Husky, Kristine - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Tony

All right, it's rolling.

0:05

Peter

Okay, good afternoon.

0:06

-

Hello.

0:07

Peter

We are very grateful to you

0:09

for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo Project.

0:10

We invite you to speak of the experiences and involvement

0:14

with detainees who were held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:17

We are hoping to provide you an opportunity

0:22

to tell your story in your own words.

0:23

We are creating a archive of stories

0:27

so that people in America

0:29

and around the world will have a better understanding

0:31

of what you and others have contributed and experienced.

0:33

Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo.

0:38

And by telling your story, you're contributing to history.

0:41

We appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us.

0:46

If any time during the interview,

0:50

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

0:51

and we'll take a break.

0:53

-

Okay.

0:54

-

And if there's anything

you said you want to retract,

0:55

just let us know and we can remove it.

0:56

-

Okay.

0:58

Peter

And I'd like to begin

0:59

with some basic information, such as your name.

1:00

-

Okay, my name is Kristine Anne Husky.

1:03

Peter

And your country of origin?

1:07

-

I'm a U.S citizen.

1:10

I was born here.

1:11

I was actually born in Tacoma, Washington.

1:12

Peter

And your birthday and age?

1:16

-

August 23rd, just a couple weeks away.

1:19

So, I keep reminding everybody.

1:21

1967, so I'll be 43 in a couple of weeks, yeah.

1:24

Peter

And marital status?

1:28

-

I'm married.

1:31

Peter

With children or?

1:32

-

No children.

1:33

Peter

And your current place of residence?

1:34

-

Debatable (laughs).

1:36

I spend time, most of my time in Arlington, Virginia,

1:38

but since I am employed

1:42

and teach at University of Texas School of Law,

1:44

I also spend time in Austin.

1:46

Peter

And your education?

1:49

-

I went to law school at University of Texas Law School,

1:50

and I went to undergrad at Columbia University in New York.

1:54

Peter

And what would you call

1:58

your current occupation?

2:00

-

I am a law professor and an attorney.

2:02

Tony

And Peter, just before you start,

2:06

do you want to,

2:08

the lights are kind of like a little harsh.

2:08

So, could we put like a little bit of powder

2:10

on her forehead?

2:12

-

Is it?

Yeah, sure.

2:13

-

Go ahead.

-

I did powder, but I guess,

2:14

yeah, it's still.

2:16

-

Kristine likes

to power herself, so.

2:17

-

Oh no, that's okay. You can powder me.

2:18

I just was, 'cause you weren't here.

2:20

So, I had the powder myself.

2:21

-

Oh, I'm sorry.

Tony

Okay. We're good to go.

2:26

Peter

Okay, so, I'd like to begin

2:27

by asking you how you became involved in Guantanamo

2:29

but before you do, just a little bit

2:32

of background is what you were doing just before.

2:34

And what drew you into Guantanamo issues?

2:36

-

Well, when I graduated from law school in '97,

2:40

I clerked for a year

2:46

and then came right to Shearman and Sterling.

2:48

So, that was 1998

2:51

and began practicing international litigation

2:53

and arbitration, but all commercial.

2:55

You know, my clients GE

2:58

and you know, OPEC and, oh, actually,

3:01

we represented the Venezuelan National Oil Company,

3:04

this was all business business litigation.

3:08

And I actually happened to be in New York on 9/11.

3:10

It was in the middle of an arbitration

3:15

and the arbitration was actually taking place

3:17

in the Waldorf.

3:20

I know.

3:22

Sort of where, you know, we were all,

3:23

of course, staying you know?

3:25

So, I was there on 9/11, you know, that morning.

3:26

And you know, you could see the smoke, you could feel,

3:30

you know, everything that was going on in the city and,

3:34

you know, it was really incredible.

3:38

But so then of course, you know, a few days later,

3:40

we all came back to Washington and sort of,

3:42

Peter

You stayed in New York?

3:44

-

Yeah, actually, part of the reason was because,

3:46

you know, everything was shut down.

3:48

And so it took some time to sort of, you know, figure out

3:50

if we were going to, I know, this is how sick,

3:53

you know, the practice of commercial law can be.

3:56

We were trying to figure out whether we should keep going on

3:58

with the arbitration (laughs), or stop.

4:00

So, we decided, yes, maybe we should stop.

4:04

But you know, a couple of days, took a couple of days.

4:07

We took the train back to DC.

4:09

And, you know, I pretty much sort of got back on,

4:11

you know, with my life,

4:14

here in, you know, my fancy office

4:16

and commercial litigation and working until 10:00 PM.

4:18

And then Tom Wilner,

4:22

who I believe you've interviewed,

4:25

calls me in the office one day

4:28

and I'd worked with him before on the OPEC matter.

4:29

And he basically says,

4:32

"You know, I got this sort of strange request."

4:34

And I said, "Oh," you know,

4:38

it was like, "Okay, tell me about it."

4:39

Well, and he said, these Kuwaiti families approached him

4:41

through a contact in the U.S.

4:45

I think it was, might've been a U.S. lawyer.

4:48

And they were looking for help

4:50

and so this is about six months later,

4:53

six months after 9/11.

4:54

They're looking for help.

4:56

And they thought that their sons might be at Guantanamo

4:57

but they weren't really sure.

5:01

And I just sort of, you know, I remember just being

5:04

in his office that day and this is sort of, you know,

5:07

we really didn't know anything

5:10

and they were trying to sort of,

5:11

they just wanted some Washington law firm,

5:14

Washington lawyer to do an investigation, to ask questions.

5:16

So, it had to be somebody who had sort of connections.

5:20

And since Tom has been practicing here for 35 years,

5:23

that was a, you know, a good fit.

5:26

And since he'd worked with me and we worked well together,

5:28

he asked me if I wanted to work on this investigation

5:31

and, you know, we sort of talked about it.

5:34

And then, he said, you know,

5:36

"It could involve some aspect of criminal law."

5:38

Like if they get charged for crimes.

5:41

And I said, "Oh, we're not criminal lawyers.

5:44

"We'll just, you know, we'll just pass it

5:46

"on to somebody else at that point."

5:48

Right?

5:50

So we're just gonna, you know,

5:51

we're just going to do the investigation.

5:51

I'm very adventurous.

5:52

And I think Tom might've said,

5:54

"Oh, it could involve a trip to Kuwait."

5:56

So I said, "I'm in.

5:58

"Count me in." Because I love traveling.

5:59

So, it really sort of,

6:02

that's how it sort of started was just this,

6:03

"Oh, you're just going to,

6:06

"we're just going to ask some questions.

6:07

"We're going to talk to our contacts at DOJ"

6:09

and, you know, sort of try to figure out what's going on.

6:12

Well, you know, eight years later.

6:15

But so, we started asking questions around and basically,

6:18

you know, sort of got shut down.

6:23

I mean, people at DOJ were,

6:25

people at State that we knew just said,

6:28

"Don't ask any questions.

6:30

"If it involves Guantanamo,

6:32

"you're never gonna learn anything."

6:33

Around the same time we started asking questions,

6:36

we also took the trip to Kuwait

6:38

and met with the families and,

6:40

you know, learned more about what they knew

6:42

which was basically that their sons had gone separately.

6:46

I mean, they didn't know each other

6:51

before this all happened.

6:52

So, they had gone separately either to Afghanistan

6:53

or Iran or some other, you know,

6:57

nearby country to do humanitarian aid, right?

7:00

And that they had basically been

7:04

in contact with their family, each of them.

7:08

And they'd all gone at different times.

7:11

One son had gone a year ago.

7:12

One son had gone, you know, after the U.S.,

7:15

you know, invaded, or,

7:20

you know, went into Afghanistan.

7:22

Many had gone before 9/11

7:24

because there was a lot of unrest

7:27

and refugees going back and forth across the border.

7:29

I think most, a lot of people don't realize is

7:33

that Afghanistan was in a major conflict.

7:35

You know, it was a war zone before we even got there

7:37

because I had, I'm jumping ahead a little bit,

7:41

but I had a lot of my lawyer friends ask me,

7:43

"Well, what were your clients doing in Afghanistan anyways?

7:45

"Like why would they go there if not to be terrorists?"

7:48

You know?

7:51

And I said, you know, there was,

7:52

they were there to do humanitarian aid

7:53

because there was a conflict going on

7:56

before the US. even got there.

7:58

And they were like, you know, "Who goes to a war zone?"

8:00

Well, I reminded them that when I was younger,

8:03

I actually went to Angola in the middle

8:06

of a war when I was 17 or 18

8:08

and lived there for two years in the, I mean,

8:12

it was the height of the civil war.

8:15

And I certainly wasn't a terrorist.

8:17

So, you know, my friends who were lawyers were like

8:19

you know, "What were they doing in Afghanistan?"

8:21

You know, "Who does that? Who goes to a war zone?"

8:23

And I said, well, you know, I guess most Americans don't,

8:25

you know, so we sort of learned all this.

8:28

And then we learned

8:31

that they had families had lost contact with their sons.

8:32

And they had tried

8:34

to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City.

8:37

And they got sort of, you know, a little bit into it

8:43

and somebody, not even the ambassador, you know,

8:47

somebody on staff met with them and said,

8:50

you know, 'Well, we really can't tell you anything.

8:53

"We can't confirm anything."

8:56

You know, "We understand you're concerned,

8:57

"this, that and the other, but we really,

9:00

"we really can't tell you anything."

9:01

And so, they really pushed in their own government

9:03

and got their own government,

9:06

somebody in the foreign ministry to push on the U.S. and,

9:10

you know, fortunately the Kuwaiti government was very open

9:15

with their own citizens and were very forthcoming in,

9:20

at least as far as I know (laughs),

9:25

you never know what happens.

9:27

Very forthcoming in the information that they were getting.

9:29

And what astounded me though, was the fact

9:32

that the Kuwait foreign ministry wasn't even

9:34

getting that much information.

9:37

I mean, at some point, I'd say April of 2002,

9:38

the information they got was, yes, we have, you know,

9:44

these six citizens.

9:47

They named them.

9:49

They gave their date of birth.

9:51

And that was basically it.

9:53

They didn't say, "This is why we picked them up.

9:55

"This is what we're going to do with him.

9:58

"These are our plans."

10:00

It was just confirming who they were holding.

10:01

And so, the Kuwait foreign ministry then sent

10:04

that information on to the families.

10:07

And so, basically with that information,

10:09

that's when we decided, since we weren't getting anywhere

10:13

with the U.S. government, we would file a suit.

10:16

And, you know, sort of

10:19

between March when we were first approached

10:21

to about June or May,

10:24

May or June, is we did some, you know,

10:27

research, trying to make contact here,

10:31

trying to figure out what was going on.

10:33

Nobody would talk to us.

10:35

We went to Kuwait. We got a little bit information.

10:36

And then, you know, I really,

10:40

you know, and this was 2002,

10:43

so it was like I'd been practicing

10:45

for four years, five years.

10:46

I really sort of got the essence of why some,

10:49

why sometimes people have to sue

10:56

because it was the actual filing the suit

10:58

that forced the government to come forward.

11:01

They had to answer it.

11:04

And I thought, if we don't do anything,

11:06

nothing's going to happen.

11:08

If we don't file a suit, if we don't sue the government,

11:09

they're just going to keep saying, you know,

11:12

"Oh we're not going to tell you anything.

11:13

"Not just you, we're not going

11:16

"to tell the families anything."

11:16

So it was real, it was sort of empowering as a lawyer.

11:18

And it made me also realize how vulnerable a lot

11:25

of people must feel without, you know,

11:29

if they don't know a lawyer or don't have that ability

11:31

or get the run around by the government

11:34

and can't, you know, do anything about it.

11:36

So it was a huge sort of realization for me.

11:39

So we filed suit in May or June.

11:43

Peter

Was it really that empowering?

11:46

Or if you got all this pushback from the courts themselves

11:48

as well as from other people?

11:53

-

I'd say it was personally empowering.

11:56

It was not empowering for the case (laughs).

11:59

It was more of just a like, oh, you know, I guess

12:02

because maybe before that, a lot of the work

12:06

that I had done, you're such a,

12:08

you feel sort of like a small piece

12:10

in this huge, you know, multi-million dollar litigation

12:12

that's been going on forever.

12:15

And, you know, a lot of the cases in big law firms,

12:18

you come in as an associate, you work on some piece,

12:22

and it just keeps going on even after you leave.

12:25

And then some other associate takes your, you know?

12:27

And so it's almost, in some ways,

12:29

you often don't necessarily feel like a lawyer, you know?

12:31

'Cause you just, you're just a sort of,

12:35

"Oh, I just wrote that memo.

12:36

"I just wrote that portion of the brief."

