, of getting any government

1:11:56

to make a decision that they saw

1:11:58

against their national interest.

1:12:00

It was more providing the costs that the government

1:12:03

would otherwise bear for housing these people,

1:12:08

for getting them resettled, that kind of thing.

1:12:10

So I don't think you had huge amounts of money

1:12:13

that were going to governments

1:12:17

in the form of a bribe, that type of thing.

1:12:19

Interviewer

You mentioned the Uighurs several times

1:12:22

can we talk more about them,

1:12:24

my understanding is the reason why they didn't end up

1:12:25

in countries they were interested in being in

1:12:29

is because China exhibited incredible pressure

1:12:32

on countries not to take the Chinese Uighurs.

1:12:34

-

Mhh.

1:12:36

Interviewer

Did you know that at the time?

1:12:37

was there anything you could do?

1:12:38

-

Yeah, we were very aware of that.

1:12:40

And for example, with Albania which had taken

1:12:46

some of the Uighurs initially,

1:12:49

and then I approached later about

1:12:51

these other third country transfers.

1:12:54

They were very clear that

1:12:59

because of the political pressure

1:13:00

that had been brought to bear by China,

1:13:02

that they were not inclined to look

1:13:04

at further transfers of Uighurs there.

1:13:05

A number of governments that we talked to made it clear

1:13:10

that as soon as the Chinese became aware

1:13:12

that they were considering this,

1:13:16

they were in the door right behind us

1:13:18

and saying this will have huge implications

1:13:20

on your relationship with China, if you do this.

1:13:22

So it did have a negative impact on,

1:13:26

I think, on the number of governments

1:13:29

that might've been favorably inclined to do it.

1:13:30

Interviewer

And you couldn't negotiate

1:13:35

with China on that, I guess is non-negotiable.

1:13:36

-

China's view was we want these people back end of story.

1:13:39

And they were very open on saying that these people

1:13:46

were terrorists and would be subjected to prosecution

1:13:51

and even possibly the death penalty.

1:13:55

So they just took a very strong line on that

1:13:58

and they weren't prepared to enter

1:14:02

into any kind of negotiations on it.

1:14:04

Interviewer

Two Uighurs,

1:14:06

after your leaving the office,

1:14:07

two Uighurs were sent to El Salvador,

1:14:10

that's the only time someone was sent to South America

1:14:13

and presumably China tried to influence that

1:14:16

and didn't succeed.

1:14:19

Do you know anything about that?

1:14:20

-

I wasn't even aware that any had gone to El Salvador.

1:14:21

We had engaged a number of Latin American governments

1:14:25

but had gotten very little resonance.

1:14:29

Interviewer

Why is that?

1:14:32

Why didn't Latin America want to accept these people?

1:14:33

-

I think, again, it goes back to the point

1:14:39

I made a minute ago that governments

1:14:43

just ask what's in this for us.

1:14:46

There was no real incentive

1:14:49

that the United States could offer.

1:14:50

There was no leverage that we could bring to bear.

1:14:53

President Bush tended to be rather unpopular

1:14:59

in certainly in Europe,

1:15:01

in Latin America as well, to an extent.

1:15:03

So taking people, even if it was done

1:15:09

as a humanitarian gesture,

1:15:12

a lot of governments were concerned

1:15:18

that that would be seen as somehow aligning themselves

1:15:19

with a policy that was very distasteful to their public

1:15:23

and with a president that was not popular there.

1:15:26

So I think for most of these governments

1:15:30

it was just, this is not something we wanna get involved in,

1:15:32

the best thing we can do is stay away from it.

1:15:37

But this is something again,

1:15:40

where I had worked a lot with human rights NGOs

1:15:42

and they were actually very helpful on this,

1:15:45

where particularly with European governments

1:15:47

who seemed open to the idea of getting human rights NGOs

1:15:50

to also engage them and say,

1:15:54

this would be a humanitarian gesture

1:15:57

to take people for resettlement.

