Nakhleh, Emile - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Cameraman

Rolling.

0:05

Interviewer

Okay, good afternoon.

0:05

We are very grateful to you

0:08

for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo Project.

0:10

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:13

and involvement with the issues around Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,

0:16

and we are hoping to provide you an opportunity

0:21

to tell your story in your own words.

0:24

We are creating an archive of stories

0:27

so that people in America and around the world

0:29

will have a better understanding of what you and others

0:33

have observed and experienced.

0:36

Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo

0:41

and by telling your story you're contributing to history

0:45

and we are very grateful

0:49

for your willingness to speak with us today.

0:51

If anytime, during the interview,

0:54

you'd like to take a break, please let us know.

0:55

Otherwise, if there's anything else that you feel

1:03

that we ask you'd rather than not answer,

1:05

feel free not to answer.

1:07

And also we can remove anything you say

1:09

that you would like us to remove

1:11

if you feel uncomfortable about that.

1:13

-

Okay. Thank you.

1:15

Interviewer

And I'd like to begin

1:16

by asking you your name, a little background,

1:17

your country of origin,

1:19

your hometown and your birth date and age, if that's okay.

1:22

-

My name is Emile Nakhleh.

1:28

I was born in Galilee, just outside Nazareth.

1:31

At the time it was Palestine.

1:36

I grew up, I spent few years in Israel.

1:38

I went to high school in Nazareth

1:42

and after high school I came to this country to study.

1:44

I went to St. John's University in Minnesota

1:49

for undergraduate, Georgetown for the MA,

1:53

and American University in Washington for the doctorate.

1:56

And then I taught at a Catholic school

2:00

called Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland for 26 years.

2:03

I came here by myself to study.

2:11

My older brother had been already here.

2:15

And so he got his PhD in physics.

2:18

I get my PhD in political science.

2:20

My son got his PhD in physics

2:23

and he works in in Albuquerque, New Mexico

2:26

at Sandia National Lab.

2:28

-

Do you mind telling us when you were born

2:33

and how old you are-

2:34

Interviewer

I was born in 1938.

2:35

So next month I will be 75 years old.

2:37

Interviewer

Happy birthday.

2:40

-

Thank you, in May.

2:41

Interviewer

And what languages do you speak?

2:43

-

I grew up speaking Arabic and later on Hebrew in schools,

2:46

and I studied here, Farsi at work.

2:53

So I kind of speak elementary,

2:57

introductory Farsi or Persian.

3:00

Interviewer

And you're married with?

3:04

-

I am married to Ilonka Lessnau.

3:06

She was born in Berlin, her parents and she and her brother

3:11

migrated to Australia in the early '50s.

3:16

So she grew up in Australia,

3:20

but then they went to Canada for a year.

3:24

Then she went to Africa and worked with

3:26

the Canadian cardinal to help handicapped children,

3:28

spent four years in the Cameroons.

3:33

And then she went to France and studied for two years.

3:36

So she speaks of course, German, French, English

3:40

and Arabic, like a native.

3:44

Now you would ask why Arabic?

3:48

Then while she was studying in France

3:50

then she went as a Catholic auxiliary to Nazareth

3:52

to work with a Catholic priest

3:56

to set up a center for Christian families and children.

3:58

That priest then developed, who had studied in France,

4:03

developed MS, and so she became a total care giver

4:08

as the MS deteriorated, it increased.

4:13

And so she spent 17 years with that Catholic priest,

4:18

working with him and then taking care of him.

4:24

That Catholic priest was my brother.

4:28

So I got to know her through that.

4:30

Interviewer

What a story.

4:32

-

And I have a sister who is a nun who is a principal

4:34

of the best girls school in Palestine,

4:37

Jordan, West Bank, and Jerusalem.

4:41

It is in Jerusalem.

4:43

So she's been a principal of that school for 30 years.

4:44

Interviewer

It's still-

4:48

-

It's still, it's one of the,

4:49

truly the best girls school.

4:52

It's K through 12.

4:54

Interviewer

And just for cameras,

4:56

so you were raised Catholic?

4:58

-

I was raised Catholic and my family goes back centuries

4:59

as a Christian family.

5:06

Interviewer

And can you tell us a little bit

5:09

about your background after you got your PhD?

5:11

-

Well, after I got my PhD,

5:14

then I started teaching at

5:16

Mount St. Mary's University up in Maryland.

5:18

So I taught there for 26 years.

5:22

And by the time I went to the government,

5:25

I was a department chair.

5:29

I held the chair and I was a full professor and tenured.

5:32

And so usually every six years and the seventh,

5:36

I would go out on sabbatical overseas as a Fulbrighter.

5:39

Well that year I wanted to spend a year in Washington.

5:44

And so I spent that year as a scholar in residence at CIA.

5:46

One academic year, then I left

5:53

and then they me to go back

5:56

and then they created a position

5:58

that was too good to turn down.

6:00

So I made the migration from academia to government,

6:02

unlike most senior government people,

6:05

who go to academia after they retire from government.

6:09

Well, I kind of did the opposite

6:13

and it was a great migration.

6:14

I went to CIA for basically,

6:18

with three missions that they wanted me to do.

6:22

One which relates to your project.

6:28

And that is to develop expertise

6:31

on political Islam worldwide.

6:35

CIA was the only government entity that realized

6:39

that we need to know more as a country, as a government,

6:45

as a society about the Islamic world.

6:48

Interviewer

What year was this?

6:53

-

And I started there in 1990.

6:54

That was the first year, and then I spent a year,

6:57

then I came back, I did consulting for them.

7:00

Then I started full-time in '93.

7:03

But what's interesting about that

7:09

is at first they wanted me to help develop that expertise.

7:11

And as I said, the good news is that

7:16

we have a government entity

7:19

that has established recognized expertise.

7:21

And that the bad news is that it remains

7:24

the only government entity with that expertise.

7:26

And then after that a few years, and I established an office

7:30

called the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program.

7:34

And I directed that office

7:38

until I retired from the government.

7:40

I left the government in 2006

7:43

and we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, my wife and I.

7:46

And so I have been doing consulting

7:51

with all kinds of government entities

7:54

on political Islam, terrorism, radicalization, jihadism,

7:58

and with other government departments as well since I left.

8:02

The interesting thing about the building of political Islam,

8:09

it basically was based on two important points.

8:14

One, we as a government are not really interested

8:20

in people's piety, and we don't care how many times

8:23

a person goes to the mosque a day,

8:28

how many times a person goes to the synagogue a day,

8:30

or how many times a person goes to church a day.

8:33

We're not interested in people's religions,

8:36

but we as a government are interested in

8:39

knowing when people use religion for political reasons,

8:43

for public policy reasons, for social behavior,

8:48

for attitudes toward the other, the non-Muslim.

8:52

And the second point is that the Islamic world is

8:58

almost 1.6 billion people.

9:03

And if we talk about let's say 1%, or half a percentage,

9:08

that is radical, extremist, and terrorist,

9:14

what do we do with the other 99%?

9:17

And so the idea was to learn about their societies,

9:20

their groups, their political parties,

9:26

their organizations, why, how do they interpret Islam?

9:28

Why do they think that the interpretation of their faith

9:33

has to govern their public policy, their education policies,

9:38

their judiciary, their Islamic finance.

9:43

So across society, their attitude towards women,

9:49

their attitude towards civil rights,

9:52

their attitude towards non-Muslims,

9:55

their attitude towards even Sunni Islam,

9:58

their attitude toward Shia Islam.

10:01

So this whole area of expertise,

10:03

we developed at CIA and continues.

10:07

That office continues to be there.

10:10

And also the whole issue of radicalization.

10:13

How does a kid, who grows up Muslim

10:17

and nice kid in high school,

10:21

when does he become a jihadist?

10:24

Why does he become a jihadist?

10:26

Why does he become an extremist there?

10:28

And then of course, this is not just for altruistic reasons.

10:30

It's basically to discover their attitudes

10:34

toward the United States.

10:37

That is what colors their attitudes to the United States.

10:39

And that's a very important issue...

10:44

If I'm talking too much in that, please stop me.

10:47

Their attitude is very important

10:50

because we traced public opinion polls.

10:52

Not just the Pew Poll and the Gallup Poll.

10:57

These polls have been conducted in

11:00

a number of Muslim countries annually,

11:03

but other polls as well.

11:06

Both open and clandestine, private and public.

11:09

And we discovered two, three very important facts.

11:16

These facts almost underpinned our briefings

11:21

to senior policymakers.