12:37

And so with the Guantanamo, I guess, because I, you know,

12:39

maybe because I was in New York on 9/11

12:44

and then I, you know, was in Washington,

12:47

you know, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.

12:49

And then I went to Kuwait and met the families who,

12:52

you know, told me about their sons and said,

12:55

you know, "This is who this person is."

12:57

And I saw pictures and, you know, and then I came back

12:59

and we filed a suit on behalf of these people.

13:02

So, it was like the progression of going from,

13:05

you know, a terrible event

13:10

to these vulnerable people

13:11

who just wanted to find out anything

13:14

to being able to write up the document

13:16

and file it in court.

13:19

You know what I mean?

13:22

Peter

Totally.

13:23

-

That, so, whereas I hadn't had that feeling

13:23

in the work that I'd been doing

13:26

at Shearman and Sterling, because, you know,

13:28

it's because the work is always, the cases are so big.

13:30

And they go on, they started long before you,

13:33

you know, some of the cases started

13:35

when I was in law school.

13:36

So, you know.

13:37

-

And how did you,

did you get any reaction from friends or from other members

13:40

in the firm or anything in terms of?

13:43

Tony

Yeah.

13:45

-

Okay. Oh yeah.

Well, so first of all, within the firm,

13:48

and I really credit, you know, Tom for,

13:50

you know, we come back from Kuwait

13:53

and we've met all the families,

13:55

and we've done all this due diligence and we file the suit,

13:56

I think we had filed the suit

14:01

or maybe it was right before we were going to file a suit.

14:03

And Tom got a lot of pushback from his other partners here.

14:05

And, you know, he said, "This is the right thing to do."

14:10

It's really, you know, for me,

14:13

it was a huge lesson

14:14

because at that time, I was still a developing lawyer.

14:15

I was looking all around

14:18

and seeing how different people were,

14:19

you know, practicing law, being lawyers.

14:21

And Tom just said, "This is, you know

14:23

"this is the right thing to do to represent these people

14:24

"and to, you know, file a sort of due process complaint

14:28

"against the U.S. government," and the partners,

14:33

especially in New York, thought that it would lead

14:37

to the loss of business that some of our clients who are,

14:39

you know, based in New York

14:42

like Merrill Lynch and Citibank would be so upset

14:43

by it that they would leave us.

14:47

And Tom said, you know,

14:49

"You're going to have to fire me

14:52

"if you want me to drop the case."

14:54

And so, he obviously won that battle (laughs),

14:56

but it was, you know, he really put himself out there.

15:00

So, within the firm, you know, especially in New York,

15:02

not a whole lot of people liked us doing it.

15:07

But in DC, the DC office was very supportive actually.

15:09

Peter

What about toward you?

15:12

Did you get any personal?

15:13

-

So, people in the firm were very supportive

15:15

and certainly towards me, you know,

15:17

I think there was even, certainly,

15:19

by the younger associates, like a little bit of envy

15:22

because it was such an interesting case, you know,

15:25

and by now Guantanamo's becoming a little bit more known

15:26

in the papers, but I'll tell you, it was, I mean,

15:30

some of the conversations that I had, that we had,

15:33

that Tom and I had with other lawyers, because, you know,

15:34

it was still, we were still doing all this investigation,

15:38

trying to learn stuff about Guantanamo.

15:41

Who's, you know, who's the right person to call,

15:43

contact, all that.

15:44

And then my own friends who I went to law school with,

15:47

you know, really gave me a lot of grief

15:51

and they sort of now are sort of a little chagrined

15:54

by the fact that I put that in my book, you know,

15:57

and years later, when all this stuff has come out,

15:59

they're like, "Why do you have to tell everybody that?"

16:01

No, but the truth is, is they were, you know, they, I mean,

16:03

I remember this very clear,

16:07

we're having margaritas at this tex mex restaurant in DC.

16:08

And they said, "Why are you representing terrorists?

16:12

"You know, those people."

16:15

And so in their minds, and like in the minds of most people

16:17

in America were basically like 9/11 just happened.

16:22

You're now representing the people

16:27

who caused that to happen.

16:28

But, you know, and I was sort of surprised

16:30

because I'm thinking, "Okay.

16:32

"I understand when the rest

16:34

"of the United States like makes that,

16:35

"tries to make that connection

16:37

"but you're a lawyer.

16:38

"We went to law school together," you know?

16:39

This person, you know, first of all,

16:42

everyone who actually did 9/11 is dead because, you know,

16:44

they died, you know?

16:47

So, I mean, it was just incredible.

16:49

I said, you know, "They're entitled

16:51

"to some sort of hearing to determine, you know

16:53

"what their connection is, if any."

16:58

And then, you know, then they said like most people,

17:00

"Well, they were, you know,

17:02

"they were fighting in Afghanistan.

17:04

"They were on the battlefield" because that's what

17:05

the U.S. government was telling everybody.

17:07

Well, you know, of course years later,

17:10

it turns out a lot of people weren't even

17:11

on the battlefield or had weapons in their hands.

17:13

So, you know, it was just so interesting to me

17:15

that lawyers would say,

17:17

that they would say,

17:21

"Oh, well, this is what the government is telling us.

17:22

"So, that's what we should believe."

17:24

You know, they're on the battlefield, they're terrorists.

17:25

Why are you repping? You know?

17:27

And then I also sort of thought, well,

17:28

even if they are all of that,

17:30

why don't they deserve representation of some sort?

17:33

Why don't they deserve some, you know,

17:36

hearing or something, you know?

17:39

I mean, so it was really incredible.

17:40

And some people, I remember one guy, not a lawyer,

17:43

I had this party on July 4th,

17:46

because from my balcony,

17:48

you can see the fireworks off the mall.

17:49

And so here it's July 4th, you know,

17:52

the Liberty of America and all this freedom.

17:54

And this guy says to me,

17:57

I said, "You can't just detain people and not, you know,

18:00

"without some sort of due process

18:04

"or without giving them some sort of hearing."

18:06

And the guy says, "Well, you know,

18:09

"sure you can, we've, you know, we've done that before."

18:11

And I said, "Are you talking

18:14

"about the internment of Japanese Americans?"

18:15

And he's like, "Yeah.

18:18

"You know, we detained them during the war."

18:19

And I said, "Yeah, but we, that was wrong."

18:20

I mean, I just went so shocked that, you know,

18:25

that was sort of the, you know, it's,

18:28

you know, when it's a war, it's just okay to do anything,

18:30

you know, that you could just run all over people

18:32

and detain people, even if they're, you know,

18:34

they have families and all that sort of stuff.

18:36

So, yeah.

18:38

-

Was your life changing?

I mean, was something going on?

18:41

Were you seeing the world differently

18:43

when you were, had to defend this position, or is this?

18:45

-

You know, I don't think there was something going on

18:49

with me, but I mean, I think I've been very fortunate

18:53

to have had a very diverse background.

18:57

You know, I grew up in Alaska.

19:00

I lived in Saudi Arabia when I was a teenager.

19:02

I traveled a lot because my parents lived overseas

19:06

and we had to, my sister and I had to go

19:09

to a boarding school in the U.S.

19:11

And, you know, I lived in Angola.

19:12

So, I don't know.

19:16

I think that really gave me a lot

19:18

of different perspectives

19:21

that maybe a lot of Americans don't have.

19:24

And you know, I'm not saying that I'm unique

19:26

but I guess I think that, you know,

19:29

that really helped me see, you know,

19:30

that everything's not so black and white, you know,

19:34

it's, I don't know.

19:36

I guess that's the best way to sort of say it.

19:39

And I think, you know, quite honestly,

19:42

that there was a lot of,

19:44

it's interesting, in the beginning, especially,

19:47

when I would have sort of conversations about the work

19:49

that I was doing, and it was just starting, it was 2002.

19:51

So, we're talking summer of 2002, fall of 2002,

19:54

even into 2003.

19:58

And I noticed that the people who pushed back the most

20:00

versus the people who said,

20:04

"Oh, you know, that's sort of interesting, you know?

20:05

"Wow. Yeah, I guess they do deserve a hearing."

20:07

There was a, and even Tom agreed with me,

20:09

there was a little bit of a divide

20:12

between Caucasians and ethnic people

20:14

and you know, particularly Black people.

20:18

And I honestly think that's because, you know,

20:21

certainly in my circle of friends as a lawyer, you,

20:25

I think especially if you're white,

20:31

you've probably had more advantages than most,

20:32

and you trust more, you know?

20:35

And you've never been accused of doing something

20:38

that you really didn't do.

20:40

Whereas, you know, when you're, I think a minority,

20:42

there's a little less trust,

20:46

there's the ability to sort of see that the,

20:48

you know, that the authority is not always right.

20:51

And that, you know, sometimes as a minority,

20:53

you're just vulnerable just because you're a minority.

20:55

So, I definitely, you know, Tom and I both saw that divide.

20:58

So, it was very interesting.

21:03

Peter

Has there, I wanted to bring

21:06

this up later on, but I was just thinking as you're talking,

21:08

as a woman or a woman of color

21:11

when you met the Kuwaitis, was that an issue at all?

21:13

Did they treat you differently

21:16

than they treated Tom because?

21:18

-

Oh, well, yeah (laughs).

21:20

But, well, two different parts here.

21:22

One, well, I should say as background is to,

21:26

as I mentioned I lived in Saudi Arabia,

21:30

when I was growing up in Alaska, my dad changed jobs.

21:32

So, we moved to Saudi Arabia when I was 13.

21:35

And that was my first, you know,

21:37

I'd lived in Alaska my whole life.

21:39

And so, that was really my first sort of, you know,

21:41

living in a very, I mean, to go from Alaska

21:45

to Saudi Arabia, it was like, you know, night and day.

21:47

I'd never been to the Middle East.

21:50

I'd never, I never knew any Middle Easterners,

21:52

never really knew any Arabs or Muslims.

21:54

And so, that was, and Saudi is a very conservative country.

21:56

So, it was like, "Whoa," you know?

21:59

So, before we went to Kuwait to meet the families,

22:03

I was very prepared.

22:06

You know?

22:08

I knew all, you know, I knew exactly,

22:09

you know, the dress, the clothes to bring.

22:11

I mean, that's huge.

22:12

You have to bring the right clothes.

22:13

Otherwise, you're going to be offensive.

22:15

You know, I felt almost like, well,

22:18

I'm already offensive because I'm female (laughs).

22:20

So, you know, I have to bring the right.

22:22

So, I brought all the right clothes and I also,

22:23

but I also learned as I was

22:25

in Kuwait meeting the families that, you know,

22:27

Kuwait is a little, is more progressive than Saudi.

22:30

They're just more progressive.

22:34

They're not as conservative

22:35

but interestingly enough, you know, before I went,

22:39

you know, they reminded me,

22:42

you know, don't be offended

22:44

if the men do not shake your hand.

22:46

'Cause here in the Washington world of business, it's all,

22:48

you know, you meet, "Oh, hi, nice to meet you.

22:51

"Here's my business card."

22:54

You know, it's very.

22:55

But so, you know, I tried to be,

22:57

you know, sort of more demure and Tom says

23:00

that's never possible with me, but a little more, you know,

23:02

quiet if that's the best way to say it.

23:08

And when I first started meeting

23:11

with the families and when I say family,

23:13

what I mean when we met the families,

23:15

I'm talking about the men.

23:17

I never met any of the women, you know?

23:18

They never came to any of the meetings or anything

23:20

and that's not a judgment.

23:23

That's just, that's just how it is in, you know,

23:24

those kinds of countries.

23:28

And so I-

23:29

-

You never met the mothers?

-

Nope.

23:31

Yeah, no.

23:33

Never met the mothers. It was all, you know, the men.

23:35

So, I mean, I will always remember the first meeting,

23:37

you know, it was Tom and there was a Kuwaiti lawyer there

23:40

and another American lawyer

23:46

who was sort of the guy who sort of connected us all.

23:48

So, three male lawyers,

23:51

and they were probably all over 55 or 60.

23:52

And then, you know, me, and then we walk

23:55

into this conference room at the Sheraton in Kuwait City

23:58

and it's one of these sort of square tables

24:00

and it's completely filled.

24:03

And it's all men, Kuwaiti men,

24:05

in their white thawbs with the gotras, you know,

24:08

and the gotra is the, I think, it's the headband

24:11

but in their red and, you know, white scarfs,

24:14

you know, and I just felt, I don't know.

24:18

You know, I guess part of me felt very,

24:20

you know, conspicuous, which of course I was,

24:24

but at the same time,

24:26

I guess I was sort of used to being, you know,

24:27

maybe always, you know, in odd situations and,

24:32

you know, so it was sort of like, okay, well,

24:35

you know, they're either going to accept me or not.

24:38

And I just have to keep, you know, I'm still a lawyer.