1:15:59

So we very much tried to couch it in those terms.

1:16:01

And I think that was an accurate depiction

1:16:03

of what we were doing,

1:16:06

but all politics are local

1:16:08

and decisions on these things always came down to

1:16:10

whether they thought this was a policy

1:16:15

they could sell domestically or not.

1:16:17

And ultimately during president Bush's tenure,

1:16:18

I think most of them felt it was not.

1:16:22

Some who were certainly open to discussing it

1:16:25

all the way through the Bush Administration,

1:16:29

changed quite drastically once President Obama

1:16:32

came into office and ultimately

1:16:35

some of those countries did take people.

1:16:37

Johnny

Can we possibly extend?

1:16:39

Interviewer

Sure, if you need a break

1:16:42

just let me know so that Johnny can change the...

1:16:43

We can?

1:16:47

Johnny

Yeah.

1:16:48

Interviewer

Okay, I wanna just go into one other part

1:16:49

of the world that you did mention

1:16:51

and that's Asia, you approached Japan or Korea

1:16:53

or maybe the South Asian countries?

1:16:57

-

We did have contact

1:17:02

with some of the Asian governments as well,

1:17:03

and certainly Australia

1:17:08

and some of the Pacific Islands.

1:17:11

But again, it was the same issue.

1:17:16

I don't think it was so much an antipathy

1:17:19

toward President Bush as more an issue

1:17:21

of this is not something we're involved in.

1:17:24

Why don't we wanna get involved.

1:17:30

In the case of the Uighurs,

1:17:34

it would have been particularly sensitive in Asia

1:17:36

because of China's just dominant presence in the region.

1:17:38

So I don't recall that we engaged

1:17:43

any mainland Asia governments about taking the Uighurs.

1:17:46

Interviewer

Or even other nationalities?

1:17:53

-

We did talk to them about other nationalities,

1:17:56

but again, as I said, I I just think

1:17:59

there was an unwillingness for them to get involved

1:18:02

in something which they felt was distant from them.

1:18:05

Interviewer

You said you might, when talking about

1:18:10

the internal dynamics that-

1:18:11

-

Yeah, on the decision-making yeah

1:18:13

with third country governments,

1:18:16

the thing that we would find in this was even the case

1:18:20

after President Obama took office,

1:18:25

is that oftentimes we would get resonance in our requests

1:18:28

with the head of government,

1:18:36

with the Prime Minister, or the President Chancellor,

1:18:39

and with the Foreign Ministry.

1:18:44

They understood the foreign policy implications

1:18:46

of doing this, of closing Guantanamo.

1:18:48

If this was a good thing,

1:18:51

that this was good for the relationship

1:18:53

with the United States,

1:18:56

but oftentimes you would get to that point

1:18:59

and then as soon as it would get into the justice

1:19:03

and security structures within a government,

1:19:07

you would have immediate opposition to this.

1:19:09

The police would start raising concerns

1:19:13

about the impact of having somebody like this

1:19:16

coming into the country.

1:19:19

And what sort of resources

1:19:20

would be required to monitor them?

1:19:23

You would have the immigration authorities protesting

1:19:26

and saying, well, this person doesn't fit any

1:19:30

of our criteria for immigration or for asylum,

1:19:32

because they have some links to terrorism.

1:19:37

And, in most cases, the people had some arguable links.

1:19:40

They were saying, we have an absolute prohibition

1:19:44

under the law from taking them into the country.

1:19:47

So it was much easier to connect with the foreign ministries

1:19:50

who understood this from the foreign policy perspective.

1:19:56

It was much more difficult

1:20:00

because in each of these countries,

1:20:02

you ultimately had to have this type of inter-agency

1:20:03

consensus, as we would have in the US

1:20:06

and the Justice ministries, the Interior ministries,

1:20:09

the Immigration authorities

1:20:12

were all adamantly opposed to it.