11:26

And I would brief senior policymakers from

11:29

our number one customer to people below him.

11:33

And these two facts were, one that Muslims,

11:37

that is we're talking about main streamers,

11:43

not the radicals, not the extremists.

11:45

That for the most part, public opinion polls have discovered

11:48

that Muslims disagreements with the United States

11:52

were not driven by values of good government

11:57

and good governance, but by policies.

12:01

That when we asked Muslims worldwide,

12:06

what do they think of transparent government,

12:09

accountable government, fair and free elections,

12:15

freedoms of speech and expression and association,

12:19

vast majorities answered in the affirmative.

12:23

So if these are the components of good government

12:26

then we concluded that their disagreements with us

12:29

or with the United States are not driven by

12:33

values of good governance.

12:37

Well, they were driven...

12:40

Most public opinion polls tell you

12:42

they have been driven by policies.

12:45

So then when we began to ask what specific policies

12:49

then they listed the following half a dozen policies.

12:52

One, what they call war on Islam.

12:59

That they viewed the war on terrorism

13:02

as synonymous with the war on Islam.

13:06

Second, invading Muslim countries.

13:10

So they talked about Afghanistan.

13:13

They talked about Iraq.

13:17

They talked about bellicose rhetoric against Iran,

13:19

against Syria, that was

13:22

mainly during the Bush administration.

13:24

And third, they identified Guantanamo.

13:28

Four the identified about Abu Ghraib,

13:39

the Abu Ghraib incident in Iraq

13:41

and mistreatment of Muslim prisoners in those prisons,

13:43

whether in Afghanistan or Iraq.

13:50

It's very interesting that most Muslims

13:53

supported the initial US war in Afghanistan,

13:57

up to the fall of the Taliban.

14:03

They kind of said, okay if the Taliban housed al-Qaeda,

14:07

and if al-Qaeda based on the statements by bin Laden

14:12

did attack the United States,

14:17

well, all right, that's justified.

14:20

But then once the Taliban fell,

14:23

the support in the Islamic world

14:26

of our presence in Afghanistan disappeared, completely.

14:28

They see no justification why we continued

14:33

after the fall of the Taliban,

14:37

continued our war in Afghanistan.

14:40

Interviewer

Did you inform the president

14:43

of what you just-

14:45

-

Oh yeah. Yeah. All those briefings.

14:46

Those were the hearts of our briefings.

14:48

Interviewer

They didn't respond?

14:51

-

Well, they kind of two ways.

14:54

We are now 11 years almost 12 years after 9/11.

14:57

9/11 created very raw emotions.

15:05

The first three, four years, no one wanted to know anything

15:09

about the Islamic world beyond terrorism.

15:13

The whole prism through which we saw

15:18

the Islamic world was through the prism of terrorism.

15:23

And we at CIA began to brief

15:29

that there are many other things out there

15:33

other than terrorism, and if we need...

15:37

And basically when I would brief at the White House,

15:40

I would say, you know, we kill one leader

15:43

and more leaders come to the floor.

15:46

We kill one terrorist

15:48

or we arrest one terrorist, more terrorists come.

15:50

How come? Don't we need to know about Muslim societies?

15:52

And that was always a running theme, almost disagreements,

15:57

we did not support the invasion of Iraq

16:03

because of that point.

16:06

Not that we made policy.

16:08

It's like, I always used to tell my analysts

16:10

that you have to keep in mind two points,

16:12

one that we do not make policy,

16:16

and that two the president is elected, we are not.

16:18

He is free to make policy.

16:21

But that we did not support the war

16:23

in Iraq because of this point.

16:26

That is another issue that the Islamic world saw

16:28

as us going after Muslim countries.

16:33

Particularly when there was no proof whatsoever

16:37

for any ties between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 or al-Qaeda.

16:42

He was a thug, but he was a secularist thug

16:48

and he wasn't involved with al-Qaeda.

16:51

And the second, of course,

16:55

the jury was then was still out on WMD.

16:56

So when we began to see these policies identified

17:00

in public opinion polls, and Guantanamo was one of them,

17:06

then we began to focus on Guantanamo,

17:10

why is it that it's such a lightning rod

17:13

for the Islamic war and for anti-Americans?

17:20

Well, two, three things,

17:25

one that it was the antithesis

17:28

of all the good values of good governance.

17:34

We talk about the rule of law.

17:41

It did not represent the rule of law.

17:44

We talk about you are innocent until proven guilty.

17:46

It did not represent that.

17:50

We thought about the right of people

17:52

to go to court, to trial.

17:54

Most of them did not.

17:56

And then it became a recruiting vehicle for jihadists.

18:00

And what was most interesting

18:06

was that a whole generation of young activists,

18:09

or radicals, or Islamic youth who ended up at Guantanamo,

18:14

who should not have been there,

18:23

became more radicalized in Guantanamo.

18:26

I mean, this is a point that the administration at the time

18:29

did not want to really accept.

18:33

And that is the radicalization

18:35

of a whole generation of people at Guantanamo,

18:38

because they were at Guantanamo.

18:43

For example, the hunger strikes that occurred then and now,

18:47

and they were for different reasons altogether.

18:52

The hunger strikes that occurred then, in the early years,

18:56

were to protest the bad treatment,

19:03

to protest mistreatments there,

19:06

to protest violations of their privacy,

19:09

to protest things of that sort.

19:12

Today, the hunger strikes reflect almost a dead end.

19:15

People there today who are there, 166 detainees,

19:24

see no end in sight.

19:29

They see no repatriation or release in sight.

19:32

They see no trials in sight.

19:37

And so the reasons are different.

19:40

I mean, when I went there, people say, okay,

19:44

if you think I'm guilty take me to trial.

19:46

It's very simple thing.

19:50

And if we tell people, well that's what we do in our country

19:51

and we deny them that right then that became really...

19:55

That generated a whole accusation of hypocrisy

20:00

that you saw in almost every opinion poll

20:05

when we would ask them to describe the United States.

20:09

The first word would come up would be hypocrisy

20:12

and Guantanamo contributed do that.

20:15

So we had other offices focusing primarily

20:19

on terrorism at the agency.

20:26

My office focused on Muslim societies.

20:29

Interviewer

What was your office called?

20:32

-

It's called the Political Islam

20:33

Strategic Analysis Program, PISEP.

20:35

Interviewer

And your title?

20:38

-

I was the director of that.

20:40

I created the office and I directed it.

20:42

Now that would focus on Muslim societies across the board.

20:48

Would focus on parties.

20:53

My analysts and I looked at over 130 Islamic parties

20:55

worldwide, Islamic groups, nice and nefarious,

20:59

lawful and unlawful, all kinds of activities,

21:05

education, went to schools in different parts

21:10

of the Muslim world, looking at their textbooks,

21:14

looking at their studies, and so on what the attitudes

21:17

of Sunnis against Shia and things of that sort.

21:23

But I became more interested in Guantanamo

21:28

when it began to be identified as one of those policies

21:32

that color their negative attitudes

21:39

toward the United States.

21:43

So I was approaching it from that perspective.

21:46

I did go to Guantanamo in September '02

21:50

when there were anywhere almost 750 detainees.

21:56

The two reports I wrote then

22:06

were classified and remain classified,

22:08

so I cannot talk about those two reports,

22:10

but one observation I made

22:14

and has been already in the press,

22:17

and unfortunately, one of those reports was leaked

22:20

to some journalists back in '03 and '04,

22:27

luckily without mentioning my name,

22:35

but the report was leaked.

22:37

And couple of points that are significant,

22:39

one, was that talking to detainees,

22:45

I was not there as an interrogator.

22:51

I am not an interrogator.

22:54

I was not trained as a interrogator,

22:56

but I wanted to talk to detainees at random

22:58

to know how they became jihadists,

23:03

especially younger people.

23:06

I would ask, for instance, one kid, I said,

23:08

well, did you do jihad in high school?

23:11

He said, excuse my French, hell no.

23:13

I said, well so what did you do in high school?

23:16

Well, he said he chased women and he drank

23:19

and he went to parties.

23:21

So then I said, when did you discover God?

23:23

And when did you become a jihadist?

23:26

Well, he got out of high school, he became unemployed,

23:28

he started going to the next door mosque,

23:32

and two months later he found himself

23:35

in Peshawar and in Afghanistan, and so recruited.

23:36

And so we began to focus on the recruitment.

23:43

Then I concluded that some people,

23:46

many of those who were there

23:49

really should not have been there.