24:41

I just keep going.

24:43

So, when we were in Kuwait

24:46

we were sort of doing different, you know, investigations,

24:47

asking different questions.

24:52

And I know at some point, I was

24:53

in charge of meeting with each of the fathers

24:55

or brothers and taking the story, learning as much

25:00

as I could about their particular son or brother.

25:03

And, you know, I just remember, like,

25:07

and a lot of times we had to have an interpreter there

25:09

because they usually did not speak English.

25:12

Some of them did, but, you know, I just remember

25:14

in the beginning it was very, you know, sort of awkward

25:18

but they knew, you know, it was sort of like, okay, well,

25:21

here's the lawyer who's going to help you.

25:23

And Tom is busy, so don't look, you know,

25:25

don't look for him.

25:27

This is Kristine. And that's what you got.

25:28

And in the beginning, there was some

25:31

of the guys were, you know, they'd look away and talk,

25:33

they'd talk to the interpreter, you know,

25:36

who was actually the father of one, Mr. Khalid Al Odah.

25:37

They talked to him basically

25:44

when I was asking the questions.

25:45

But, you know, in many of those sort of,

25:47

you know, intakes, there was sort of an intake,

25:50

by the end of it, you know,

25:53

they were just talking about their son.

25:54

I mean, that's what that was about was telling me

25:56

who their son was

25:59

and what their son had done in his life.

26:00

And so, you know, by the end of it,

26:03

it was like they were looking at me, you know,

26:05

like with tears in their eyes.

26:07

And it was like, I'm getting teary-eyed right now

26:09

just thinking about it, you know,

26:11

but it was so powerful

26:12

because I guess that was part of what I was saying.

26:15

It's sort of like the,

26:16

that was part of the progression of feeling, you know,

26:17

the empowerment to be able to take that back

26:20

to Washington and then file a suit, you know?

26:23

So, that was one aspect

26:25

of the experience you're talking about

26:27

and the other aspect was going to Guantanamo.

26:29

Right?

26:31

And, you know, I said before, okay, well, you know,

26:32

they may not want to talk to me and that's all right.

26:35

I'll just sit in the corner and take notes.

26:38

You know, where normally I'd certainly,

26:40

you know, I'd be up front,

26:44

you know, stomping my foot and talking

26:45

about women's rights and everything.

26:47

But I was like, that's not, you know,

26:48

that's not going to be the place to do that.

26:49

So, but that honestly didn't happen

26:52

when we got to Guantanamo and, you know,

26:56

and met with all the Kuwaitis, they were,

26:59

I think they were just, especially at that time,

27:02

they were just so thankful to see another, you know,

27:04

a person who was saying, "I'm here to try to help you.

27:08

"I'm on your side, you know, I'm not gonna interrogate you.

27:11

"I'm not even going to ask you questions

27:14

"if you don't want me to, you know,

27:16

"we're trying to do this."

27:17

And so I think, you know, they sort of saw past

27:18

if they ever even had any, you know,

27:21

feelings about a female lawyer versus a male lawyer,

27:23

you know?

27:28

Peter

Did you wear a head scarf?

27:29

-

I did not,

27:31

not for the Kuwaitis for some of my later clients.

27:33

Peter

In Guantanamo?

27:37

-

Mm-hmm.

Peter

Why did you for some in-

27:38

-

I brought a headscarf and the translator, Ashraf, said,

27:40

you know, he said, "Kuwait's pretty progressive.

27:45

"You know, I don't think you really need

27:48

"to bring a headscarf."

27:49

He said that might even offend them

27:51

because you're trying to be something you're not.

27:53

And I said, "Hmm, okay."

27:55

So I brought it in with me and then I asked, you know,

27:57

"Would you prefer if I wore a scarf over my head?"

27:59

And they were like, "No, you know, that's okay."

28:03

But I also, so to sort of keep on that,

28:06

I remember several other, you know,

28:09

visits later we would sort of break up sometimes

28:12

and I would go see some different detainees

28:17

and Tom would go see some detainees.

28:19

And then our colleague,

28:21

Neil Coslow, would go see some others

28:23

because that's the, you know,

28:25

sort of how we covered all 12 of them and we'd come back

28:26

and we'd meet and talk about how did the meetings go?

28:31

And I realized that in some cases I was learning more

28:35

about who the detainees were

28:38

as people than Tom or Neil, you know?

28:41

And they were like, "Oh, you know

28:43

"he told you that?

28:45

"He told you about his kids?"

28:46

And I'm like, "Yeah."

28:47

You know, so I think, and I still feel this

28:48

that as a female, they, you know, they may have,

28:51

you know, we talked about the law too,

28:54

not to sort of say, "Oh, you know, I wasn't a lawyer."

28:56

We talked about the law, but I think they were able

28:58

to sort of let their guard down a little bit.

29:01

With Tom and Neil, you know,

29:05

they had to be strong because they were guys, you know,

29:07

and here they were in this terrible place, Guantanamo.

29:09

And they had been there, you know, already for a few years

29:12

but with me, they sort of, you know, let their guard down.

29:17

And, you know, I remember one guy showing me pictures

29:20

of his kids, you know?

29:24

And Tom and Neil didn't get to see pictures of his kids.

29:25

And so that was, you know, as a lawyer,

29:27

you really do try to bond with your client

29:30

because it's such a, you know,

29:33

it's such a close relationship, you know?

29:34

Especially in that sort of situation,

29:36

and then when you're trying to learn about who this guy is

29:40

so you can defend them against these accusations

29:42

that he's a terrorist or an enemy combatant, whatever.

29:44

So I definitely, I definitely think that it was an advantage

29:47

in some cases to be female because they were, you know,

29:53

they were sort of more, they didn't have to be a tough guy,

29:58

you know, they sort of opened up

30:02

and talked about their life in Kuwait.

30:03

And then we, you know, and then we talked about the law

30:06

but it was more of a sort of conversation.

30:09

And yeah, so.

30:12

Peter

From the beginning, you think that was true?

30:14

From the very beginning, the men opened up to you?

30:16

-

I think for the beginning,

30:19

they didn't open up, you know, with any of us.

30:21

And I mean, I'll always remember that first visit.

30:24

Actually, Tom didn't go. It was Neil and I.

30:26

And it was December 26th, 2004.

30:29

So, you know, we flew down the day after Christmas

30:33

and it also happened to be the same couple of days

30:37

when there was that terrible tsunami in Thailand

30:43

and Indonesia that killed I don't know how many thousands

30:47

of people, hundreds of thousands of people.

30:50

And we sort of learned about it.

30:53

We learned about it the day, the very first day we came back

30:55

from doing all these interviews.

30:59

So, it was just like, I mean, you know,

31:01

it was terrible to see that on the news.

31:03

And then we had just met

31:06

with our clients for the first time to see them, you know,

31:06

in the situation that they were, I just thought,

31:09

oh my God, the world is coming to an end.

31:11

You know?

31:13

So in the beginning,

31:14

Neil and I had a very particular strategy and even,

31:15

you know, a couple of visits in, we said,

31:19

"We're not going to ask them any questions

31:21

"about what they were doing, or you know,

31:22

"where they were or anything like that.

31:25

"We're just gonna tell them all about us.

31:26

"We're gonna tell them about us.

31:29

"We're going to tell them about the firm.

31:30

"We're going to tell them

31:31

"about the lawsuit that we filed on their behalf."

31:32

We're gonna, you know, I mean, by now it's two years,

31:36

we had just won the Supreme Court case.

31:39

So, that's why we were even down there.

31:41

So, we literally went through the whole,

31:43

"This is what we've been doing for two and a half years.

31:45

"We filed this case and then we appealed it.

31:46

"And then we went to Supreme Court"

31:49

and we explained what the Supreme Court was.

31:50

You know, so, we did all the talking,

31:52

you know, because we didn't want them to feel

31:56

like we were just another, you know, interrogator.

31:58

And I remember some of the, you know, some,

32:01

you know, there was 12 of them.

32:04

And I always remember thinking, you know,

32:05

before we went to go see them for the first time,

32:07

they're always the 12 Kuwaitis, the 12.

32:09

And we get down there

32:12

and they're all very different people.

32:14

You know, some were nice.

32:17

Some were sort of standoffish.

32:18

Some seemed a little more trusting than others.

32:20

Some were just like, "Hmm. Who are you?"

32:22

Some were very demanding, you know?

32:25

"Can you bring me this and that and the other?

32:30

"And bring me a Coke, bring me this, bring me," you know?

32:32

And some were just grateful that we were even, you know,

32:35

so I was just like, oh my gosh, they're individual,

32:37

this is not just a case.

32:40

They're people. I know that sounds sort of obvious.

32:41

But, you know, they're people with brothers and sisters

32:43

and wives and children and parents, you know,

32:48

and that just became so clear when we were there.

32:50

So, you know, in the beginning, it was sort of

32:54

like learning about each other, you know,

32:58

and some of them, I remember one guy

33:02

who used to say, and this is by the,

33:05

we'd been there already, like four or five times.

33:08

And he'd say, you know, I said,

33:10

"I think, I'm not sure I believe yet that you're my lawyer."

33:12

And he said, "I think this is all a play

33:17

"that the government is putting on

33:20

"to make us think that we have lawyers," you know?

33:22

And here we'd been visiting him for like, you know,

33:25

months already and coming down and we filed this suit.

33:27

We brought him copies of his papers and all this.

33:29

And he's like, "Yeah, I think you're,

33:31

"I think you're an actress" is what he said (laughs).

33:34

And so eventually we, you know,

33:37

we did, we-

33:39

-

What'd you say?

What'd you say to that?

33:40

-

Oh, well, we said, well, actually,

33:41

so Tom of course said,

33:42

"Well, Kristine did use to model, you know?"

33:43

So, you know, it was,

33:46

you know, who knows why he says stuff like that.

33:47

But so, you know, we said, "No, we're really your."

33:49

I mean, how do you, how do you,

33:53

in that situation, how do you prove?

33:55

You know, do you say,

33:57

"Well, if we," if it was you and me, I'd say,

33:59

"Well, you know what? Let's go on the internet.

34:01

"I'll show you, I'll show you the website.

34:02

"I'll show you a picture of me," but you know,

34:04

you're not allowed to bring anything in those cells.

34:06

You know, no phone, no, obviously no computer.

34:09

I don't know, I think,

34:13

when we first started going down there,

34:14

you didn't even have internet in your hotel room.

34:15

So, you know, you just try to,

34:16

you know, you just try

34:19

to keep telling them what you're doing to try to help them.

34:20

But the problem also was, you know,

34:26

is that no matter what we tried to do,

34:28

we weren't getting that far.

34:29

You know, and in the beginning, they were so happy to see us

34:32

and they wanted to hear about their case

34:35

and they wanted to know what was going on

34:37

and did we file this?

34:38

And how did that go?

34:39

And what did the judge say?

34:40

You know, what did the press say?

34:41

And you know, this, that, and the other.

34:43

And that went on for like a year.

34:44

And then after they realized

34:46

that we weren't really getting that far

34:48

and that nobody really cared, even the judges,

34:51

and that the government kept challenging everything

34:55

that we filed, you know, there was a little,

34:58

I don't know if it was a, you know,

35:00

sort of a loss of trust or just a sort

35:03

of increasing hopelessness, but that, you know,

35:06

that feeling of hopelessness projected

35:11

onto the lawyers, you know, like,

35:15

you know, oh, we don't have, you know,

35:18

I remember after a year, or year and a half say,

35:19

"Well, we don't have to talk about the case anymore.

35:23

"Why don't we just, why don't we just talk?"

35:25

I mean, they didn't even want to talk about the case.

35:28

One of them, I remember didn't want to talk about the case.

35:29

"What have you been doing, Kristine?"

35:32

You know, and we'd talk about sports, and I was doing a lot

35:34

of triathlons at the time and, you know?

35:38

Peter

What were you thinking of?

35:41

What was going on in your head as you see this change?

35:42

-

Oh, it was so, yeah.

35:46

So the beginning I was telling you

35:50

about how I was empowered.

35:51

And then I was disempowered,

35:52

because you feel, you know, I mean,

35:55

you feel like, you know, that you're failing

35:58

that you're failing your client

36:02

that you're failing your, you know, your profession.

36:05

I mean, we got so,

36:08

there's a chapter in my book called Guantanamo 24/7.

36:11

We just got, we were making trips all the time.

36:14

We were constantly talking to the press, litigating,

36:16

and I was sort of so focused

36:19

on doing Guantanamo and that sort of all I did.

36:22

And that's all we did, you know, that when,

36:24

you know, you go there and your client is,

36:29

doesn't even want to talk about the legal work that you do,

36:31

you start to feel like,

36:33

you know, what kind of lawyer am I?