1:20:13

And we ran into the same dynamic internally with the EU,

1:20:17

where we were trying to get individual countries

1:20:22

to agree to take people

1:20:31

and we had engaged a number of countries like Lithuania,

1:20:34

like France, like Germany, Ireland,

1:20:37

with the idea of of getting them to agree to take people,

1:20:42

where we would then go back to the EU

1:20:48

and say, all right, we need an organizational blessing

1:20:51

for this, which we hoped would within open the door

1:20:56

for other EU member States to take people.

1:20:59

But it was somewhat difficult

1:21:03

just trying to balance this out

1:21:08

because it really presented a chicken and egg situation.

1:21:10

A lot of countries did not wanna do it,

1:21:13

until there was some sort of EU wide agreement on it.

1:21:15

But on the other hand,

1:21:20

it was very difficult to get an EU wide agreement,

1:21:22

until you had some individual States

1:21:24

that were actually willing to do it

1:21:26

because they're saying

1:21:27

why should we agree to this in theory,

1:21:28

are we then all going to be obligated?

1:21:30

So this ended up in somewhat protracted discussions.

1:21:33

I'm sorry, just to Sean, if you wanna get across.

1:21:36

Man

Yeah.

1:21:39

(Clint laughs)

1:21:40

Interviewer

Did you talk to these other agencies

1:21:44

in these other countries as well,

1:21:46

when you heard that there was resistance

1:21:47

from Immigration or Justice in these nations,

1:21:49

did you then try to...?

1:21:52

-

It depended, there were a number of countries

1:21:55

where my involvement was only with the Foreign Ministry

1:22:00

and or the Prime Minister's office.

1:22:05

There were some countries where we went

1:22:09

and they had the whole

1:22:12

inter-agency contingent present there.

1:22:13

Lithuania was one, Hungary was one

1:22:17

and there were other countries,

1:22:21

particularly where we were doing repatriations,

1:22:23

as opposed to third country transfers,

1:22:26

where we would deal directly with the Interior Ministry

1:22:28

and Justice Ministry as well,

1:22:31

particularly in the Middle East and in North Africa.

1:22:33

So it really just varied from state to state

1:22:36

and how much they wanted to involve other parties.

1:22:39

Interviewer

You know, this is, I keep thinking of this.

1:22:43

Did you find your job fulfilling?

1:22:47

-

(laughs) (sighs) I certainly found the work

1:22:49

on the war crimes issues very fulfilling.

1:22:58

I was encouraged whenever we were able to make progress

1:23:04

on the Guantanamo front,

1:23:08

but as an issue, I found it incredibly frustrating.

1:23:10

I think during the Bush Administration

1:23:16

it was largely because of just the way the process worked,

1:23:19

the lack of the State Department having what I thought

1:23:24

was a real voice in all of the decision-making

1:23:29

and the constraints that were put on our diplomacy

1:23:38

because of the unwillingness to accept people in the US.

1:23:40

I found it much less frustrating

1:23:45

after the change of administration,

1:23:47

but it was also in a period when all of these things

1:23:49

were being worked out.

1:23:54

And I was frustrated to the extent

1:23:56

that I thought we had a limited window of opportunity

1:24:01

for taking advantage of President Obama

1:24:06

coming into office to engage these governments

1:24:13

and to make progress on it.

1:24:16

And that it was somewhat slow

1:24:18

getting to the point that we needed to be,

1:24:20

to follow up with some of these governments.

1:24:22

Interviewer

Well, did you think of staying

1:24:25

in that position yourself,

1:24:27

since you'd had all the institutional knowledge

1:24:28

and you move things faster?

1:24:30

-

No, my preference was from day one

1:24:33

to do the war crimes issues work.

1:24:38

This is where my background was,

1:24:41

and that's the reason I took the job, was to focus on that.

1:24:43

So, I was interested in seeing this issue resolved.