23:51

They were caught in the dragnet net

23:53

and frankly had the United States not paid

23:55

the Pakistanis for every guy they got,

23:58

most of them would not have been there.

24:02

And in fact, in the beginning

24:04

when I came back and gave a high level briefing,

24:06

some of our very senior people did not like the briefing

24:11

at all because they said, well, they are guilty.

24:16

That's why they are there.

24:22

I said, now that's kind of circular logic, isn't it.

24:24

And the point was that fortunately I was proven correct.

24:27

And the reason I say that is because

24:33

over 500 of those people have been released.

24:36

And obviously if there were terrorists

24:39

they would not have been released.

24:41

But unfortunately for us is

24:43

that many of those who were released

24:46

were more radicalized by the time they were released,

24:48

then when they came in there.

24:52

The maximum, I think that were there

24:56

were over 800 or so close to 800 people.

24:59

And now we have 166 people there.

25:02

And of those 166 people, over 40 were already approved

25:05

for release almost 80, I think,

25:13

were approved for release,

25:15

but they have not been released.

25:17

So obviously then, so 80 out of the 166, are not terrorists.

25:19

Why would they have been approved for release?

25:25

Of those, the vast majority is from Yemen.

25:30

And of course, because of the underwear bomber back in...

25:33

Two, three years ago, four years ago,

25:41

their release was stopped.

25:44

And those were approved for release by a special task force.

25:45

And I cannot talk much about it

25:51

because I did consulting for them at the time

25:53

and those were some of my recommendations as well

25:56

and the task force recommendations.

25:59

But they have not been released.

26:02

Interviewer

Were you surprised

26:04

when you spoke to the detainees to hear their stories?

26:05

Did that change your attitude about the men in Guantanamo?

26:08

-

Well, it did in my estimate at the time

26:12

was pretty conservative and I ran those reports

26:16

by the commanding officer who approved them

26:21

and agreed with them.

26:23

So it wasn't just this kind of, senior CIA officer

26:25

making these comments, it was supported

26:31

by the commanding officer.

26:35

But my attitude towards them once I...

26:37

I mean, I could tell whether a person did jihad or not.

26:40

Having been involved in this issue

26:46

and studying these societies where the person studied

26:48

I could tell where the person studied

26:52

as to what kind of ideology he has

26:54

even attitude towards the Quran.

26:58

And this is perhaps a side issue, but,

27:03

you know the Quran is like to the Surahs in the Quran,

27:06

the 160-some chapters in the Quran are like two parts.

27:10

One part was revealed to Muhammad in Mecca.

27:14

And one part was revealed in Medina,

27:17

and in Medina when he was fighting

27:20

and trying to create states and so on,

27:23

so those chapters that were revealed in Medina

27:25

tend to be more warlike.

27:28

The universalist principles about Moses and Jesus

27:30

and Christians, and the people of the book

27:33

and universalist doctrines were revealed in Mecca.

27:36

So when you talk to a radical Muslim, or a Muslim,

27:41

you can almost tell by these chapters

27:46

they quote to you from the Quran.

27:52

So when I went to Guantanamo, I took a Quran with me,

27:54

a copy of the Quran with me, and I had it on a table.

27:58

And then I took out a box of chocolates and candies

28:01

and so on you see, and so when I spent two,

28:05

two and a half hours with each with, no...

28:08

I did not...

28:12

I interviewed about two dozen people with no interpreter.

28:14

So I selected at random people who spoke Arabic

28:22

and based on my judgment that at the time I said,

28:26

over one third should have been released immediately.

28:33

They don't belong there.

28:36

And I was very conservative because the commanding officer

28:38

couple of years later was interviewed and in his view

28:43

he thought 60% should have been released immediately.

28:47

And of course, since then over 75% have been released.

28:53

Interviewer

Did that surprise you, that you found

28:58

that these men were not jihadists,

29:01

but just caught up in the way?

29:02

-

It didn't surprise me because I knew the background

29:05

of how they got there.

29:09

Interviewer

Can you tell us the background?

29:11

-

The background is that many of them

29:12

who were in the Pakistan area,

29:15

some of them were really doing teaching in Islamic schools.

29:19

Some of them working for NGOs, Islamic NGOs.

29:24

As a background in 1966, the late King of Saudi Arabia,

29:29

King Faisal, had established

29:38

one of the cardinal principles of Saudi foreign policy

29:41

was the export of Islam.

29:45

And so to do that, then he proceeded to

29:49

establish Islamic NGOs, such as Muslim World League,

29:52

IIRO, which is International Islamic Relief Organization,

29:57

WAMY, World Assembly of Muslim Youth,

30:05

al-Haramain Foundation, some of them

30:09

got involved in terrorism later on, but those NGOs,

30:11

then began to do projects from providing food

30:16

to agriculture projects, to building schools,

30:20

exporting Qurans, all Saudi to these countries.

30:24

Well, the type of Islam that Saudi Arabia exported

30:29

was mainly activist Islam,

30:34

it's called Wahhabi Islam or Salafi Islam.

30:36

That's the Islam they know in Saudi Arabia.

30:40

It's a different kind of interpretation

30:42

than you find at al Ashar and in Cairo

30:44

or in many other Muslim countries

30:49

like Morocco or Malaysia or Indonesia or Turkey.

30:51

It's a more kind of activist Islam.

30:55

And so some, a lot of Muslim youth who would graduate

30:59

from Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia,

31:03

who teach that type of Islam,

31:06

would go worldwide spreading Islam.

31:08

Some teach in universities, some teach in schools,

31:14

some have Islamic madrasas, Quranic schools.

31:17

And we knew that right after 9/11,

31:22

and after we went to Afghanistan, and the war started,

31:28

people began to flee.

31:35

And the Pakistanis began to arrest any Arab looking person

31:37

or any non-Pakistani looking person and hand him over.

31:44

So you have some Uighurs from China

31:48

you have some Chechens from Chechnya,

31:51

you have Jordanians, Algerians,

31:54

and many of those who were there in Afghanistan

31:56

were there, went there, with our blessings

32:01

and with Saudi blessings back in the '80s and '90s

32:05

to fight the Soviet Union,

32:09

in the '80s in particular.

32:11

And many of them ended up marrying local women

32:13

and stayed there in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.

32:17

And so then when the Pakistanis began to round up

32:23

these people and hand them over,

32:27

well, that's it, they were Arabs.

32:29

They spoke Arabic, they were there doing

32:32

some nefarious things we thought,

32:34

and they ended up in Guantanamo.

32:36

Interviewer

Where they ransomed?

32:39

Did we pay for them?

32:40

-

Oh yeah, we paid.

32:41

Interviewer

Do you know how much?

32:42

-

Well, no, there were media reports

32:44

that talked about $5,000 per person.

32:45

And so the Pakistanis made money

32:49

and they got rid of some people,

32:54

and Guantanamo unfortunately, is it just an accident.

32:56

I mean, it's a place that happened to be there.

33:00

And they wanted a place that perhaps

33:04

according to some higher officials at DOD,

33:06

well that probably off shore, so you can kind of

33:11

do things off shore that you don't do here,

33:14

because by the way, the other reasons

33:17

that were identified in public opinion polls

33:21

were rendition, and torture, and things of that sort.

33:25

Interviewer

Did you see

33:30

brutality when you were in Guantanamo?

33:31

-

No at the time I saw kind of bad treatment,

33:33

it wasn't like...

33:39

I did not see torture, did not see brutality.

33:41

Just really, and one time I was talking

33:45

to the commanding officer about that, like buzzing,

33:49

having jets buzz at night, you see,

33:53

so that they could not sleep things of that sort.

33:55

I mean basically told very disrespectful treatment

33:58

rather than brutality.

34:05

Interviewer

Was that included your report?

34:06

Were you concerned about that?

34:08

-

There were some parts in that,

34:10

but there were still a lot of hope then among many of them.

34:14

Interviewer

Hope for?

34:24

-

Hope that there would be a release one of these days.

34:25

That hope that there would be taken to trial.

34:28

And at the time you see a number of their countries,

34:32

representatives from their countries,

34:36

they would come once in a while and see the visitor.

34:38

So let's say a representative from the Kuwaiti government

34:41

would go and speak to Kuwaitis.

34:44

Representative from the Bahraini government,

34:47

or from the different countries.

34:49

So there still was hope there among many of them

34:53

that they would either be sent to trial or be released.

34:58

A number of them in talking to me said,

35:06

well, you know, you have the rule of law,

35:08

you have a great judiciary.

35:11

So take us to court.