36:35

You know?

36:37

It's easy to sort of look at it in hindsight

36:40

and reflect and say, of course, you know,

36:41

I'm still a good lawyer.

36:44

At least I hope I am, but you know what I mean?

36:45

At the time when you're in it, and you just, you feel,

36:46

you feel so powerless.

36:49

And I felt bad, you know, by then I'd grown,

36:51

you know, close to a couple of them,

36:55

had closer relationships with some of them.

36:58

And I really also felt like what they were going through,

37:02

you know, especially by then,

37:05

and I'd learned their stories and, you know,

37:07

I really felt it just was so unfair.

37:11

It was so unfair.

37:14

And what frustrated me the most is that you'd come back

37:16

to the United States and still, in 2005, after the stories

37:19

of torture came out and you had a lot of military people

37:22

kind of coming out and saying,

37:25

this is bad what's going on at Guantanamo.

37:27

And you still had a lot of American public saying,

37:29

"Oh, there's terrorists down there.

37:31

"And they don't deserve any rights.

37:32

"And why should they have any rights?

37:34

"And they're foreigners.

37:35

"And they're those people, they're those people," you know?

37:37

So it just used to, you know, the sort of the world

37:40

of Guantanamo and the world back here was just, you know,

37:43

just colliding and smashing.

37:47

And you felt that, you know, in your soul.

37:50

Sort of, I guess that's the best way to sort of say it, but.

37:54

Peter

Did you have issues

37:58

with the military down there as a,

38:01

one as a lawyer and two is a woman lawyer?

38:04

-

No.

38:09

You know, when we first started going down in 2004,

38:11

we were the first lawyers

38:14

and it was really just us, Tom, Neil, and myself.

38:16

And there was another couple of lawyers

38:20

who represented the British citizens

38:22

in the Rasul suitcase,

38:24

which is sort of that was our case together

38:26

at the Supreme Court.

38:28

And so there was a couple of other,

38:29

Clive, actually was one of the first lawyers down there,

38:31

people from CCR, Center for Constitutional Rights.

38:34

And so, the military sort of, you know, saw us as like,

38:37

and we had an escort, you know,

38:43

it's a whole rigmarole when you're down there.

38:44

Peter

What does that mean?

38:45

-

When you land, you know, a military escort comes

38:47

to sort of pick you up and make sure you go to your hotel.

38:51

You know, and hotel was like a,

38:55

called this combined bachelors quarters.

38:56

It was kind of like a Motel 6

38:59

and make sure that you go to your hotel.

39:02

And then the next morning you take the ferry

39:04

and they meet you,

39:06

they take you, take the ferry to the other side

39:07

which is where the main camp is,

39:09

where everything, the detention center, all of that,

39:11

and they meet you there.

39:13

And then they are with you the entire time.

39:14

You are not allowed to be on your own

39:17

because you might go do something bad.

39:19

But in the beginning, the military escort sort of,

39:23

you know, it, the Guantanamo litigation was not well-known.

39:27

There wasn't a lot of lawyers going down there.

39:31

There wasn't a whole bunch of stuff coming out.

39:32

And so, the military escorts were always very, very nice

39:34

to us because their duty was to escort us around.

39:37

And so, and we would even go out to dinner

39:41

with them afterwards, you know, maybe buy them a case

39:43

of beer at the end of our few day stay and,

39:46

you know, they were,

39:48

you know, and so that was fun.

39:49

But then as more lawyers started going down there,

39:50

it became more of sort of a logistical nightmare

39:52

for the military to try to figure out how are we going to,

39:55

how are we going to do this

39:58

with all these lawyers coming down?

39:59

We can't have them running amuck, you know, on the base

40:01

which is very small.

40:05

And so, and then I think also some lawyers went down

40:07

who were jerks and they treated the military very poorly.

40:10

And so, then it became that the habeas lawyers were,

40:15

you know, all of them were jerks.

40:18

And so then they restricted our movement on the base.

40:21

They wouldn't let us stay there on that side

40:24

where there was all the restaurants after five.

40:26

They wouldn't let us use the library

40:29

which before we used to actually go

40:30

to the library and use the internet there and everything.

40:32

So, things got a little more like we, ourselves,

40:35

were sort of prisoners in a way

40:40

that we were constantly watched.

40:42

We were constantly, you know, I mean,

40:44

I was followed up to the door of the ladies room

40:46

by the military escort, just, yeah,

40:49

because I guess I was, you know,

40:50

because that was their job, you know?

40:52

So, that changed,

40:55

I think the sort of goodwill towards lawyers,

40:57

which was at the beginning sort of changed, not to say,

40:59

they all did their jobs,

41:02

you know, very professionally, but certainly the sort

41:04

of friendliness that was there at the beginning was gone,

41:06

you know, a year later, I think

41:10

because there was so many lawyers going down and then,

41:12

and they're, you know, like any group of people,

41:14

there were some jerks, you know, and Tom (laughs),

41:16

Tom is a little bit of a belligerent person.

41:22

He will tell you this himself.

41:24

And so, whenever we would, you know,

41:26

and we got told, "No" a lot, you know,

41:29

"No, no, you can't do that. No, you can't do that."

41:31

And Tom sometimes would, you know, fight back.

41:34

And I mean, on more than one occasion,

41:37

I would physically have to step in front of him

41:40

so that he would not do something really stupid

41:43

and get us all kicked off the base.

41:46

Yes. I know.

41:47

This is true. This is true.

41:48

He will tell you it is true

41:49

because you know, he's a,

41:51

so, you know, there weren't always good feelings

41:53

between us in the military

41:56

but they always, you know, they always did their job.

41:58

And I always felt like, oh my gosh, you know,

41:59

of all the posts in the world, you know,

42:01

to go to Guantanamo because you're really, as a soldier,

42:05

you're sort of, you know, you're not in the action.

42:08

So, you don't have that sort of feeling like I'm doing,

42:11

you know, I'm here in Afghanistan doing something,

42:14

you know, putting my life in danger.

42:19

You're at Guantanamo and you've got all, you know,

42:20

so a lot of, by now you got some bad press coming out

42:23

about how the detainees are tortured

42:25

and this, that, and the other.

42:27

So, I always thought it was very hard

42:29

for the soldiers to be there.

42:31

It must've been very difficult to sort of try

42:34

to do their job and then also face, you know, criticism

42:36

by the, you know, Americans and international community.

42:42

So, and I also, you know,

42:48

and also, you know. you have to remember,

42:50

it's like the military is made up

42:52

of all sorts of different people.

42:53

Just because they're in the military doesn't mean

42:55

they support what the president is doing.

42:56

And so, and that was also sort of an interesting, you know,

42:58

thing is that sometimes there were some soldiers, you know,

43:03

who clearly would say, would sort of hint

43:07

at that what was going on in Guantanamo was just wrong,

43:11

you know?

43:14

-

They would tell you that?

-

Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't say it outright.

43:15

But definitely in some conversations that I had,

43:19

you could definitely feel that was the sentiment.

43:21

You know?

43:26

Peter

Did you see any women's soldiers

43:27

or women guards while you were there?

43:28

-

Yes and I actually almost came to fisticuffs

43:30

with one of them (laughs),

43:34

and then I decided, you know what?

43:35

She has a gun and that's probably not a good idea.

43:36

Yeah, I was trying to go back into the cell

43:40

and she wanted me to wait.

43:44

I think I went out to the bathroom

43:45

or something and she wanted me to wait

43:46

and I don't remember what the whole story was

43:49

but she had to grab my arm or something or put her hand up.

43:52

And yeah, that's when I realized that I was,

43:56

I should back down.

43:59

You don't want to get into a fisticuffs with a guard.

44:01

So, but there were,

44:03

there were some female guards, not that many, I mean,

44:05

probably 98% men, especially where, you know,

44:07

where we were at camp, it's called Camp Echo

44:13

which is where they bring the detainees

44:15

for their interviews with their lawyers, so.

44:17

Peter

So as a woman lawyer,

44:20

you're one of the very few.

44:23

Tony

Keep talking, I'm just going

44:26

to tweak this again.

44:27

-

Is it? Okay.

Is it slipping down?

44:28

Tony

No, it's just moved when you move hand.

44:29

-

Oh, okay.

44:31

-

Yeah.

44:32

-

Sorry.

Tony

That's okay.

44:33

You have, just, movements.

44:34

-

I move.

I know. I'm not Italian, but I (laughs).

44:35

I do have the hand, I do have the good, the hand movements.

44:38

Peter

So, it sounds to me

44:42

that you were comfortable in a very male world,

44:44

first in Kuwait, but then it sounds to me,

44:48

even in Guantanamo kind of.

44:50

-

Yeah, and, you know, and people would say,

44:53

you know, when I grew up in Alaska, so I grew up in Alaska.

44:56

My father is very, he is rough and tumble Alaskan.

44:59

And he has two children, both who are female.

45:03

And so, you know, there was no boys to do,

45:07

you know, all the heavy lifting.

45:10

So, we did, and I learned how to shoot when I was eight

45:11

and I know how to skin a moose and, you know, catch a salmon

45:13

and shoot, you know, a whole variety of weapons.

45:17

And so, I guess, you know, sort of some of that,

45:20

you know, and he was in the military when he was young

45:24

and I guess some of that stuff sort of doesn't,

45:27

it doesn't phase me too much or whatever.

45:31

So, you know, yeah.

45:33

Maybe that's sort of what helps.

45:36

Peter

Could you describe how it changed with,

45:40

I know you said something in terms of with your clients,

45:45

they became more, somewhat hopeless,

45:48

as you said, along the way.

45:52

And then that affected you in terms of maybe empowered.

45:53

Is that true up to the present time?

45:57

Or do you still?

45:58

-

No. It's, so in the beginning, I represented 12 Kuwaitis.

46:00

And that was sort of the, you know,

46:05

that was the big Supreme Court case, the Rasul Case.

46:06

And then it sort of became the Boumediene case.

46:10

There were two Supreme Court cases that changed things.

46:12

And those were my original set of clients.

46:15

And eventually, a different law firm took

46:17

over that representation.

46:20

I changed jobs.

46:22

And then I actually went on to represent Omar Khadr

46:23

who's the Canadian, young Canadian guy,

46:26

who's facing military commissions.

46:31

Peter

Could you tell us a little bit

46:33

about how you got to represent him and exactly what?

46:34

-

Yeah, I went from Shearman and Sterling.

46:36

And I went on to teach

46:39

at American University Washington College of Law here in DC.

46:41

And they, like most law schools, have a clinic,

46:45

international human rights clinic

46:49

and they were already representing Omar Khadr.

46:50

And they were looking for sort of additional, you know,

46:54

faculty to work in the clinic where you, you know,

46:58

where you teach, you both teach students how to be a lawyer.

47:01

And then you also work on a case, real case

47:04

with the students and they represented Omar Khadr.

47:08

So, that's how that representation came about.

47:10

And I actually did go to Guantanamo

47:14

to see him.

47:15

-

Could you tell us,

you know, so people who are watching will know

47:18

who Omar Khadr is?

47:20

-

Yes. Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen.

47:21

He is one, he is the only remaining westerner there

47:25

at Guantanamo out of the original 600 and something.

47:31

He was in Afghanistan.

47:35

He was picked up when he was 15 and held in Afghanistan

47:36

for a few months and then taken to Guantanamo.

47:42

He was 16 by then, and he is now 24, maybe even 25.

47:46

And he is facing a military commission.

47:54

He's charged with killing a U.S. soldier.

47:58

And the big, I think,

48:02

debate and controversy over Omar Khadr is,

48:05

well, there's a couple,

48:09

but primarily it's the fact that he was picked up

48:11

when he was 15, which is, you know, we have this concept

48:13

even the U.S. has signed the the protocol

48:17

on the UN convention to the rights of the child

48:21

that recognizes children soldiers.

48:23

And that if you're under the age of 18,

48:27

there's a special sort of consideration,

48:29

even if you were fighting and you were in a, you know,

48:32

battle and armed conflict,

48:35

you are due sort of special consideration

48:37

because of the vulnerability of your age, obviously.

48:40

We've, you know, we've recognized that.

48:45

Well, with Omar Khadr we do not recognize that.

48:47

And in fact, early on

48:51

there were several juveniles at Guantanamo.

48:54

So, that's Omar Khadr.

48:57

The other I think very important

48:58

sort of interesting thing is that he was,

49:00

you know, he's accused of killing a U.S. soldier

49:02

but it was in a battlefield situation

49:06

in which the U.S. Army or U.S. military was attacking him.

49:09

So, you know, I guess the argument goes that if,

49:16

you know, if you were being attacked

49:21

by opposing occupying force,

49:24

under the Geneva conventions,

49:27

you're actually allowed to fight back and protect,

49:29

defend your life.