1:24:49

I thought it was and still is in the US national interest

1:24:53

to put this chapter behind us.

1:24:58

So I was happy to help with it, to the extent I could

1:25:01

but it was not something I was interested

1:25:04

in continuing to do.

1:25:07

Interviewer

Did you think Obama

1:25:08

would succeed in closing Guantanamo

1:25:10

when he announced on day two that he was going to?

1:25:11

-

I was hopeful but I thought it would be very difficult.

1:25:18

The discussions that I had had during the transition period,

1:25:24

with the transition team

1:25:28

and I knew many of these people from before

1:25:29

and had a very good working relationship with them.

1:25:31

We all recognized that there was...

1:25:38

Even if we approach this in the way that we were suggesting,

1:25:42

there was still going to be a number of people

1:25:45

that were going to be very difficult to deal in Guantanamo.

1:25:47

That there were individuals for whom there was very little

1:25:50

evidence that would allow for a criminal prosecution

1:25:56

but there were strong indications

1:25:59

that these people posed a serious threat

1:26:01

and it's difficult to figure out

1:26:03

what you do with those people.

1:26:07

So the advice that I had given during the transition period

1:26:10

was very much along I think the lines of their own thinking

1:26:17

and what was actually done,

1:26:20

of looking at the detainees in different groups.

1:26:22

Where you have certain individuals that are already cleared

1:26:27

for release that are low threat,

1:26:32

that you can potentially find places to relocate them.

1:26:35

Other individuals that are of a more moderate threat level

1:26:40

that might take some harder work

1:26:45

but that you can find places for.

1:26:47

Some that would be amenable to criminal prosecution.

1:26:48

And then you still had this final category

1:26:52

that would be very difficult to deal with.

1:26:54

I think everybody went into this,

1:26:58

including the administration,

1:26:59

with the idea that if you got rid of the other groups

1:27:01

and you narrowed this down to a smaller number,

1:27:05

that somehow it would be easier to find a solution for them.

1:27:09

But the bottom line is no one knew

1:27:12

exactly what that solution would be at that point

1:27:14

and never had during the Bush Administration.

1:27:17

And that's still gonna be the problem with closing it.

1:27:19

Interviewer

I wanna get back to that,

1:27:23

take it a little bit more back to your thoughts on that.

1:27:25

But one question going back,

1:27:28

and then I wanna ask you about visiting Guantanamo,

1:27:29

when Secretary Rice suggested to the principals

1:27:32

that we need to be more positive at the presence

1:27:36

as you described before,

1:27:41

did anybody else support her on her position?

1:27:43

-

There were some, but I don't recall exactly who it was.

1:27:49

There were some on the White House staff,

1:27:54

I think, who were who were supportive of that.

1:27:56

And actually from the Defense Department,

1:28:00

I think some of the uniformed people

1:28:04

were more supportive from Joint Chiefs of Staff

1:28:06

but I don't recall specifically.

1:28:11

The Vice-President's office was certainly opposed

1:28:15

and I think the Justice Department, Homeland Security,

1:28:18

the people that had concerns

1:28:24

about the security implications of this.

1:28:26

Interviewer

So you visited Guantanamo twice.

1:28:29

When was that and what were your expectations

1:28:31

and then how did they translate into what you actually saw?

1:28:35

-

I did go twice.

1:28:39

I don't recall exactly when it was.

1:28:40

I think the first time I went was probably 2007

1:28:43

and then I went back either 2008 or 2009.

1:28:49

Interviewer

Why did you go?

1:28:54

-

I wanted to see them see the facility.

1:28:56

I'm going out, I'm talking

1:28:58

with other governments about this.

1:29:00

On occasion, my interlocutors in foreign governments

1:29:02

had actually been in visited Guantanamo.

1:29:05

So I felt that I was at a bit of a disadvantage

1:29:07

having not seen it myself.

1:29:10

My impression was that,

1:29:14

it looked like a a clean well-run detention facility.