35:12

And there was a view at the time,

35:15

even in the US government that ultimately those people

35:17

would be taken to civil trial.

35:20

And we've had experience in New York where over 100 people

35:23

were tried, convicted, and some of them are rotting

35:27

in Southeast Colorado and high, maximum security jail.

35:31

If the American judicial system cannot do that,

35:35

what judicial system and the world can do that?

35:38

Interviewer

Did the detainees all...

35:41

Were they willing to speak to you?

35:44

Did any of them-

35:46

-

Of the 20 to 24, I think two did not want to speak.

35:47

And they said, well basically their point was that

35:53

I'm tired of talking.

35:56

You can look at my file and I don't want to speak.

35:57

And I did it on purpose.

36:01

I did not want to read their files before I spoke to people.

36:02

I just had the list.

36:07

I went just at random selected numbers.

36:08

And then I would ask for that number

36:11

to be brought to my trailer to speak to them.

36:13

Interviewer

Did you have any English speaking detainees?

36:19

-

Oh, there were, but I didn't.

36:21

I wanted those who who spoke Arabic

36:22

because many of them feel more comfortable,

36:26

even non-Arab speakers, more proud,

36:30

even when they speak Arabic as Muslims

36:33

that they studied the divine language of the Quran you see?

36:35

So they would really like to speak Arabic.

36:40

Interviewer

Did they say things to you

36:44

that surprised you?

36:46

-

Not really. Not really.

36:51

Some I could tell were involved in jihad

36:57

and anti-Americanism and in their statements.

37:02

I wasn't really surprised at the conversation.

37:11

I thought some of our people did not know at all

37:16

about Islamic culture and about Islamic societies

37:21

and about how would they view the Quran.

37:25

If a guard would kick the Quran even intentionally

37:27

or unintentionally and could not understand

37:32

why would the reaction,

37:36

why would it evoke such a reaction you see?

37:37

And so you had to kind of explain to them that...

37:40

And then the language you see and the bravado,

37:44

and oftentimes people were put in maximum security cells

37:50

because of language, I said, you know,

37:53

of course this person is frustrated.

37:55

And when they are frustrated, they curse.

37:57

And I said, Arabic is very picturesque language for cursing.

37:59

I said, you know,

38:03

it's much more imaginative than in English.

38:04

And so if you translate those curses word for word,

38:08

I used to look through, some of these translations,

38:11

and I would love I said...

38:15

These translations are...

38:17

Word for word is horrendous,

38:19

but they don't mean word for word,

38:22

but they really say word for word.

38:24

These things that...

38:29

But I wasn't really surprised.

38:34

I was surprised at two of them

38:38

where they said that despite their incarceration

38:40

at Guantanamo, they still like the United States.

38:45

They still value American culture.

38:51

And three, four of them were educated in this country.

38:54

And one of them, a Kuwaiti person in particular,

38:59

who has been already released,

39:02

he was a big executive in Kuwait.

39:05

And every year... He was well to do.

39:10

Comes from a very prominent family in Kuwait,

39:16

with very close connections to the ruling family,

39:20

and every year he would donate during Ramadan,

39:25

the Holy month for Islam, when they do Sadaqah, charity,

39:32

he would take $50,000

39:37

and give it to charities in different Muslim countries.

39:41

That year, in 2001, he went to Afghanistan.

39:47

So I asked him, I said, when did you go to Afghanistan?

39:52

He said, October, 2001.

39:55

I said, you should have been arrested for stupidity.

39:58

I said, why would you go to Afghanistan in October, 2001?

40:01

I mean, where were you?

40:06

What planet are you living on?

40:07

And, you know, his story became such an emotional story.

40:10

And he said, you know, he said in his job in Kuwait,

40:15

he would buy a Cadillac every year, that year's model.

40:18

And he said he would buy his wife a Mercedes every year.

40:24

And he said, and he loved the United States.

40:29

He got his masters in engineering, I think

40:32

from some university here.

40:35

And so he said, now he really is

40:37

become so disgusted with the United States.

40:39

So I said, what are you going to do?

40:41

Is that it's going to change from Cadillac to Mercedes.

40:43

He's no longer going to buy American cars.

40:46

Interviewer

And did he answer why he went in October?

40:48

-

Yeah, he said, just that was Ramadan during that month.

40:51

And every Ramadan he would go and he went there

40:55

and I had no doubt that he was not involved in jihad.

40:57

He was not involved in...

41:04

And from day one people down there

41:06

kind of accepted that view,

41:10

but it took him years before they repatriated him,

41:12

released him to Kuwait.

41:17

Interviewer

So was it frustrating for you

41:18

to observe all this?

41:20

-

It was, but in a sense, I wasn't surprised

41:22

that some of those people should not have been there.

41:25

It did not take me long to realize from their stories.

41:30

Some ultimately should write books about their experiences.

41:36

It's like there was an Iraqi Shia.

41:42

Shia are not going to go to Afghanistan

41:46

to do jihad for God's sake.

41:48

And I said, did you do jihad?

41:50

He said, hell no, I did not do jihad.

41:51

So I said, why were you in Afghanistan?

41:53

He says, it's a long story.

41:57

I said, tell me this story.

41:58

So I told them really, at the end, I said, you should...

42:00

Once you are released, you should look for an agent,

42:03

write a book, and do a movie and make some money

42:07

out of that story.

42:09

But he was from the south, from Iraq.

42:12

And in Iraq every young man had to go conscription.

42:15

So he was in the Iraqi army.

42:19

And when he was stationed in northern Iraq,

42:22

he fled to the Kurdish area, because he comes from the south

42:24

and his family suffered at the hands of Saddam

42:28

back in '91 when they had the Shia revolt in the south.

42:33

After Saddam was evicted out of Kuwait.

42:38

And so he went to the Kurdish area

42:44

and the Kurdish area, he told him he was Shia.

42:49

So they put him in touch with the INC,

42:53

the Iraq National Council, that was a group that was

42:56

in which Chalabi was active.

43:02

And so they gave him a job.

43:05

And then in '96, when the Iraqi army invaded

43:08

the northern part, the Kurdish, he fled from there to Iran.

43:13

And in Iran, he started working in a shoe factory

43:20

where most of the workers were Afghan.

43:24

There were thousands of Afghan in Iran.

43:27

So he started working in that shoe factory

43:32

and learned few words in Dari and Pashto.

43:34

And then one day Iran decided they've had it

43:40

with the Afghans there, so they came,

43:43

pack them all up in a truck

43:45

and took them over the border to Afghanistan.

43:47

Well, he was one of them.

43:49

So he ended up being in Afghanistan.

43:51

And so he met a Syrian guy who also is at Guantanamo now,

43:53

when I was there, and he told the Syrian his story.

43:58

So the Syrian guy then...

44:04

He told him that he worked for the INC,

44:08

so then the Syrian guy told the Afghans there that,

44:11

oh he worked for a CIA run operation called the INC,

44:16

so the Afghans arrested him and he spent

44:21

two and a half years in jail in Afghanistan.

44:24

That was most of his stay in Afghanistan.

44:27

So when we invaded and jails broke open

44:30

and so he fled, like so many fled,

44:34

across the border to Afghanistan

44:36

and like so many he was arrested,

44:38

given to the Americans and ended up in Guantanamo.

44:40

Since then he's been released, of course,

44:43

but I had no doubt, but that guy had...

44:45

He spent his time in jail, in Afghan jail,

44:49

rather than doing jihad.

44:52

And a Shia would not go to Afghanistan to do jihad

44:54

with Sunnis against Americans

44:59

or anybody else for that matter.

45:03

So there were those stories that led me to believe,

45:04

well there will be more of that.

45:08

And that's when I concluded,

45:10

well a number of these people should not be there

45:13

and they were caught in the dragnet net.

45:16

Interviewer

Would you like to take a break

45:18

and have some...

45:19

-

Yeah, that would be nice.

45:20

Interviewer

Why don't we take a break?

45:21

Cameraman

We're rolling.

45:25

Interviewer

Okay.

45:26

Did you ever have any interactions with Jose Padilla

45:28

or John Walker Lindh in your work?

45:31

-

No.

45:33

Interviewer

Why did the CIA want to

45:38

look into Muslim communities when they hired you?

45:41

Was there something in particular that...

45:44

-

Well, basically the belief was,

45:47

and correct one in my judgment.

45:52

Cause I wrote up the mission of that center, of that office,

45:55

we need to know more about Muslim society

46:03

and Muslim culture.