49:31

Yeah, so, you know, but no, that's,

49:32

you know, we don't believe in the Geneva conventions either

49:35

when it comes to Guantanamo.

49:37

So, I represented him for a year and and I visited him

49:38

in September of zero seven,

49:44

Peter

Can you tell us a bit

49:47

-

Zero six, sorry.

49:48

-

About that meeting with him?

-

Yeah, it was,

49:50

and I do want to get back to your earlier question

49:52

about sort of the hopelessness,

49:54

'cause I have a sort of very sad story

49:55

about one of my Kuwaiti.

49:58

Peter

Why don't you tell that?

49:59

-

You want me to tell that story first?

50:00

Peter

Yeah, and then we'll go back for Omar.

50:01

-

Okay. Yeah, sorry.

50:02

I sort of, if I'm jumping around you just,

50:03

-

No, no.

50:04

-

You just rein me in.

So the Kuwaiti, so, you know,

50:07

it was interesting.

50:11

It was that, you know, we started representing them 2002.

50:12

We meet them for the first time in 2004

50:14

and we're visiting them on a regular basis.

50:17

And pretty early on,

50:20

one of the Kuwaitis actually got released.

50:22

And so, you know,

50:24

before this Boumediene case came out in 2008,

50:26

the Bush Administration released a lot of detainees.

50:30

They didn't, there was no hearing,

50:32

there were just diplomatic releases, right?

50:35

So, one of the Kuwaitis

50:37

and then I think the following year, again, before 2008,

50:39

several other Kuwaitis got released

50:43

and there was a particular Kuwait citizen.

50:47

His name is Abdullah Al Kandari.

50:50

And he was one that I became, you know,

50:53

in particular formed a close relationship with

50:55

among a couple of others.

50:58

And in part that was because he was young and he was a,

51:00

he had been a professional soccer player in Kuwait.

51:03

He was actually on the Kuwait national team.

51:07

And so, you know,

51:10

I had done a lot of marathons and triathlons.

51:11

So, we talked a lot about sports and all that.

51:13

So, you know, there was this close relationship

51:15

but I remember one time,

51:18

he was just sort of getting more and more, you know,

51:19

a little bit more sort of down, you know, he wasn't his,

51:24

he was always very cheery, always optimistic.

51:28

It's going to happen.

51:30

He's going to get released soon.

51:31

He sees his other Kuwaiti citizens leaving.

51:32

And one particular time,

51:37

he pulls out this piece of paper and it's a,

51:39

you know, yellow, they were allowed to have yellow note pads

51:43

or note pads they could write pencils or whatever.

51:46

Actually, they were pencils that apparently they give out

51:48

in prisons, they're sort of mushy.

51:51

So, you can't, like if you'd try to stab somebody with it,

51:52

it would squish up.

51:54

So, I know. They also had special toothbrushes but anyways.

51:56

Yeah, I never learned any

52:01

of that stuff when I was representing GE.

52:02

So, he has this piece of paper and he has written out

52:06

basically his will, he's written out his will.

52:11

And he says, "I want you to give this to my family."

52:15

'Cause he says, "I don't think I can go on."

52:18

And I was just like, you know, "What are you talking about?

52:21

"It's going to happen soon." You know?

52:24

I mean, but you know, it's like, as a lawyer, you also,

52:25

you know, you can't just go in there and say,

52:29

"Oh, you're going to get released soon."

52:30

I mean, if you don't really know that,

52:32

you can't say that

52:33

because then what if you go down there two months

52:34

from now and he's still there?

52:36

You know, so, but how do you then,

52:37

you know, it's like all of a sudden I felt like,

52:40

oh my gosh, I have to be a lawyer.

52:41

I have to be some sort of counselor, you know,

52:43

I mean, you know, so,

52:45

it was like I tried to give him hope and basically, I mean,

52:47

I think he was going to try to, you know,

52:52

either starve himself to death

52:55

or try to find some way to commit suicide

52:57

which of course is, you know, prohibited

52:59

in the Muslim religion, like many religions.

53:02

But he was so, you know, he's giving me his last will

53:05

and testament saying, "Please give this to my family."

53:08

And I just was like, you know, "Please," you know?

53:10

And I think what I did say was,

53:13

"Please just give me another few months.

53:15

"Like, don't make any decisions.

53:18

"Don't try to, don't do anything.

53:20

"You know, just give me another few months.

53:22

"I really," you know, and you can't say,

53:24

"I know you're going to get released,"

53:26

you say, "I really think something's going to happen."

53:28

You know? And I did.

53:31

I wasn't just saying that, you know,

53:32

we had sort of heard that there might be another release

53:34

of some Kuwaiti citizens.

53:37

And I was hoping that he'd be in that bunch.

53:39

But, you know, it was just like, it was this,

53:42

the most terrible feeling that all

53:45

of that legal work that you've been doing.

53:48

And then that's, you know, what it comes to.

53:50

You know, and I'm like,

53:53

"You're giving me your will.

53:56

"Am I supposed to be your lawyer taking this will?"

53:57

You know?

54:01

And fortunately, he was released in a couple of months

54:03

and he went back to his, you know, family, wife,

54:06

four beautiful kids and all that.

54:10

But I also remember coming back to the States

54:13

and trying to get the will cleared.

54:17

And they said, "This is not, you know,

54:21

"this is not part of your legal work."

54:23

And so, they refused to clear it so that I could do anything

54:25

with it because you have to get everything cleared

54:28

you know, before, and then,

54:30

you know, it turns out, again, like I said,

54:33

a couple months later he was released anyways.

54:35

So, you know,

54:37

nothing ever came of it.

54:37

-

Did you ever tell him

you couldn't clear his will?

54:38

-

No, because the, I never saw,

54:40

after that, I don't think I saw him again.

54:43

I think he was released a couple months later

54:45

and we did not, maybe the next trip I couldn't go down

54:46

or something like that.

54:50

So, you know, and they also understood by then

54:51

that everything takes a long time.

54:54

If they ever wrote us a letter,

54:57

it sometimes took six weeks to get to the U.S.

54:58

and I mean, you know, who knows why?

55:00

Because they were, you know, censoring it and whatever.

55:02

So, yeah, that was probably like the lowest

55:04

that I felt in terms of sort

55:10

of the hopelessness of my clients.

55:12

That was pretty, yeah.

55:16

Peter

Did you know of any

55:17

of the Kuwaitis who did try to commit suicide?

55:18

-

We had a couple who went on hunger strike, but I,

55:21

and I don't think they ever saw that as,

55:25

well, I don't know if that's true.

55:28

I think some of the guys who went on hunger strike,

55:33

the Kuwaitis, it was both a protest, but also I think some

55:36

of them were sort of testing themselves to see

55:40

if they could do it and die

55:43

because they were like, well, what's the point?

55:47

What's the point of living? You know?

55:49

And I remember Fouzi, hm, Fouzi said,

55:51

"This is the only control I have over myself.

55:55

"Everything else is controlled by the military.

55:59

"The only thing that I can control is, you know

56:01

"is what I eat."

56:05

And even then it wasn't even controlled

56:06

because they force fed them,

56:07

you know, which is sort of funny.

56:09

They didn't want them to die

56:10

but yet they wouldn't give them a trial.

56:11

So, but I don't, I honestly believe none

56:13

of our clients tried to commit suicide.

56:19

Like some of the other detainees did,

56:21

like, you know, hanging.

56:24

And then there was some suicides,

56:25

hanging themselves by a rope or trying to slit their wrists.

56:28

None of them, at least as far as I know,

56:32

ever tried to do that, so.

56:33

Peter

So, do you feel like some

56:35

of them were broken?

56:37

-

Oh, that's such a meaningful word.

56:42

I mean, I think Abdullah, when he gave me that will,

56:46

I think he was broken, you know?

56:49

But somehow he managed to hold,

56:50

I mean, he held on obviously for, you know,

56:54

the next couple months.

56:56

Peter

Do you think that was the goal

57:01

of the military?

57:02

In Guantanamo?

57:05

-

Yes! Oh, yes.

In fact, it's even,

57:07

I think there were even some public statements

57:09

about the early, you know, early on it was,

57:10

you know, we are treating them this way,

57:14

one, because they don't have any rights and two, you know,

57:17

we're trying to break them

57:20

so that they will give us, you know, information.

57:21

And I remember, you know, by then,

57:24

and it was we were there,

57:27

there were more panels on Guantanamo.

57:28

And I remember some people saying like, "I hope they do.

57:30

"I hope they break them.

57:33

"I hope they break them.

57:34

"And so that they'll, you know,

57:35

"that they'll tell us where Al Qaeda is."

57:37

And we're all, you know, I mean,

57:39

I'm sort of being a little simplistic

57:40

but I specifically remember somebody

57:41

in the audience say, "No, I hope they break them."

57:43

You know?

57:47

Peter

Some of the detainees we've interviewed have

57:49

said to us that they see Guantanamo

57:50

as psychological prison as opposed

57:52

to Bagram and Kandahar which were much more brutal.

57:54

Is that how you saw it?

57:57

-

Yeah.

57:59

I mean, I think it was just, you know, it was,

57:59

I just, I mean, I couldn't,

58:04

we couldn't even possibly imagine what that would be like

58:05

to be, especially in those first five years,

58:07

where you are not told what's going to happen to you,

58:12

you know, and this is putting aside

58:17

all the sleep deprivation and the,

58:19

you know, whatever physical abuse they went through.

58:21

I mean, but just, you know,

58:22

imagine you're, you know, you're at this,

58:24

you're in this strange place,

58:26

you're not sure you're ever going to see your family again.

58:28

They're not telling you if you're ever going to have a trial

58:31

or ever see your family again.

58:34

You're not allowed to have any contact,

58:36

physical contact with your family.

58:38

It's not like they can come visit you like, you know,

58:40

in some of these maximum security prisons

58:42

and the letters that you get from them are censored.

58:46

And some of the letters are six months old, you know?

58:49

I mean, I couldn't even imagine.

58:52

And they were living in their cells 23 hours a day.

58:56

I mean, it's not like they had, in the beginning,

59:00

especially they didn't have any community meals.

59:02

They didn't have any,

59:04

in the beginning, they didn't even have any books to read.

59:06

They were given the Koran.

59:08

Only after a few months had gone by,

59:09

but for the first few years, yeah,

59:12

they told me, "We have nothing but the Koran to read.

59:13

"We have very little physical exercise.

59:16

"We never get to talk to anybody.

59:18

"The only way I get to talk to, you know

59:19

"my neighbor is if I, you know

59:21

"sort of yell when the guards not walking by,

59:22

"you know, we sort of yell."

59:24

And I couldn't, I just, you know, I couldn't even,

59:27

I don't even think we can possibly imagine.

59:29

And a lot of people say like, "Oh, well, it's, you know

59:31

"isn't that just like a prison here in the United States?"

59:33

And I said,

59:36

"Well, you know, it could be similar

59:37

"to a maximum security prison

59:38

"but you remember those prisoners have had a trial

59:40

"and an appeal and, you know, they were convicted

59:43

"and then they had an appeal

59:45

"and then they had another appeal

59:46

"and they probably had a fourth appeal."

59:47

I mean, you know?

59:49

You can't even, you can't even equate the two,

59:50

you know, but people.

59:52

Peter

Do you know how these men endured

59:54

what they went through?

59:56

Do you have any sense, can they tell you that?

59:57

-

I mean, I do.

1:00:00

I do think that having, just having the,

1:00:01

whether it was, you know, lawyers, whether they were,

1:00:05

we were lawyers or somebody else, but to go down

1:00:07

and provide some sort of human contact

1:00:10

where the contact is I'm not interrogating you,

1:00:15

I'm not asking you about how,

1:00:18

you know, what you were doing with Al-Qaeda,

1:00:19

where, you know, I'm saying, "I'm your friend, you know,

1:00:22

"what, do you have any messages for your family?"

1:00:29

Or, "Oh, I just, we just talked to your family

1:00:31

"and here's, you know, here's what's going on."

1:00:33

I mean, just that,

1:00:35

you know, hopefully maybe gave them some hope.

1:00:38

I mean, you know, I think also,

1:00:41

the human body and mind can really endure a lot,

1:00:45

if you have to, you know?

1:00:52

And some of them were obviously very strong and, you know,

1:00:54

always retained the hope

1:01:00

that they would see their family again

1:01:01

and didn't give up hope.

1:01:03

And so, they were able to, you know, make it through,

1:01:05

I mean, you know, I don't know how they,

1:01:08

how you find that strength, but I think that, you know,

1:01:12

humans are very resilient, you know,

1:01:16

and you can find strength in many ways, so.

1:01:18

Peter

Not all of them, but.