1:29:20

What my biggest concern about it though,

1:29:27

was that the presentation that was done

1:29:31

when you would go there

1:29:36

was very much focused on people not being mistreated,

1:29:38

people being given access to the Koran,

1:29:42

people being given three good meals a day,

1:29:46

being given dental care

1:29:48

and medical care and all of this.

1:29:51

And I think all of that was true.

1:29:53

But the point that I made in talking to people

1:29:57

is that the concerns about Guantanamo

1:30:00

have moved on, while there were a lot of allegations

1:30:03

at the outset about mistreatment,

1:30:08

that's not the primary concern

1:30:12

of people at this point in time.

1:30:14

It's more just the indefinite status

1:30:15

and the fact that there's no resolution of what's happening

1:30:17

to these individuals over the long term.

1:30:22

And your presentation is still very much focused

1:30:25

on the type of concerns that were raised in 2002, 2003,

1:30:28

when they were kept in much worse conditions

1:30:33

and subject to perhaps different treatment.

1:30:37

So I think this was a failure

1:30:41

on people there to understand how the debate had moved on

1:30:45

and what type of concerns were out there,

1:30:50

not only in the American public,

1:30:54

but in the global community as well.

1:30:55

Interviewer

Did they hear you?

1:30:58

-

I don't know, I wasn't back after that.

1:31:00

So I don't know if the presentation changed I doubt it.

1:31:02

Interviewer

Did you have different expectations

1:31:05

before you arrived?

1:31:08

-

Not really, I didn't expect

1:31:12

to see people being mistreated.

1:31:17

I was not expecting to see things that would horrify me

1:31:23

about the conditions or anything like that.

1:31:28

I had perhaps different images of Guantanamo as a place.

1:31:34

I wasn't expecting it to be so desert like.

1:31:38

I thought it would be much more of a tropical

1:31:40

kind of verdant rain forest.

1:31:42

So I had different impressions of the place itself.

1:31:45

But in terms of the way things operated

1:31:49

and kind of the professionalism of the operation,

1:31:51

I expected pretty much what I saw.

1:31:54

Interviewer

Did you talk to detainees?

1:31:56

-

No.

1:31:58

Interviewer

Were you permitted to?

1:31:59

-

No, no, I mean they had made clear

1:32:01

before we went down there

1:32:07

that we would have no access to detainees.

1:32:08

Interviewer

Who's we?

1:32:10

-

Whoever was in our group.

1:32:12

I went with an inter-agency group,

1:32:13

I think from the Defense Department and others.

1:32:16

And we were told you're gonna have a tour of the facility

1:32:20

and we'll give an explanation

1:32:23

and we'll do a slide show

1:32:25

and all of this.

1:32:27

And you can talk to staff

1:32:29

but there would be no contact with detainees.

1:32:33

And so that was the case on both visits.

1:32:37

Interviewer

You mentioned earlier

1:32:44

that to countries around the world

1:32:45

that Guantanamo was much bigger,

1:32:50

much more of an image than it is to the US.

1:32:51

I just wanna confirm that,

1:32:54

and we have a few more questions

1:32:55

but that seems to be important

1:32:57

that a lot of the world sees Guantanamo

1:33:00

as a real lot on human rights

1:33:04

in their perspective of what it represents.

1:33:06

But the US citizens don't seem to see it that way.

1:33:09

From your inside perspective, why is that?

1:33:13

If that's true.

1:33:20

-

Well, I'm not sure that it's possible

1:33:22

to paint with that broad of a brush, everywhere.

1:33:28

I thinK there's certainly people in the United States

1:33:32

that are very concerned about this

1:33:35

and I think there's some people in foreign governments

1:33:38

in foreign countries who also,

1:33:42

although they may not say it publicly,

1:33:45

have certainly expressed privately

1:33:48

that they thought this might not be such a bad thing,

1:33:49

that you have to deal with security threats

1:33:54

one way or another.