46:10

(indistinct)

Because at the time we concluded

46:11

that the Islamic world is larger

46:15

than the minority of terrorists.

46:18

And if we wanted to engage that American national interest

46:22

dictates that we cannot ignore 60, 70 Muslim countries,

46:28

Muslim majority, and Muslim minority countries,

46:36

that we have security, economic, cultural,

46:39

educational relations with all of these countries.

46:45

And so in a sense, focusing on the soft power,

46:50

rather than the hard power or kinesthetic power.

46:55

And that, of course there are Muslims

46:59

who have done nefarious things,

47:02

who have attacked the United States,

47:07

who have attacked the Homeland,

47:09

but that the Islamic world is much larger.

47:11

That we do need to engage these people,

47:14

in a sense the book that I wrote after I retired,

47:20

it's called A Necessary Engagement:

47:24

Reinventing America's Relations With the Muslim World.

47:27

Chapter two talks exactly about these issues

47:31

and that book, I was approached by Princeton

47:34

to write the book about basically why is it

47:37

important to engage Islamic world?

47:42

And when you look at the economic, the commercial,

47:46

the educational, the cultural relations,

47:49

you find that the United States as a superpower

47:55

has a multitude of these relations with Muslim countries

47:59

and we continue to do so.

48:03

And that secondly, that Muslim countries

48:06

individually and collectively transcend

48:10

the authoritarian dictators with whom we have been dealing.

48:15

That Egypt is much larger than Mobarak,

48:19

that Yemen is much larger than Salaf,

48:23

that Tunisia is much larger than bin Ali,

48:26

and of course we were proven correct later on.

48:30

Interviewer

And where was the State Department?

48:33

How come you were the only agency to notice this?

48:34

-

Well, I don't know.

48:44

Perhaps we had the money, they didn't,

48:47

to set up because this had to be a dedicated office

48:49

with personnel and budget,

48:55

and a travel budget and hiring smart people

48:58

with expertise in these areas.

49:08

And that afforded me the opportunity to visit

49:10

almost all Muslim majority countries

49:14

and Muslim minority countries.

49:17

Interviewer

What would you do there when you'd visit?

49:19

-

Talk to people.

49:22

Any country where the embassy would send a cable saying,

49:23

well, gee, it's too dangerous,

49:26

you cannot leave the embassy.

49:28

I wouldn't go.

49:29

I did not go to countries

49:30

where I was restricted to the embassy.

49:31

I would go out to two organizations,

49:34

to collapsed political parties,

49:38

NGOs, journalists, academics, professionals, across society.

49:43

Interviewer

Would you acknowledge who you were?

49:49

-

No.

49:51

Interviewer

And did you hear about

49:53

bin Laden in your travels?

49:54

-

Yeah, and part of one of my jobs

49:57

at the agency was to analyze bin Laden's speeches

50:01

and statements and brief on those downtown,

50:08

as part of the PDB, the President's Daily Brief.

50:15

but the-

50:19

Interviewer

So did you see it coming?

50:22

Could you, I mean, was that a real...

50:23

Was 9/11 a-

50:25

-

9/11, no towards the end, of course,

50:26

that became a political football

50:29

with the Bush administration, with that PDB briefing

50:32

in August of nine of 2011, about the threat,

50:35

because we realized that there was a lot of

50:41

what they call the chatter at the time

50:43

and a lot of exchanges in their communications and so on.

50:45

But there were others at the agency

50:52

that focused specifically on that.

50:56

We were looking at at the context in which

50:58

that type of person operated

51:03

and how they viewed 9/11, how they viewed bin Laden,

51:05

how they react to his speeches,

51:13

whether on Al Jazeera or other media outlets.

51:17

So we looked at that.

51:26

There was a tremendous...

51:28

Even though most mainstream Islamic scholars and clerics

51:31

after 9/11, denounced what bin Laden did

51:38

in New York and Washington as un-Islamic.

51:44

That the killing of innocent civilians,

51:48

they argued, is against Islam

51:50

and that his interpretation of Islam was warped.

51:53

And that relations, if you look at that section

51:57

of the Quran, that was revealed in Mecca

52:01

as compared to Medina,

52:04

you realize that this conflictive relationship

52:06

between Islam and non-Muslims

52:09

is not as bin Laden had described.

52:11

But what bin Laden did was a coup in public relations.

52:15

He was a master at public relations.

52:20

And I said that in one of my briefings

52:23

we should learn some lessons from his messaging

52:25

especially as the Pentagon and so on was talking about

52:29

strategic communication, I said,

52:35

we should learn from bin Laden.

52:36

What bin Laden did, which appealed to so many Muslims

52:38

at the time was very simple.

52:41

His message was very simple.

52:44

That Islam was under attack.

52:46

Islam as a faith and a territory.

52:49

Not Muslims, individuals, but Islam.

52:54

And he made that point, constantly kept repeating it.

52:57

And he would point to Palestine and Iraq

53:01

and Afghanistan and Iran, and all kinds of Muslim places.

53:05

And Cashmere and Chechnya.

53:11

And he made them all as one and a whole.

53:15

One part as part of a whole attack on Islam.

53:18

And his second message was if Islam is under attack

53:22

the Quran says that it's the duty on all Muslims

53:27

to respond by all means possible.

53:32

And that three, that this is a war with the infidels.

53:36

It's a war, not just between a Muslim and non-Muslim.

53:41

It's a war between Islam and the world of infidels.

53:45

And the world of infidels is headed by

53:49

the United States in the west

53:52

and by Israel and Zionism in the east.

53:53

Fourth is that this is not a war

53:58

that can be won over time

54:01

but it is a war until the final days.

54:06

So that message was simple.

54:11

So what other clerics and scholars

54:14

and theologians in mainstream Islam said,

54:17

well, okay, these might be conflicts with individual Muslims

54:21

and individual Muslim countries,

54:26

but not a conflict with Islam.

54:28

And if it is not that conflicted with Islam,

54:32

then you cannot declare jihad as a duty on all Muslims.

54:34

But what he did was to declare jihad as a duty

54:39

on all Muslims, by whatever means they have.

54:43

And so they argued,

54:48

then it is a conflict with individual Muslims

54:49

and therefore you cannot declare jihad.

54:53

And the second point these theologians made

54:56

is that not everyone in Islam, under Islamic theology,

55:00

can declare a jihad.

55:05

You have to be a highly educated person in Islam.

55:07

Like in Judaism, you have to be a very distinguished rabbi.

55:13

And Shia Islam, you have to be a Grand Ayatollah.

55:17

In Sunni Islam, there is no grand rabbi or Grant Ayatollah,

55:22

but then you have to be a recognized Islamic scholar.

55:26

And that you have to have the authority,

55:32

or in the name of the authority of established states,

55:36

to declare a jihad.

55:39

As basically the Islamic world did

55:42

by declaring jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

55:46

And so they said, bin Laden was not a Muslim scholar.

55:51

He was engineer, agricultural engineer,

55:55

and he was a money-making, great guy had making money.

55:58

And so he could not declare a jihad,

56:04

could not issue a fatwa.

56:06

But he continued to issue fatwas,

56:09

it doesn't really matter

56:11

because his followers accepted those fatwas.

56:13

So his message was very clear, very simple, and repetitive.

56:16

-

And appealed to individual people

56:23

in their daily life, if you will.

56:26

And so people respected...

56:30

Many Muslim youth respected that type of person.

56:33

And more importantly respected him for standing up

56:38

to the greatest country on Earth.

56:42

Interviewer

Did the detainees you interviewed

56:45

speak highly of him?

56:47

-

No, they... A couple of spoke highly of him as a person.

56:49

But that, of course, all of them denied knowing him

56:55

and his incense, but some of course for bravado reasons,

56:59

oh yeah, I know him, he's a friend of mine.

57:04

But this, I did not put much credence in those statements.

57:06

But they spoke highly of him because they believed that

57:11

he was standing up to colonialism and imperialism

57:15

and all those Crusader kind of mentality

57:20

from the days of the crusaders.

57:24

Interviewer

So did you go back

57:27

to Guantanamo another time?

57:29

-

No, no, no. I only went once.

57:31

But I followed what was happening there.

57:35

Interviewer

Did you see a deterioration

57:37

of Guantanamo over time?

57:41

-

Well, yeah, there was deterioration

57:43

the more people went there,

57:46

and there was confusion even within the US government

57:49

about what to do with Guantanamo.