1:01:22

-

Yeah, not all of them.

1:01:23

Yeah, I mean, you know, some,

1:01:24

I think some detainees are, you know, they've,

1:01:28

you know, did the hunger strike for years, they,

1:01:31

some of them obviously tried to kill themselves

1:01:34

and succeeded, some have, you know, are very,

1:01:36

you know, psychologically messed up now,

1:01:43

even those who have gone home.

1:01:49

Peter

I want to go into something else on that

1:01:53

but let's go on to Omar.

1:01:56

And we can go back.

1:01:57

-

Oh, yes.

Oh yeah, Omar. Sorry.

1:01:58

Yeah, I mean, that's also

1:02:01

sort of another memorable meeting, you know,

1:02:02

when I started representing him, up until then,

1:02:05

I was only representing men who had never been charged

1:02:09

with anything, you know?

1:02:12

And so, when I started representing Omar,

1:02:14

I was actually representing an accused, you know, terrorist

1:02:16

because my other clients,

1:02:22

whenever people would say like, "They're terrorists."

1:02:23

I would say, "Well, they're not accused of anything,

1:02:24

"they're just being detained."

1:02:26

So, you know, so that to me was

1:02:27

also a sort of interesting personal sort of conflict

1:02:29

to go through.

1:02:35

I mean, my family is very Republican.

1:02:36

My dad was in the military.

1:02:38

My husband is very Republican and, you know,

1:02:41

I've never been sort of a raving

1:02:45

or even far left liberal, you know, I'm sort of moderate.

1:02:48

In fact, I was a registered libertarian for awhile.

1:02:52

So, there was some, you know,

1:02:55

mental conflict going on there in my head, like,

1:02:57

is this, you know, is this the right thing to do?

1:02:59

But it was.

1:03:03

So I go to Guantanamo and I meet this guy, Omar,

1:03:06

and he is at this point, he's gotta be,

1:03:09

I want to say 21?

1:03:13

And I mean, 21, it's like,

1:03:17

you think about some kid who's 21, you know, they're not,

1:03:18

they're sort of in-between, right?

1:03:21

They're not really a kid, but they're not quite an adult,

1:03:22

you know, and you sort of think

1:03:26

about the people you know who are 21, right?

1:03:27

I mean, our students are 20, you know, around that age.

1:03:30

Some of them are 21.

1:03:34

And then you think, imagine if one

1:03:35

of your students had spent the last six years of their life

1:03:38

in prison, at Guantanamo with, you know,

1:03:41

men twice his age.

1:03:44

And so, I meet him and I just remember,

1:03:46

you know, we were trying to talk to him

1:03:50

about his military commission

1:03:53

and they had just come out

1:03:56

with the 2006 military commission act with, you know,

1:03:57

with actually now there's, you know,

1:04:00

rules as opposed to the executive order

1:04:02

which is sort of, you know, President Bush, like,

1:04:04

"Oh, we're gonna have a military commission."

1:04:05

So we were, so he just said, you know,

1:04:07

"I know Congress passed it," and we were trying

1:04:09

to explain what it was about, this, that and the other.

1:04:11

And he's like, you know, I know,

1:04:13

"I know it's an act now," and said, "I really, I just

1:04:15

"I just really, you know, I don't want to participate."

1:04:20

And we were trying to tell him, "Well,

1:04:23

"if you go through the, if we help you through this,

1:04:26

"we can do it in a way, which you can show them

1:04:30

"that it's an invalid system, that it's,

1:04:34

"you know, but you got to show up

1:04:39

"and we think you should show up with us.

1:04:40

"So we want to help you demonstrate the, you know,

1:04:43

"that it's illegal, that it's unconstitutional,"

1:04:47

all these sort of things.

1:04:49

And he was like, "You know,

1:04:50

"I'm sure you guys would be great, but I really," he said,

1:04:52

"I really don't want to have anything to do with it."

1:04:55

And he's like, I,

1:04:58

he said, "If I even have lawyers, I validate the system.

1:04:59

"I validate the military commissions and I, it's,

1:05:05

"I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it."

1:05:08

And I remember thinking like, you know,

1:05:10

that is a completely reasonable feeling to have, you know?

1:05:13

And here's this guy. He's 21, you know?

1:05:17

And he's been in Guantanamo,

1:05:19

at the same time, there was something else.

1:05:21

Oh, what did he say?

1:05:25

He said, and he sort of looked around

1:05:26

and we're at camp five in this very small cell.

1:05:30

And he sort of looks around and he sort of gestures.

1:05:34

And he says, "I'm fine here. This is fine.

1:05:36

"I'm okay with Guantanamo"

1:05:40

which I thought was a very sort of immature,

1:05:42

childish thing to say.

1:05:44

And so, here are these sort of two, you know, parts of him,

1:05:45

one is still, he's still, he's a teenager, you know?

1:05:49

He's sort of, you know, trying to call the bluff

1:05:54

and, you know, and brag.

1:05:57

And then the other side is this very reasonable,

1:06:00

you know, adult person saying,

1:06:03

"I really just don't want to have anything to do with this.

1:06:06

"I don't want to have anything to do with you guys.

1:06:08

"I don't want to validate the system."

1:06:09

And it was like, you know, sort of seeing him caught

1:06:11

between his two worlds of being, you know,

1:06:16

this sort of teenager, and then trying to be an adult

1:06:19

in a very adult world, you know?

1:06:23

And so, yeah, he sort of said,

1:06:25

"I really, you don't need to come visit me anymore.

1:06:33

"And if you want to,"

1:06:35

I think he said, "If you want to continue working

1:06:37

"on my case, that's okay, but, you know,

1:06:38

"you really don't need to."

1:06:40

So, we actually did not visit him for a long time.

1:06:42

And then my colleague went down

1:06:47

and then I ended up going to UT.

1:06:51

So I, you know, basically like left representing him

1:06:53

and then went on to represent two other detainees.

1:06:56

Peter

I'll get to those in a moment.

1:06:59

What was your impressions of him when you saw him?

1:07:02

-

Very polite.

1:07:06

You know, he's a very polite guy.

1:07:07

You know, again, it's sort of hard to imagine,

1:07:13

how can you, how does one grow up in a prison?

1:07:15

You know, and how do you grow up

1:07:17

in a prison where your, you know,

1:07:19

your cellmates are 35 years old, or 28 or whatever?

1:07:21

You know, he's never had a girlfriend or,

1:07:27

you know, or that's just,

1:07:32

you know, or played a video game or something.

1:07:34

I mean, you know, I think rules have sort of changed.

1:07:36

I mean, he may have, you know, the ability

1:07:38

to do some of that now, but he was very polite.

1:07:41

He was very self-assured.

1:07:45

He was very, I mean, he was very nice.

1:07:50

And I think that was sort of always something

1:07:52

that sort of surprised me every time I would go down,

1:07:54

well, whatever client it was.

1:07:57

I mean, by and large,

1:07:59

they were very respectful, very polite,

1:08:00

even if what, you know, whatever they were saying to me was,

1:08:02

"I don't need a lawyer anymore or I know," you know?

1:08:06

Or trying to fire me or whatever (laughs),

1:08:09

which happened a lot, not just me,

1:08:11

but a lot of the other lawyers, I'm sure you've heard that.

1:08:12

You know, but he was very polite, very nice,

1:08:16

very smart, intelligent.

1:08:17

Oh I don't, just but you'd sort of, I mean,

1:08:20

I know, people go "Oh, but he killed a U.S. soldier."

1:08:22

You know, which yes, he might've, who knows?

1:08:26

We have to have a trial first to determine that

1:08:29

but, you know, he's still a young kid.

1:08:31

He's still a human being who's, you know,

1:08:34

sort of really been thrown into a terrible situation

1:08:36

without a whole lot of consideration for, you know,

1:08:39

his age or anything like that, so.

1:08:44

Peter

I had read that just very recently

1:08:46

the same thing happened.

1:08:48

He told his American lawyer that he wanted,

1:08:49

have you been following that?

1:08:52

-

Yes.

1:08:53

Peter

Were they from your firm,

1:08:54

the American lawyers who were going

1:08:55

to keep representing him?

1:08:57

-

I'm sorry?

1:08:58

Peter

Was it your firm?

1:08:59

Was it that same firm?

1:09:00

-

Oh, no.

He was actually telling his military lawyers.

1:09:02

And when we,

1:09:07

yeah, when we represented him, we were civilian.

1:09:09

I think he actually sort of gave up

1:09:12

on his civilian lawyers as a while ago.

1:09:13

So, he was,

1:09:14

the story was that he was telling his,

1:09:16

or no, was it?

1:09:18

Was it, it could have been both his civilian

1:09:20

and his military.

1:09:22

It was both civilian and military.

1:09:23

Yeah, it was a different firm, yeah.

1:09:25

I think AU might've stopped representing him at some point.

1:09:27

Peter

And so you didn't really follow his case

1:09:33

after you went to?

1:09:34

-

Yeah. I mean, I followed it in the sense

1:09:35

that it was in the newspaper a lot and, you know,

1:09:37

and I would ask my colleagues

1:09:40

if they'd been to Guantanamo, how he was doing.

1:09:42

And I always continued contact with the military,

1:09:46

the lawyers who worked in the military commissions

1:09:49

in part because of my new client has been charged.

1:09:52

So, I would hear about, yeah,

1:09:56

and talk to his lawyers,

1:09:58

talk to Omar Khadr's military lawyers

1:10:00

and ask how he was doing and this, that, and the other.

1:10:03

Peter

Can you tell us about your two new clients?

1:10:06

-

Yeah, so when I started the national security clinic at UT

1:10:08

we took on two Guantanamo detainees

1:10:13

who one who had had a lawyer, but wasn't happy with him.

1:10:17

So sort of, you know, good timing.

1:10:21

I was moving and CCR sort of is the, I'd say clearinghouse.

1:10:22

They try to put together detainees with other lawyers.

1:10:26

And so, they approached and said, "Hey, you know

1:10:31

"this guy wants a new lawyer.

1:10:33

"Will you represent him?"

1:10:35

And he is a Syrian guy.

1:10:36

And he was picked up in Afghanistan

1:10:39

and there was, you know, always the fear

1:10:43

that he would get sent back to Syria, you know?

1:10:47

And I immediately thought, you know,

1:10:50

this is sort of just learning lessons the whole,

1:10:52

I immediately thought, of course,

1:10:55

he doesn't want to go back to Syria.

1:10:56

And then I realized, well, maybe I should ask him first.

1:10:58

You know, because I mean,

1:10:59

how arrogant of me to just assume, you know,

1:11:01

so, and it turns out, no, he did not,

1:11:04

he did not want to go back to Syria.

1:11:06

He actually wanted to go to Saudi Arabia

1:11:09

which is where a lot of his family was.

1:11:12

You know, that was something else I didn't really know.

1:11:14

We tried to make that happen.

1:11:17

And I didn't think that was going to go anywhere.

1:11:20

And that, around the same time, when we took on his case

1:11:23

the Obama administration came in and they started up

1:11:26

that detainee review task force, which was to look

1:11:29

at each case and really try to figure out what was gonna,

1:11:32

they were gonna do with that person.

1:11:36

So, my students with my supervision put together literally

1:11:38

like a package, like a selling package, you know,

1:11:43

here's this guy, Syrian guy, you know,

1:11:45

here's why the allegations are wrong.

1:11:49

And here's all the great things about, I mean,

1:11:51

literally really, you know, like a bio

1:11:52

and I went and visited him and, you know, a couple times

1:11:54

and we wrote out this, you know, great story,

1:11:57

his life story, who he was, he was, you know,

1:11:59

a big, big, heavy machine contractor.

1:12:03

Like he owned a bulldozer

1:12:06

that he would con, you know what I mean?

1:12:07

So, you know, we told the story

1:12:09

and then it turns out that I get a call

1:12:10

from the State Department and DOJ,

1:12:12

and they do want to transfer him out of Guantanamo,

1:12:14

you know, hurray!

1:12:16

And they did say, "Syria's off the table."

1:12:18

So, he was sent to Portugal.

1:12:22

Now, when I learned that they were,

1:12:25

that Portugal was a possibility,

1:12:27

went down to visit him.

1:12:29

And he was just like, "Portugal?

1:12:30

"I don't know anybody in Portugal."

1:12:34

And, you know, he's kind of mad at me

1:12:35

and which, you know, by then too, it's like,

1:12:38

I'd been going to Guantanamo for years.

1:12:40

I've taken so many trips down there.

1:12:42

It's not the easiest trip to take.

1:12:43

And I was like, "Listen, buddy, (laughs)

1:12:44

"it's really hard for me to come down here.

1:12:48

"I've got students. I've got," you know?