1:33:56

So, as I say, I think it's hard

1:34:00

to categorize it so universally.

1:34:03

But I think from the US perspective,

1:34:10

the Genesis of this, in the aftermath 9/11,

1:34:12

when people were very concerned about the security situation

1:34:16

and just felt like this was the only way

1:34:22

that we could deal with it.

1:34:24

They perhaps formed opinions about Guantanamo at that point

1:34:29

and never have gone back

1:34:32

and revisited that from the perspective

1:34:33

of time that has passed.

1:34:35

A lot of people may just not understand

1:34:39

what's involved or not involved.

1:34:42

The people may be comfortable with the idea

1:34:45

that the military commissions

1:34:53

or the processes that were set up

1:34:54

were delivering effective due process.

1:34:57

Guantanamo also suffered from extreme views

1:35:07

that came out about this on both sides.

1:35:13

I think the view on the left

1:35:16

that all of these people were scooped up without reason

1:35:19

and just trundled off to this camp without any evidence

1:35:23

was not correct.

1:35:27

There are some bad guys that are there.

1:35:28

Likewise, the view on the right,

1:35:31

that every one of these people was a terrorist

1:35:33

and this was the only way to deal

1:35:35

with them was also incorrect.

1:35:37

But I think the bigger problem

1:35:41

was maybe that the way that our whole approach

1:35:47

to counter-terrorism was formulated as this war on terror.

1:35:51

And this idea that having a detention facility,

1:35:59

where you can detain 200 or 600 or 700 people,

1:36:02

that this was an effective tool for combating terrorism.

1:36:08

It's looking at it from the perspective

1:36:12

of conventional warfare,

1:36:14

where I'm taking a battalion off the battlefield

1:36:16

and putting them in a prison camp.

1:36:20

And again, you were getting some very bad guys.

1:36:24

Some people there that were capable of orchestrating

1:36:27

a large-scale terror event,

1:36:32

and that threat had to be addressed one way or another,

1:36:34

whether this was the appropriate way, I can't say.

1:36:38

But you had to do something about that threat.

1:36:40

But for some of the people that were there, at least,

1:36:44

they're not significantly different

1:36:49

from a million other disaffected young men

1:36:53

in the Middle East and North Africa,

1:36:55

that you can't lock them all up.

1:36:57

And so this idea that having Guantanamo

1:37:00

was gonna solve this problem,

1:37:03

I think was flawed from that perspective.

1:37:06

But a lot of the views that were formed in Europe

1:37:10

and elsewhere were also driven by these misunderstandings,

1:37:16

either those people who were against it

1:37:21

because they felt like everybody was there was innocent

1:37:23

or those who were supportive,

1:37:27

because everybody there was a bad guy.

1:37:28

And I just think this lack of information

1:37:31

and the emotion that has been attached to discussion

1:37:34

on this issue since day one

1:37:38

has affected the the different views that have emerged.

1:37:40

But generally speaking, most of the people

1:37:46

with whom I was negotiating

1:37:49

and that I was talking about,

1:37:50

looked at this in a very rational way,

1:37:52

and they understood the US security concerns.

1:37:54

They understood what had led to this.

1:37:59

They also understood their domestic public opinion

1:38:02

that was at play on this.

1:38:06

So all of these things factored into the willingness

1:38:08

of governments to engage,

1:38:10

but ultimately, almost every government

1:38:12

was willing to keep talking about it.

1:38:14

I can't think of a single situation

1:38:15

where I had a government slam the door in my face

1:38:18

and just say, we're not gonna discuss this.

1:38:20

Interviewer

Do you think our human rights record

1:38:23

has changed over this last decade because of Guantanamo.

1:38:25

Since you were an international representative for the US

1:38:29

and you still have many people in Guantanamo.

1:38:33

-

Guantanamo was certainly a black eye for the US.