57:53

In fact, the Obama administration,

57:56

before the president came to power

58:03

before he started his first term, he accepted our briefings

58:06

that Guantanamo is a recruiting device for jihadists,

58:11

that it's a black spot on our culture and our history,

58:18

that it is a violation for everything we we hold dear

58:23

when it comes to the rule of law,

58:27

that it was the antithesis of the rule of law,

58:30

and that if our credibility and credence

58:34

are going to be respected in the Islamic world,

58:37

we must close Guantanamo.

58:41

And that's why he made that statement

58:43

the day after he took office

58:46

and of course, appointed a person to

58:50

settle the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

58:53

because he also realized in the briefings

58:55

that that was an issue that was always identified

58:58

as one of the top three issues in public opinion polls.

59:02

And he announced he would close Guantanamo.

59:06

Well, of course, unfortunately Guantanamo

59:08

became a political football in domestic American politics

59:11

and he could not close it.

59:16

Interviewer

Did you think he could?

59:18

Did you think it would happen?

59:19

-

Well, everybody was caught up in the optimism

59:21

of the young president you see,

59:23

and the optimism of the new administration.

59:26

No one was in any mood to say,

59:29

oh he's such a naive person that you cannot do.

59:31

But I think the domestic politics,

59:36

the impact of domestic politics was such that

59:42

he really could not...

59:46

Found it very difficult to close.

59:49

And then some developments in international politics.

59:51

And those developments were, as the Al-Qaeda central

59:55

began to wane, in influence and prestige and operations,

59:59

we began to see the rise of franchise

1:00:08

jihadist radical groups in Iraq, Al-Qaeda

1:00:13

in the land of the two rivers, what they call it,

1:00:20

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula,

1:00:25

Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb,

1:00:28

and so we began to see the rise of franchise groups.

1:00:31

As those franchise groups began to become more active,

1:00:35

particularly the one in Yemen,

1:00:41

that began to influence the release of some detainees.

1:00:44

And that's basically the reason why these Yemeni detainees

1:00:50

have not been released,

1:00:56

was because of the activity os AQAP in Yemen.

1:00:57

AQAP did not really start in Yemen,

1:01:04

but those people from Saudi who fled from Saudi to Yemen,

1:01:07

so the head of AQAP has always been a Yemeni

1:01:13

and the deputy has always been a Saudi.

1:01:16

And so the activities of those groups in Iraq

1:01:20

and Yemen and the Maghreb in North Africa

1:01:25

began to influence, negatively influence,

1:01:30

the release of detainees.

1:01:34

And some of course detainees were released

1:01:37

and then they ended up finding their way back to jihadist.

1:01:40

But, that was not any higher than in American jails.

1:01:48

How many, the percentage of American prisoners

1:01:54

in American jails who are released

1:01:57

and go back to a life of crime is much higher

1:01:59

than those who were released from Guantanamo.

1:02:03

Interviewer

Well, why do you think the American public

1:02:06

doesn't understand what you just told us?

1:02:08

-

Unfortunately, people who did 9/11 were all Muslims.

1:02:12

And so you have Islamophobia.

1:02:18

The view of Islam became colored by terrorism.

1:02:21

And so the prism through which many Americans

1:02:28

who knew nothing about Islam began to see Islam

1:02:32

was through terrorism.

1:02:37

We had a bin Laden chair at Harvard for God's sake.

1:02:41

Yeah, I mean, there was an academic chair

1:02:45

by the bin Laden family, not bin Laden, bin Laden.

1:02:48

His father, his father ran the largest construction

1:02:51

company in the Middle East.

1:02:57

One of the largest in the world.

1:02:58

Did a lot of work for American companies in Saudi Arabia.

1:03:01

The Binladin Construction Group.

1:03:04

Well, they set up a chair at Harvard.

1:03:07

I think they changed the name since then,

1:03:10

but I wouldn't be surprised.

1:03:13

Interviewer

Where you aware

1:03:14

when the bin Laden family was sent back home?

1:03:15

How did that happen that no one else could fly

1:03:19

and that only bin Ladens?

1:03:21

-

Well, that was a different story and not just bin Laden,

1:03:22

but many Saudis were more sent home.

1:03:26

But that was kind of above my pay grade.

1:03:31

Those was decisions were made by leaders

1:03:35

of our own and of their country.

1:03:38

Every academic, I mean, every Islamic academy

1:03:45

like we have, you know, Christian academies

1:03:51

and Catholic academies and Jewish academies

1:03:53

there are Islamic academies in this country.

1:03:55

But every Islamic academy began to be viewed with suspicion

1:03:57

because unfortunately those 19 terrorists were all Muslims.

1:04:01

I mean, if they were Chinese, or they were Catholics,

1:04:06

or you know, it would have been different.

1:04:10

Interviewer

And were you...

1:04:14

How did you feel about the CIA

1:04:17

being asked to do extraordinary rendition at that time?

1:04:18

-

That was of course run by a whole different department,

1:04:25

but we, on the analytic side,

1:04:31

we began to worry about the long term impact on...

1:04:36

We were involved more interested in engaging

1:04:42

Islamic countries and whether it's Abu Ghraib

1:04:47

or whether it's rendition

1:04:51

or whether it's torture in other countries,

1:04:53

we began to view it as in the long run

1:04:57

harmful for this cause.

1:04:59

We couldn't stop it.

1:05:03

We were not in involved in that at all,

1:05:04

but that was the longterm view at the time.

1:05:07

And I think that view was correct then

1:05:12

as it is correct today.

1:05:16

And that's why the president put an end to that

1:05:18

even towards the end of his administration,

1:05:22

George Bush almost began to realize

1:05:26

his second administration, that that was not right.

1:05:30

Interviewer

What you said is kind of interesting to me,

1:05:33

it's kind of interesting that the CIA can be frustrated

1:05:34

because you're not a policymaker in the organization

1:05:38

and you're obligated to pretty much implement the policies

1:05:41

that you're ordered to do by the government.

1:05:46

And then they might go against your own understanding of...

1:05:48

-

Yeah, but I know that's always a point

1:05:53

that you had to keep in mind

1:05:59

if you wanted to work for the intelligence community.

1:06:01

And that is you do briefings, but there are two things.

1:06:05

One is that you don't make policy.

1:06:09

And if you really want to make policy,

1:06:12

then CIA is the wrong place for you.

1:06:14

And this doesn't mean that directors,

1:06:17

CIA directors did not get terribly close to policy,

1:06:20

as my good friend, George Tenet had done.

1:06:24

But the second point was that

1:06:26

they are not only entitled to our view,

1:06:31

but they are free to listen to other views as well.

1:06:35

So we were not the only briefers,

1:06:39

there were others who briefed the administration,

1:06:41

and they could talk to all kinds of people.

1:06:46

And unfortunately, that was the reality.

1:06:48

And sometimes it's frustrating,

1:06:54

but if you keep those two points in mind

1:06:56

and you believe you are correct,

1:06:59

and you are right based on the record

1:07:01

and based on evidence and based on expertise,

1:07:03

they would come back to you.

1:07:08

And in fact, they constantly came back to us

1:07:09

for more briefings, even though

1:07:13

sometimes they did not agree with my briefings

1:07:17

and with my analysts' briefings, but they kept coming back

1:07:20

because they knew we had no ax to grind in terms of policy.

1:07:24

And in one of my briefings,

1:07:30

I told the very senior administrator,

1:07:34

look we are not opposed to Iraq

1:07:37

because we are opposed to this administration.

1:07:40

I said, we are opposed to invading Iraq because of

1:07:44

one, you don't know a thing about Iraq

1:07:48

and that two, you have not looked at

1:07:52

the longterm implications of invading Iraq.

1:07:54

And in one of my briefings I told the person,

1:07:59

I said, you know, for Iraqis,

1:08:02

disliking Saddam Hussein does not mean loving an invader.

1:08:05

Oh, they will meet us as liberators,

1:08:10

I said, liberator would last for two weeks

1:08:12

and then we'll become invaders.

1:08:15

And that's exactly what happened.

1:08:17

And you know, when six months after invading Iraq,

1:08:20

I would have a question from the White House.

1:08:25

What is this Shia thing in Iraq?

1:08:28

So this question should have been asked

1:08:30

six months back, not today.

1:08:32

And we had no idea of the role of the Sunnis,

1:08:35

the role of the importance, even of Baghdad

1:08:40

in the history of Islam.

1:08:43

You know, the golden years

1:08:46

of the golden age of Islam was in Baghdad.

1:08:47

And so we invaded the heartland of Islam.

1:08:50

We had no idea of Iran's involvement in Iraq.