1:12:50

And I said, "Listen, I want you to go back

1:12:53

"to Saudi Arabia where your family is too

1:12:57

"but I don't think that's going to happen.

1:12:59

"And this could be your only chance.

1:13:00

"Like, if you don't take this,

1:13:02

"you could be stuck in Guantanamo.

1:13:04

"So, go to Portugal."

1:13:06

And they were offering him a good deal.

1:13:08

They were offering him not citizenship, but like residency

1:13:09

or something like that, where he could then travel

1:13:13

like after a year travel within any EU country.

1:13:15

And I just said, you know, "This is,

1:13:18

"you got to look at the long-term,

1:13:20

"you're going to move, make this move.

1:13:22

"It's going to be hard, you know

1:13:24

"but eventually you'll get back to the Middle East."

1:13:26

So he eventually, you know, agreed.

1:13:29

And actually, I think he, we did a phone call with him

1:13:32

and he said, "Yes, take me to Portugal.

1:13:36

"I changed my mind. You were right."

1:13:40

And so he went, and then I had one call

1:13:42

with him in Portugal and the government like set him up

1:13:45

in a house, giving him Portuguese lessons,

1:13:47

trying to help him get work, clothes,

1:13:50

all that sort of stuff.

1:13:52

And I get, actually,

1:13:53

he called me at my house on Sunday afternoon

1:13:56

which was the, I mean, imagine, you know,

1:13:59

the entire time I've been representing Guantanamo detainees,

1:14:01

it takes months just to get a letter.

1:14:03

And all of a sudden the phone rings

1:14:05

and my husband picks it up.

1:14:07

And he's like, "I think it's one of your,

1:14:08

"you know, Guantanamo clients," you know?

1:14:12

So, it's this guy calling from Portugal.

1:14:14

He's just calling me to tell me everything's fine.

1:14:17

That he's okay.

1:14:19

And that he, and this is sort of how he said it.

1:14:22

"I'm going to be okay.

1:14:26

"I can handle it from here. I don't need you."

1:14:27

And it was like,

1:14:34

I felt like a parent seeing their child go off to college,

1:14:35

you know, I was like, "Are you sure?

1:14:37

"Can I do anything?

1:14:38

"Can I, do you want me to come visit you?"

1:14:40

And he's like, "No," you know?

1:14:42

He's like, "I really, you know, you were great.

1:14:45

"You did such a good job.

1:14:48

"And I really, I just,

1:14:50

"I don't even really want to have contact with you."

1:14:52

And so, it was like a good feeling,

1:14:55

of course, a little, you know,

1:14:56

a little bit like sad, but not really

1:14:57

and part of me was just like, that's great,

1:15:00

you know, good for you.

1:15:02

You're gonna, you know, whatever it is that you do,

1:15:03

you're going to go on.

1:15:05

And he was just trying to forget Guantanamo.

1:15:06

He didn't, you know, he just didn't want to remember

1:15:07

that he had to have a lawyer

1:15:10

and all that sort of business.

1:15:11

And so, you know, as far as I know, because there,

1:15:12

he was transferred with another detainee.

1:15:16

As far as I know, he's still there

1:15:19

but I hadn't really heard anything in several months.

1:15:21

And, you know, I'm sure he's fine.

1:15:23

He was a very nice guy.

1:15:26

You know, he was very industrious and,

1:15:27

you know, so that's.

1:15:32

Peter

Was he transferred with another Syrian?

1:15:33

Or another?

1:15:35

-

He, was he another Syrian?

1:15:36

It might've, you know what?

1:15:41

He might've been another Syrian.

1:15:42

It was, I'm not really sure.

1:15:45

Peter

And then who's your other?

1:15:50

-

And then the other client we took on,

1:15:52

he is, his name is Obaidullah.

1:15:54

It's one name, he has one name.

1:16:00

I know. It's like Prince, and he is from Afghanistan.

1:16:03

So, he's an Afghan citizen.

1:16:10

He was picked up in Afghanistan and, you know,

1:16:11

like all the other detainees accused of, you know,

1:16:14

being part of an Al Qaeda cell

1:16:17

and this, that, and the other, but he also was,

1:16:19

had charges against him in the military commissions.

1:16:25

And part of the reason that he wanted a new lawyer is

1:16:30

because his past lawyer sort of,

1:16:34

I think his past lawyer thought

1:16:39

his military commissions was going to go forward.

1:16:41

And that was going to be a good venue.

1:16:42

The truth is, if you look at the military commissions,

1:16:45

you know, rate of, it's very fast.

1:16:48

Once somebody gets convicted, they actually go home.

1:16:51

So, I know!

1:16:54

In fact, at some point,

1:16:55

when we were still representing the Kuwaitis,

1:16:56

they were like, "The best thing that could happen

1:16:58

"to me is if I got charged in the military commissions

1:16:59

"and was convicted," you know, and then,

1:17:01

or, "I'll just plead guilty

1:17:03

"and then I'll go home" because that's what was happening.

1:17:04

So his habeas lawyer said,

1:17:07

"Well, if he goes to the military commissions,

1:17:08

"he might actually go home.

1:17:10

"So I'll agree to put his habeas case on hold."

1:17:11

Well, then the government realized, oh, great.

1:17:15

His habeas case is not going anywhere.

1:17:18

And we're in a position as military commissions,

1:17:19

we don't actually have to go forward with it.

1:17:21

We can just sort of hang out.

1:17:23

And so, that's what they did.

1:17:24

So, when we came on, we filed motions

1:17:26

with the district court judge saying,

1:17:28

"He has nothing going on and you have to lift the stay."

1:17:30

And he denied both times.

1:17:33

We actually ended up appealing to the DC circuit.

1:17:35

And oddly enough,

1:17:37

even though the DC circuit's very conservative,

1:17:38

they found in our favor and said,

1:17:41

"Well, his military commissions is not going anywhere."

1:17:44

Yes, he has charges against him

1:17:47

but they haven't taken the next step to make it go forward.

1:17:48

They're just, he's just charged and has no trial date set,

1:17:52

there's no discovery going on or nothing.

1:17:57

So, his stay was lifted.

1:17:59

And now that case is actually,

1:18:01

his habeas case is actually going forward.

1:18:02

Although it's in one of the most,

1:18:05

in front of one of the most conservative judges.

1:18:07

So, it's sort of, as somebody said to me,

1:18:09

"Out of the frying pan into the fire," I said, "Yeah."

1:18:12

Peter

What message are you giving your students?

1:18:14

I mean, are you still upbeat or are you, you know,

1:18:17

pessimistic, optimistic, and what's the students picking up?

1:18:22

-

Oh, I call it, Gitmo fatigue.

1:18:25

You know, I mean, I think there's probably a handful of us,

1:18:29

Tom included, that have been doing it as long as we have.

1:18:33

I mean, eight years is, you know,

1:18:36

I've done this kind of litigation longer

1:18:37

than I've been anything else in my legal career.

1:18:39

I think this, in fact, this litigation is, you know,

1:18:42

is the majority of my legal career.

1:18:44

You know, I personally get tired,

1:18:48

but you know, when you have students who are so excited

1:18:51

about it, it's so rejuvenating.

1:18:54

I mean, students,

1:18:55

I think that's why I like teaching, you know?

1:18:56

and it's fun to do litigation with students

1:18:58

because it's real, it's a real person, you know, when they,

1:19:01

when I tell them, "Oh, the client that you, the Syrian guy

1:19:04

"that case who's, you know, who you helped on

1:19:09

"and you wrote that thing, he just called me from Portugal."

1:19:12

You know what I mean?

1:19:15

And they're like, "Oh my gosh!

1:19:16

"Wow, that's so great. That's so cool."

1:19:17

Students are so, they're not jaded yet.

1:19:20

They love the law and that's infectious, you know?

1:19:25

And you realize, you know,

1:19:28

that the law is a powerful thing and it is neat.

1:19:30

It's neat to be a lawyer. It's neat to practice law.

1:19:34

And so, the students keep me, I mean,

1:19:37

maybe that's one of the reasons I kind of went

1:19:39

into that is because it was starting to wear on me

1:19:41

and then with students, they're so optimistic.

1:19:44

And so, you know, I think, I like to think

1:19:47

that I'm a good teacher and that I keep my optimism

1:19:49

and make them, you know, help them continue to be excited

1:19:52

and talk about it in exciting ways.

1:19:54

So far it's worked out, you know?

1:19:58

I haven't had any bad evaluations yet,

1:19:59

have all had good ones, so, you know?

1:20:02

Peter

Well, I want to go back a little bit

1:20:04

to the present but I want to first ask you something

1:20:05

that you kind of mentioned,

1:20:08

but what, I'd like some more if you know.

1:20:09

Do you have any experience with your clients

1:20:12

and doctors and the medical situations in Guantanamo?

1:20:15

-

You know, the real, I'd say the sort

1:20:22

of most substantial experience was when we had our client,

1:20:26

our Kuwaiti clients go on hunger strike.

1:20:32

And that was also another, I mean,

1:20:34

there are just so many amazing facets

1:20:35

to doing this kind of work.

1:20:39

Yeah, I mean, you know, before Guantanamo,

1:20:45

my clients, I'd meet my clients in the Four Seasons lounge,

1:20:47

you know, in New York.

1:20:51

So, we had some clients go on hunger strike

1:20:54

and two of them stayed on hunger strike.

1:20:57

One was Fouzi.

1:20:59

And the father of Khalid Al Odah,

1:21:01

who sort of really led the Kuwaiti effort.

1:21:03

And so, we initially, you know,

1:21:08

we sort of came at it as lawyers,

1:21:12

what can we do as lawyers to make the situation better?

1:21:14

And you know, what can we do?

1:21:18

And so, I started talking to doctors.

1:21:18

Actually, one of the doctors was just recently,

1:21:21

there was a big article on him, Stephen Xenakis?

1:21:26

I don't know if you've heard of him.

1:21:29

-

Hm, yeah.

1:21:30

-

If you get a chance,

you should interview him.

1:21:30

He is working on Omar Khadr's case.

1:21:32

But when I met him, he hadn't really done,

1:21:35

I don't think he'd actually done anything with detainees.

1:21:39

I think we might've been the first detainee case

1:21:41

that he actually worked on.

1:21:44

Stephen Xenakis, retired brigadier general.

1:21:46

And I was looking for doctors to try

1:21:49

to figure out the whole hunger strike thing.

1:21:53

I mean, didn't know anything about hunger strikes, you know?

1:21:56

And so, he tutored me on, you know,

1:21:58

what is a hunger strike about?

1:22:03

What does it mean to the person who's on it?

1:22:04

All these different, you know, what are the,

1:22:06

what does the, you know, World Medical Association, WMA,

1:22:08

what did they say about it?

1:22:12

You know, what are the rules?

1:22:13

And then we actually filed some motions

1:22:15

in court with using Dr. Xenakis

1:22:19

and another doctor using their expert, you know,

1:22:22

declarations or affidavits to try to get, you know,

1:22:25

one of the most frustrating things was,

1:22:29

can you imagine having a client

1:22:31

in a prison here be on hunger strike?

1:22:33

That's pretty you know, difficult situation,

1:22:35

but your client in Guantanamo that you can't call?

1:22:40

That if he, if they write you a letter,

1:22:43

you get it like, you know, four weeks later,

1:22:45

and to learn that they're on hunger strike

1:22:48

and the government is like, you know?

1:22:50

"Yeah. We'll tell you if something happens, maybe."

1:22:53

You know?

1:22:57

I mean, so there's, you know,

1:22:57

you have no communication with them

1:22:59

and you know they're on hunger strike and we had to go,

1:23:00

I mean, we literally had to petition the court

1:23:02

to let us fly down there like within a week

1:23:05

because the government was just like,

1:23:09

"No, you're supposed to give 21 days advanced notice.

1:23:10

"It doesn't matter if they're on hunger strike.

1:23:14

"And by the way that, you know,

1:23:15

"there's only three of your clients on hunger strike."

1:23:17

Well, we, you get the judge to rule in our favor.

1:23:19

We go to Guantanamo within a week.

1:23:21

There's five guys on hunger strike.

1:23:22

It was different information

1:23:24

than what the government told us, you know?

1:23:25

So, what we tried to get the court was

1:23:27

we wanted regular medical updates from the government.

1:23:29

It sounds very, I know, simple.

1:23:33

Yeah. It's very basic, regular medical updates.

1:23:35

And we wanted the two hunger strikers who stayed

1:23:38

on hunger strike to be able to have a call home

1:23:44

to their families because they,

1:23:48

up until like a year or so ago,

1:23:50

were not allowed phone calls with their families.

1:23:53

And so, you know, we said,

1:23:56

"For all these reasons, and using,

1:23:58

"relying on the doctors affidavits,"

1:24:01

and of course we lost.