1:38:37

Abu Ghraib was a black eye for the US

1:38:39

and I would have these questions

1:38:44

posed to me frequently, as Ambassador for War Crimes,

1:38:46

where putting aside my Guantanamo role,

1:38:49

I was going around and advocating for accountability

1:38:54

for human rights abuses in war crimes.

1:38:57

And the point that I often made

1:39:00

when I would talk to foreign audiences about this

1:39:05

is yes you've had these things

1:39:08

that have been problems in the US

1:39:11

but these have been the subject

1:39:14

of a very spirited public debate.

1:39:16

You've had Congress involved,

1:39:18

you've had the media involved,

1:39:20

you've had different views emerge within government,

1:39:22

these issues have factored into elections.

1:39:26

And when you look at a place like Iraq,

1:39:30

where you've had, at that point it was something

1:39:33

like 75 soldiers prosecuted for serious crimes.

1:39:38

Some of them even facing the death penalty.

1:39:44

If a lot of the governments that we were going

1:39:47

and engaging on these human rights issues

1:39:50

would take the same sort of approach

1:39:53

about dealing with abuses by their militaries,

1:39:55

then I wouldn't be here making these arguments

1:39:58

and that at the end of the day,

1:40:01

the US does have a very robust civil society,

1:40:03

a press Corps, that's very interested

1:40:10

in getting to the truth on these things.

1:40:12

Congress, that's willing to ask hard questions

1:40:14

and a very viable justice system

1:40:18

and concept of rule of law.

1:40:20

So while yes, these things have given the us a black eye,

1:40:23

you have to look at it into the global context

1:40:29

of how we approach these issues

1:40:31

and how we deal with them.

1:40:33

Interviewer

Should we close Guantanamo?

1:40:36

-

Yeah, I think so, okay.

1:40:38

Interviewer

(laughs) Because?

1:40:39

-

Oh, I'm sorry, (laughs), I thought you were asking

1:40:42

if we should close the interview.

1:40:44

Sorry, okay.

1:40:46

Interviewer

We are closing in just a moment.

1:40:47

-

I thought you were asking... (laughs)

1:40:48

Should we close Guantanamo?

1:40:50

Yes, the thing is Guantanamo could be the most well-run

1:40:51

detention facility on the face of the earth,

1:41:08

with the most humane standards

1:41:11

for the people that are housed there

1:41:13

but there will always be a certain stigma

1:41:15

associated with it, and it will always

1:41:17

have a negative impact on on the US image.

1:41:23

I have big concerns about these open-ended

1:41:30

undefined detentions that take place.

1:41:35

I think we need as a country to find a way

1:41:37

of dealing with these issues otherwise.

1:41:41

But I recognize the difficulties in getting it closed

1:41:48

and of dealing with this small group

1:41:51

of really dangerous people that are there,

1:41:56

but it has gotten caught up in a partisan fight,

1:42:01

which makes it very difficult to resolve.

1:42:08

I don't have any easy answers

1:42:13

on how you get from where we are right now to closure.

1:42:14

But I think that it really takes a recognition

1:42:19

by all of those involved that the stereotypes

1:42:22

that were created on the far left

1:42:27

and the far right were not necessarily accurate,

1:42:30

that there is a much more nuanced story

1:42:33

that's involved here,

1:42:36

but that ultimately it's not

1:42:38

in the US interest to keep this facility open.

1:42:39

And we need to find a way to bridge those divides

1:42:41

and reach agreement on how to close it.

1:42:46

Interviewer

Well, it seems time's up.

1:42:50

Is there something I didn't ask you

1:42:51

that you were thinking maybe you'd like to share?

1:42:52

-

No, I think that's it.

1:42:55

Sean, anything you can think of. (laughs)

1:42:57

Interviewer

Johnny, is there something

1:42:58

that you can think of?