1:08:55

I mean, you know, several months back,

1:08:59

I was asked one time why is Iran interested in Iraq?

1:09:02

I said, Shia Islam started in Iraq.

1:09:06

You know, Southern Iraq is sacred to Iran

1:09:10

much more than Iran itself, theologically speaking.

1:09:13

But we didn't know much about Iraq.

1:09:17

And yet we proceeded to, this is not to say

1:09:21

that I'm not happy that that dictator is gone,

1:09:26

but you have to understand society and the country

1:09:31

and the powers that be, and the forces,

1:09:37

the sources of influence and the centers of influence.

1:09:40

We spent years in Iraq before even speaking to Sistani

1:09:46

who was a Grand Ayatollah of Shia Islam in Iraq.

1:09:50

And if the Shia is going to take over,

1:09:55

well shouldn't we be talking to Sistani?

1:10:02

And this is type of what we thought lack of information,

1:10:07

lack of knowledge, and lack of interest

1:10:13

in learning about and Muslim societies.

1:10:18

And the agency, to its credit,

1:10:21

was really the only government entity

1:10:26

that could provide that type of education

1:10:30

and that type of information

1:10:33

and that type of knowledge about Islamic world.

1:10:35

Interviewer

When many of the people we interviewed

1:10:41

in Guantanamo told us that there was no real

1:10:42

policies in effect that they would change day to day

1:10:46

by the seat of their pants.

1:10:50

And it sounds like that's kind of,

1:10:51

what you're telling me now, too.

1:10:53

-

It's true, in that Guantanamo, in particular,

1:10:54

all of a sudden we just happen to have a place.

1:11:00

If you want to store some stuff

1:11:04

and you go to a storage area and then you discover later,

1:11:08

jeez this is kind of shifting grounds.

1:11:11

This is the wrong place to store my furniture.

1:11:15

And we found Guantanamo a place

1:11:17

and then we began to realize,

1:11:21

my gosh this is going to be a longterm thing.

1:11:23

Many in the government did not think

1:11:26

this would be a longterm thing.

1:11:27

Despite the fact that the administration said

1:11:30

this is a war to end all wars, war forever.

1:11:34

And there was a lot of debate,

1:11:39

whether which principles in international law would apply

1:11:44

or don't apply, and what is a combatant

1:11:48

and what is it a non-combatant?

1:11:55

And if does the Geneva four apply or doesn't it apply?

1:11:58

And so there was a lot of debate on that

1:12:02

and the Geneva four of '49,

1:12:06

well, you have to have insignia, you have to be a...

1:12:09

But these people, were just there.

1:12:13

And people who we encouraged

1:12:16

to fight against the Soviet Union.

1:12:21

And then they came back and now

1:12:25

so they now became different kinds of jihadists.

1:12:27

So people who fight for an ideology we support,

1:12:30

we call them freedom fighters.

1:12:36

And those who fight for an ideology we don't support,

1:12:37

we call them jihadists,

1:12:40

which means nasty, which means bad.

1:12:42

And so there was a lot of discussion.

1:12:44

It's not like there was truly...

1:12:47

People didn't know where this thing was going.

1:12:51

Interviewer

And though it sounds like

1:12:54

the CIA knew something, but had no...

1:12:57

-

Yeah, Guantanamo was under DOD.

1:13:00

And there's like, when I gave my briefing after I came back,

1:13:06

one person at the White House said,

1:13:11

well you did a great job today, I said, but,

1:13:13

he said, you've got to convince Sec Def.

1:13:16

And said, thank you.

1:13:20

And we all know who Sec Def was at the time.

1:13:21

And he was not easily convincible.

1:13:24

Interviewer

Did the CIA was this...

1:13:28

I know you didn't do interrogations, but the CIA,

1:13:29

did they train any of the interrogators?

1:13:32

-

Some were, and DOD had their own interrogators

1:13:35

and it's very interesting.

1:13:42

There was also a debate, you were talking about

1:13:44

the evolving policy in Guantanamo.

1:13:47

There was even a disagreement, of course,

1:13:53

between the interrogators, DOD and CIA interrogators

1:13:55

and the FBI, because the FBI was more interested in

1:13:59

building cases and getting information that

1:14:05

implicate certain people, hopefully to take into court.

1:14:10

Well not one has been taken to civilian court from there.

1:14:15

Except this guy, bin Laden's son-in-law

1:14:20

who was 10 years later arrested in Jordan

1:14:24

and he is standing trial in New York now.

1:14:27

But the other three were tried in military tribunals.

1:14:31

And so the FBI have not really,

1:14:36

I don't believe they have brought not one case,

1:14:38

but their purpose there,

1:14:41

and when I was there, I talked to the FBI people there,

1:14:44

and I gave a presentation to all the FBI people there,

1:14:48

and their purpose was not to find terrorists

1:14:53

or to in a sense, get information that would help

1:14:58

and do potential plans, terrorist plots,

1:15:05

but their goal was to build cases against those people.

1:15:10

And unfortunately, they have not been able to build

1:15:15

not one case, against not one person.

1:15:17

And so there was this agreement even there

1:15:21

in the purpose of the interrogations.

1:15:23

So I came in between, I said, I'm not an interrogator.

1:15:26

I just want to know about these people.

1:15:29

Interviewer

And you would brief the White House?

1:15:33

You would personally brief the White House?

1:15:38

-

Yes.

1:15:40

Interviewer

And I just have to ask you,

1:15:42

it wasn't frustrating for you that

1:15:45

you weren't being listened to?

1:15:47

You just knew that it was part of your job?

1:15:49

-

It was very pleasant walking through the gardens there

1:15:51

and towards the West Wing, it was very beautiful.

1:15:55

Interviewer

And did you deal with the Red Cross at all?

1:16:00

-

I didn't. No.

1:16:03

One office I think dealt with that, but not my office, no.

1:16:07

Interviewer

And did you want to go back to Guantanamo

1:16:13

thinking that maybe you could learn more or did you...

1:16:16

-

Well, no. Towards the end, no.

1:16:18

I really had began to argue that we should close it.

1:16:21

Interviewer

That early?

1:16:27

-

Not that not in 2002, no, later on.

1:16:30

And I didn't want to go there. I really didn't.

1:16:33

Because I thought it did not help our national security.

1:16:37

It did not help our objective of reaching out to Muslims.

1:16:41

It undermined even mainstream, moderate Muslims

1:16:46

in dealing with us, because, if we are going

1:16:51

to go to a certain country to teach their budding lawyers

1:16:55

and judges about the rule of law

1:16:59

and the first question they always had,

1:17:02

well, what about Guantanamo?

1:17:04

And you can't, oh, this is something different.

1:17:06

It can't be different.

1:17:09

If we are talking about our rule of law

1:17:13

and our judicial system

1:17:17

as being one of the most mature in the world,

1:17:20

then how come we cannot put these people...

1:17:25

Take them to trial.

1:17:30

And so that became a problem for us

1:17:31

in going around to Muslim countries

1:17:35

and talking to Muslims about engaging the United States.

1:17:39

So we viewed it from that perspective.

1:17:44

Interviewer

And will you be talking to

1:17:48

the people in power at these are the countries?

1:17:51

-

Sometimes. It depends on the country.

1:17:56

And depends on the purpose of my trip.

1:18:02

You will have, if you go to the China

1:18:06

and you wanna talk about

1:18:08

the Islamic movement in West China,

1:18:09

you cannot avoid talking to the government about it.

1:18:12

Interviewer

Do you think we will close Guantanamo?

1:18:18

-

Well, I hope so. I think we must close Guantanamo.

1:18:21

Guantanamo is an anachronism.

1:18:24

Guantanamo reflects the worst of what our system offers.

1:18:27

Guantanamo is an antiquated structure.

1:18:35

I don't mean physical structure.

1:18:41

I think we have, of the 166 people there,

1:18:44

the 80 or so that have been approved for release,

1:18:51

they should be released.

1:18:55

I do not accept the point that has been made

1:18:57

that some are going to be held there indefinitely

1:19:01

because they are too dangerous to release

1:19:05

and too difficult to take the trial.

1:19:08

If they are too difficult to take to trial,

1:19:12

either the evidence is tainted

1:19:14

or we have a weak case against them.

1:19:16

And there's no choice.

1:19:19

So either the evidence was obtained

1:19:22

through elicit illegal means

1:19:25

and we cannot take it to civilian court,

1:19:27

or we have no case.

1:19:31

And in either case they should be released.

1:19:33

And I think that if the 30 or so detainees

1:19:36

that now under active consideration,

1:19:41

in terms of their cases are active,

1:19:45

they should be moved to civilian courts.

1:19:48

And the United States government and the judicial system,

1:19:50

in my view, is very well equipped and capable

1:19:55

of trying people, no matter how nefarious and atrocious

1:20:00

and heinous the crimes they committed against this country.

1:20:06

We've done it. This is not theoretical.

1:20:10

In fact, over 120-some terrorists

1:20:13

have already been convicted,

1:20:16

from the Blind Sheikh to everybody else,

1:20:18

and they are in jails everywhere.

1:20:21

I think once that happens, then that institution,

1:20:26

that structure should be relegated

1:20:32

to the dustbin of history.

1:20:34

Interviewer

And do you think the Muslim world

1:20:37

will look better on us?

1:20:38

-

I think so.

1:20:41

I think they finally would conclude that the United States

1:20:42

has come to its legal senses and ethical and moral senses.

1:20:47

And closing Guantanamo would be hailed,

1:20:52

in fact, by mainstream Islam.

1:20:56

This is not to say that the nasties and the radicals

1:21:01

and those involved in nefarious activities

1:21:05

are going to hail it.

1:21:07

But what we are concerned

1:21:08

is about engaging mainstream Islamic world.

1:21:10

Extremists, you find them in all religions

1:21:15

and in all countries, unfortunately.

1:21:18

But in some countries, we call them domestic terrorists.

1:21:21

But where I'm talking about,

1:21:28

the vast majorities of millions of Muslims.

1:21:29

I mean, we're not talking about

1:21:34

two, 300, Mormons in Southeast Utah,

1:21:35

we are talking about 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide,

1:21:41

from the United States to Russia, to China,

1:21:45

to all over the world.

1:21:49

And I think our national security

1:21:51

and national interests dictate that we reach out

1:21:54

because we do have relations already with them.

1:21:58

And cultural, economic, military, security, scientific,

1:22:01

and we are a country that is positioned to provide

1:22:10

all kinds of intellectual and informational value

1:22:16

to these countries.

1:22:25

But you cannot engage them

1:22:26

if they do not believe what we stand for is real.

1:22:28

And Guantanamo undercuts all of those values

1:22:33

that we try to advocate in the Islamic world.

1:22:37

Interviewer

Do you think the next president

1:22:41

will be able to close it?

1:22:42

-

Well, I hope this president is able to close it.

1:22:45

I really do.

1:22:47

And I think this president should be able to close it.

1:22:48

And it's his second term,

1:22:51

the New York Times editorial last week said

1:22:55

that argued very strongly for closing Guantanamo.

1:22:58

And I see no reason why this president,

1:23:02

in his second term, should not be able to close Guantanamo.

1:23:08

Interviewer

The New York Times was

1:23:14

probably addressing the hunger strike

1:23:15

and the hopelessness that they-

1:23:17

-

That's right. That's exactly right.

1:23:19

That's why I started by saying that the reasons today

1:23:20

are different for the hunger strike than they were then.

1:23:24

Then they were tangible things.

1:23:29

They needed a warmer cots, they needed more clothes,

1:23:31

they needed better health care.

1:23:35

They needed things of that sort,

1:23:38

which you could provide easily.

1:23:41

Now, the reasons that drive hunger strikes

1:23:44

are becoming universal reasons that are human rights reasons

1:23:48

and that are beginning to appeal

1:23:54

to the international community.

1:23:56

It's just no longer one of terrorism.

1:24:00

And it's just one of leaving people there

1:24:04

to rot indefinitely.

1:24:08

And I think that is already beginning to hurt our standing

1:24:10

and our prestige and our presence worldwide.

1:24:17

Interviewer

I think I know the answer, but I have to...

1:24:25

Do you think Obama knows what you just said?

1:24:28

Do you think he knows?

1:24:30

-

I think he knows that viscerally. I really do.

1:24:31

He did not make that statement to close Guantanamo lightly.

1:24:35

And what is even more important was that

1:24:42

that idea permeated his speech in Cairo.

1:24:47

I'm fortunate to say that and privileged,

1:24:53

that I did play a role in that speech.

1:24:57

And my book and the ideas were used

1:24:59

in framing that speech in Cairo

1:25:05

and that speech was based on these values.

1:25:08

And the response to that speech was phenomenal

1:25:11

in the first few weeks.

1:25:15

It fizzled later on.

1:25:19

The bounce that that developed was significant

1:25:21

but that bounce fizzled because no action were made,

1:25:25

was taken, no tangible results were provided.

1:25:32

And people continue to see Guantanamo.

1:25:37

I think Guantanamo should be closed.

1:25:41

I think this president should close it.

1:25:44

I think he knows the value and non-value of it.

1:25:47

And the fact is Al-Qaeda central

1:25:52

has diminished significantly, has diminished significantly.

1:25:56

And unfortunately fewer people now are going to Guantanamo

1:26:00

because more are killed rather than arrested,

1:26:08

but that's a different story altogether.

1:26:12

But I think the values that he expressed in his Cairo speech

1:26:15

reflect his own views about Guantanamo

1:26:21

and about engaging the Islamic world.

1:26:25

Interviewer

Did someone take over your agency

1:26:28

when you left?

1:26:30

-

Oh yeah. It's still there.

1:26:31

Yeah, yeah, and we had some of my colleagues

1:26:33

became in charge of the unit.

1:26:38

Interviewer

And I guess since you mentioned it,

1:26:42

but we don't have to, it's not really part of what we do,

1:26:44

but do you want to address the drones at all?

1:26:46

-

No. No.

1:26:50

Interviewer

Is there something that I didn't ask you

1:26:53

that is important for the world

1:26:54

to hear you tell us about?

1:26:57

-

Well, no, I think you were pretty comprehensive.

1:26:59

I just would want the world to understand,

1:27:04

to place Guantanamo in the larger issue of US relations

1:27:07

with the Muslim world.

1:27:13

That the Muslim world is huge, is complex, and is diverse.

1:27:16

And it's, I think, the height of folly

1:27:23

to view the Muslim world

1:27:26

from the perspective of terrorism only.

1:27:29

It's short-sighted.

1:27:33

In the long run it's harmful to our national interests.

1:27:35

And if we lost that generation,

1:27:40

I call it the Guantanamo generation,

1:27:44

we need to reach out to rising generations of youth,

1:27:46

the youth that fueled the Arab Spring,

1:27:51

the so-called Arab Spring,

1:27:54

the youth that want freedom, that want entrepreneurship,

1:27:56

that want jobs, that want dignity.

1:28:00

We need to reach out to that generation.

1:28:03

And the longer Guantanamo stays open,

1:28:07

the less able we are

1:28:13

in reaching to these rising generations.

1:28:16

Whether in Pakistan or in Egypt, or in the Balkans

1:28:21

or in the Stans in Central Asia, or in a Western countries

1:28:26

where we have millions and millions of Muslims living.

1:28:33

Interviewer

And Americans don't understand this.

1:28:38

Americans don't, you can tell them that,

1:28:40

but they don't hear that-

1:28:44

-

Individuals in the policy community

1:28:45

and the intelligence community understand that.

1:28:47

Educated Americans understand that.

1:28:55

But that's only a small sliver of society.

1:28:58

But people who don't understand Islam

1:29:05

or who don't, it's almost like the view about Catholicism

1:29:08

in the last century, or the 19th century,

1:29:13

or about Jews in other countries.

1:29:16

And now that's the view about Islam now.

1:29:19

We moved from Judaism to Catholicism to Islam now.

1:29:21

And in the long run, unless there is a civil rights,

1:29:26

human rights, unless these issues are addressed,

1:29:32

and unless national interest issues are addressed,

1:29:36

we're not going to serve our country.

1:29:41

I think the president understands that,

1:29:43

but I think domestic politics has been

1:29:47

very harmful in this area.

1:29:51

Interviewer

That was really wonderful.

1:29:55

If there's nothing else you wanted...

1:29:57

Johnny needs 20 minutes of room tone

1:29:59

before we turn off the mic.

1:30:03

Cameraman

20 seconds.

1:30:04

Interviewer

20 seconds, I'm sorry.

1:30:06

-

Yeah, okay.

1:30:07

Cameraman

So we'll just sit quietly for a minute.

1:30:09

Begin room tone.

1:30:11

End room tone.

1:30:25

Nakhleh, Emile - Interview master file

Transcript

Item Info

Human Rights Archive

More Info & Options