1:43:01

Johnny

One quick question,

1:43:02

I was curious about the process by which,

1:43:04

the logistics by which people got released

1:43:06

to other countries, and it's many things we've talked to

1:43:09

have talked about going alone,

1:43:14

or maybe with one other person.

1:43:16

And I was wondering if that in your experience

1:43:19

if that's been the case

1:43:22

and if so, why was that?

1:43:23

Because that was just the logistics of it,

1:43:24

we got a plane, we've got two seats on it

1:43:26

or was there a larger motive to not release a lot of people

1:43:29

to a single country at once

1:43:34

because of fears of recidivism

1:43:36

and sort of...

1:43:38

(indistinct)

1:43:41

-

Yeah, the latter points you made apply

1:43:42

to a certain extent.

1:43:54

There were concerns about sending

1:43:55

too many people back at once

1:43:58

that you didn't kind of overload the system

1:44:00

in a given country,

1:44:03

but that was largely driven

1:44:04

from the receiving country as well.

1:44:06

They did not want huge numbers of these people

1:44:08

streaming off the plane at one time.

1:44:11

So there was, it was really driven more than anything

1:44:13

by who was eligible for release

1:44:20

and who the country was willing to receive.

1:44:24

So the way that this would work,

1:44:28

we would go, we would have negotiations with the government.

1:44:29

If we would reach agreement on one

1:44:33

or more individuals going back,

1:44:37

we would then follow up in the embassy

1:44:39

and the Department of Defense

1:44:41

would largely do the followup discussions

1:44:44

at lower levels to work out the logistics

1:44:47

of getting the people back.

1:44:51

The Department of Defense was involved

1:44:53

because they were the ones providing the aircraft.

1:44:55

And the embassy would work with the people

1:44:58

in the country to who were receiving them

1:45:01

and just figure out the best time

1:45:03

and which airport to use

1:45:05

and all of that.

1:45:08

So it was really a joint agreement as to the numbers

1:45:10

and the timing and everything

1:45:14

as to how people would be moved.

1:45:15

Interviewer

So these are really quick questions

1:45:17

but this answers a lot of what people have been telling us.

1:45:19

So did you ever fly in one of these planes back?

1:45:22

-

No.

1:45:24

Interviewer

So a lot of detainees told us

1:45:26

that they were flown back to their countries,

1:45:28

hooded and blindfolded

1:45:30

and just like the main were taken from Bodrum

1:45:33

or kind of had to Guantanamo

1:45:36

but why would that be if they were released?

1:45:38

That was a DOD decision?

1:45:41

-

Yeah, I mean, I was only aware of that.

1:45:42

I honestly have not heard that before.

1:45:47

And I I don't know what the circumstances were.

1:45:50

Interviewer

Those were logistics

1:45:53

that your weren't involved in

1:45:54

because you were with the State Department?

1:45:55

-

The embassies would be involved

1:46:00

to the extent of working out with the receiving officials

1:46:02

and notifying them that, on some occasions,

1:46:07

notifying them that a plane will be coming

1:46:11

at such and such time

1:46:13

and with this individual

1:46:15

that we have previously agreed will come back.

1:46:18

In some circumstances, those discussions were actually done

1:46:21

from the Department of Defense

1:46:24

to the Ministry of Defense

1:46:25

in the receiving country,

1:46:27

but the actual affecting of the transfer,

1:46:30

we had nothing to do with,

1:46:35

and we're not involved in that at all.

1:46:37

Interviewer

Interesting.

1:46:40

This has been really helpful for us

1:46:42

and it really gives us a wonderful perspective

1:46:43

and Chia needs 20 seconds of room tone before we end the-

1:46:46

-

What is room tone?

1:46:53

Johnny

That's where we all sit quietly

1:46:54

in silence for 20 seconds,

1:46:56

-

Okay.

1:46:57

Johnny

And listen to the sound of the room.

1:46:58

Begin room tone.

1:47:00

End room tone.

1:47:15

ClintWilliamson.mov

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