1:24:05

We lost.

1:24:08

-

Well, of course.

-

Yeah, because I think everything

1:24:09

that we ever filed trying to get something for our clients,

1:24:12

I tried to get them books,

1:24:15

tried to get more physical exercise.

1:24:17

Either the court didn't even bother to rule on it

1:24:20

which is the same as losing or ruled against us.

1:24:22

So, I don't think a single motion that was outside

1:24:26

of sort of the, a single motion that had to do

1:24:29

with their conditions of confinement.

1:24:33

We didn't win a single motion

1:24:35

or the court didn't rule on it, which is the same.

1:24:37

So, yeah, so I was not necessarily surprised.

1:24:39

I will say, other detainees with who were

1:24:45

in front of other judges were able to get more traction

1:24:49

with their judges regarding hunger strikes

1:24:52

but with our judge, yeah.

1:24:56

She just was like, "Well, there's doctors down there.

1:24:58

"They've got control of the situation.

1:25:01

"You know, don't see why you need a medical update

1:25:04

"because even if you did get one, what would you do?"

1:25:05

I know! It's like, you know?

1:25:08

So, that began my great relationship with Stephen Xenakis.

1:25:11

And he, after that, really started doing a lot

1:25:16

of work on behalf of detainees, he would speak on panels.

1:25:19

He would talk to the press and we actually co-wrote,

1:25:24

I should send it to you.

1:25:31

In fact, I will, co-wrote an article together

1:25:32

on the hunger strikes at Guantanamo.

1:25:35

So, it's an article in the Whittier Law Review

1:25:37

written by a psychiatrist, military, and a lawyer.

1:25:41

And so, we're trying to, you know,

1:25:45

have those two perspectives

1:25:47

and it addresses the hunger strikes.

1:25:49

So, that was sort of the, I'd say, the extent.

1:25:52

That whole hunger strike.

1:25:55

And then, just staying in touch with Steve

1:25:57

and speaking on different panels with him,

1:26:00

writing an article together, and, you know, sort of,

1:26:02

kind of following his path

1:26:05

with the work he's done regarding Guantanamo.

1:26:09

Peter

Well, have you heard of any of your clients

1:26:14

either seeing a doctor for some serious reason

1:26:17

or seeing a psychiatrist for a suit?

1:26:21

-

You know, I know in the litigation,

1:26:24

a lot of the lawyers have wanted their clients

1:26:27

to see a psychiatrist.

1:26:30

You know, I think it's not unusual that you might do that

1:26:33

in any case in which you had an individual client

1:26:37

who's either been, you know, had serious torture,

1:26:40

abuse or been in prison or anything like that.

1:26:45

It's not, it wouldn't be unusual to have them,

1:26:48

you know, checked out.

1:26:52

So I, you know, we had talked

1:26:55

about it with some of our Kuwait clients

1:26:58

and they were just like,

1:27:02

"I don't need to see a head doctor," you know?

1:27:03

So, okay.

1:27:07

And at that time too, you know, we still were not

1:27:10

in the habeas hearing,

1:27:14

so we weren't really allowed

1:27:16

to even bring a doctor down there, you know,

1:27:19

so that now you have a sort of different situation

1:27:21

where you have cases going forward so that some

1:27:24

of the courts are actually allowing doctors down there.

1:27:26

Back then, nobody was going down there

1:27:29

because the cases weren't going forward.

1:27:32

So, I know that when we first went down there

1:27:33

and started asking, you know, like,

1:27:41

"How are you being treated?

1:27:43

"How's your health?"

1:27:45

This, that, and the other,

1:27:46

they talked a lot about getting,

1:27:47

about some of the doctors that they had seen.

1:27:51

And I know this is a hugely controversial area.

1:27:53

And I think it's sort of a fascinating one

1:27:58

that some of the doctors who've been down there are being,

1:28:01

you know, complained about

1:28:05

for violating their ethical responsibilities

1:28:06

to their profession and being brought before their board

1:28:10

or at least being, you know, complaints lodged against them.

1:28:13

But a lot of my clients said, yeah, they were,

1:28:17

they'd see the doctor about, you know,

1:28:19

their headaches or whatever that they had.

1:28:21

And they were getting, you know,

1:28:24

drugs that they weren't told what the drugs were

1:28:26

that they felt that it made them tired all the time

1:28:29

or kept them awake all the time.

1:28:32

And basically my sense was is that they were not,

1:28:33

even though I know this, you know,

1:28:39

any press release from the government

1:28:40

that you'll read going back all the way to 2002,

1:28:42

they got the best medical care.

1:28:44

They got better medical care than they ever would've gotten

1:28:46

in their own country, blah, blah, blah.

1:28:48

You know, from my clients,

1:28:50

what they told me was sort of a different story, you know?

1:28:52

That maybe they, if they had a broken bone or something,

1:28:56

they got, you know, they got it set very well.

1:29:00

But I think that, you know, there was a whole,

1:29:03

the doctors were there from what I understand to, yes,

1:29:06

make sure that the detainees were kept in good health

1:29:10

but they were also there for the mission

1:29:13

which was to break them, to interrogate them,

1:29:16

and to learn about them as much as possible

1:29:20

even if they were the doctors who were setting the bones

1:29:23

or doing, giving, you know, dispensing ibuprofen,

1:29:25

is that, that was the mission.

1:29:30

And I know from what my clients said, that, you know,

1:29:33

they weren't, they were not, you know, they'd never felt

1:29:37

like there was patient physician confidentiality.

1:29:41

I mean, it was,

1:29:46

they just said, that was, you know, are you kidding?

1:29:47

That was, you know, it wasn't my doctor

1:29:48

I couldn't confide in him.

1:29:51

He was, you know, he was against me.

1:29:52

He thought I was a terrorist, you know?

1:29:55

So, it's very, I think it's very, very disturbing.

1:29:57

Peter

Had you heard of,

1:30:02

did anybody kind of tell you

1:30:03

that they were told they got inoculations

1:30:04

but in fact that that might've been some other?

1:30:07

-

I did not, I did not hear that from any of my clients.

1:30:11

Peter

Did you hear anything

1:30:14

about people being interrogated

1:30:14

while the medical professional was working on them?

1:30:16

-

Yeah.

1:30:19

-

You did?

-

From, not from my clients, but, you know, I mean,

1:30:21

I talked to a lot of other lawyers

1:30:24

and I mean, I think, you know, overall my,

1:30:26

like I said, my sense is from, you know,

1:30:28

talking to my clients and talking to other lawyers

1:30:31

that a lot of the doctors were involved in, you know,

1:30:34

I mean, and I think it's documented

1:30:37

in several of the more egregious cases with what's his name?

1:30:38

Al-Qahtani, you know,

1:30:43

and with the hunger, I mean,

1:30:46

with the hunger strike stuff that was going on, you know,

1:30:48

my clients were getting force fed, were, you know,

1:30:51

told us stories about, you know,

1:30:53

how they would jam the tube up their nose and,

1:30:55

you know, move it around.

1:30:59

And, you know, I mean,

1:31:01

whether or not you believe them, it's like,

1:31:01

why would they make that up?

1:31:03

You know? I don't know.

1:31:05

And I heard those stories from a lot of other lawyers.

1:31:07

Peter

How about dentists?

1:31:10

(Kristine laughs)

1:31:13

-

I'm laughing because for some strange reason

1:31:14

when we went down there for the first time,

1:31:18

they said they had never seen a dentist.

1:31:20

And so, when we came back, I mentioned that,

1:31:22

We had a press conference.

1:31:24

I mentioned that just kind of randomly.

1:31:26

And so, it was in the papers.

1:31:29

And then the next visit I went down, he's like,

1:31:30

"Hey, I saw, they brought in some dentists."

1:31:31

(laughs) And I said, "That's great."

1:31:33

That was like another thing, one, one tiny little thing

1:31:36

I felt like I'd accomplished.

1:31:38

Peter

Can you just describe the special toothbrush

1:31:45

you'd mentioned earlier?

1:31:47

Like, what that was?

1:31:47

-

Yes. I think I actually still have one.

1:31:49

Because one of my clients gave me his.

1:31:51

He said, "Here, you know, you should,"

1:31:53

it is a toothbrush that about this short,

1:31:55

I guess, so that you can't, you know,

1:32:00

like stab somebody 'cause so it's, you know, short.

1:32:02

You can't do too much damage.

1:32:05

And it is, you know, kind of a rounded.

1:32:07

It's rounded because one of my clients was telling me

1:32:12

early on that one of, not him,

1:32:16

another detainee there had like a toothache.

1:32:21

And so it was trying to use the toothbrush

1:32:25

to like pull his own tooth

1:32:27

because they wouldn't see him or something like that.

1:32:29

I know. I was just like, ugh.

1:32:33

So it's, 'cause it looks almost

1:32:35

like a little bit of a sort of shovel, I guess,

1:32:37

so that you can stick your thumb on the,

1:32:40

it's so short, you know?

1:32:42

Yeah, I think I still have that actually.

1:32:44

I kept it as a memento.

1:32:46

-

I have only

a few more questions.

1:32:48

One is, did you get to speak to guards in DC,

1:32:49

some sympathetic guards at all?

1:32:52

-

Guards?

1:32:56

-

Yeah.

Where they might've been taught,

1:32:58

they might've given extra food to a prisoner

1:32:59

or otherwise been nice to any of the prisoners?

1:33:02

-

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's interesting.

1:33:05

The military, ah, you know,

1:33:09

it's like military to me is it's sort of a,

1:33:11

it's a bit of an enigma.

1:33:16

You know, my, I told you, my father was in the military.

1:33:17

My mother was in the military.

1:33:20

My grandfather was in the military.

1:33:21

My other grandfather was a guerrilla in the Philippines

1:33:23

with the U.S. military.

1:33:27

I mean, so, you know, it's like, I have good feelings

1:33:28

about the military, but then Guantanamo kind of came along

1:33:30

and it was like, what?

1:33:34

You know?

1:33:35

And then I also, but I also realized

1:33:37

that there were a lot of people

1:33:39

in the military sort of behind closed doors

1:33:39

who were advocating to follow the Geneva conventions,

1:33:42

who were advocating to follow some rule of law,

1:33:45

to have hearings, to give better treatment, to, you know,

1:33:48

allow a lot of different,

1:33:52

to give them POW status and that the, you know,

1:33:55

Bush administration just said, "No way."

1:33:58

Where, you know, they basically followed the civilians

1:34:00

in the Defense Department.

1:34:03

So, when I learned that, I had,

1:34:05

I sort of had then sort of

1:34:07

a little bit more different feelings about the military.

1:34:09

And I also sort of know, you know,

1:34:11

when you're at a lower level, I mean,

1:34:13

you just follow, you're just following orders.

1:34:17

I mean, that's what you're supposed to do.

1:34:19

You know, they don't put people in the military

1:34:20

who are independent thinkers until like, much later.

1:34:22

So, even the guards who I thought if they were jerks

1:34:26

or mean to the detainees, I really, I didn't blame them.

1:34:29

You know, they were,

1:34:33

they were trying to do what they thought was

1:34:34

what their superiors wanted them to do for their country.

1:34:37

You know?

1:34:40

I mean, everyone should have their own moral compass.

1:34:41

And at some point, you know, you can't,

1:34:42

you gotta stick within it, but there were,

1:34:44

you know, there were guards who said,

1:34:47

you know, things to me like,

1:34:50

I know one guard said that, you know,

1:34:51

like I think, I think one guard said like,

1:34:57

"We should be following the Geneva conventions" or,

1:34:58

you know, "This is really a waste of our time,"

1:35:03

which sounds, which I think was his way of saying,

1:35:07

"We have a lot of innocent people in here," you know?

1:35:10

And, you know, things like that,

1:35:14

sort of not coming out and saying it.

1:35:16

And also because they had to be very careful

1:35:18

of what they said, because we were lawyers

1:35:21

and they knew we'd go back and talk to the press, you know?

1:35:23

But also, interestingly enough, you know, they all at least,

1:35:27

you know, when you're on the camp,

1:35:32

they all wore black tape over their names

1:35:35

so that the detainees would not know who they were.

1:35:37

And then when they started getting a lot of complaints

1:35:41

like, you know, how are we supposed to complain

1:35:43

about particular guards who are abusing us?

1:35:45

And I think somebody high up must've said, like,

1:35:47

"We can't have anonymous soldiers," you know?

1:35:49

And so then they had numbers so that the detainee,

1:35:52

if they wanted to actually bring a complaint

1:35:55

about a guard they could, they would do their number.

1:35:57

I know. But that took several years to get to that, so.

1:36:00

Peter

I have a couple questions,

1:36:05

but did you have a question?

1:36:06

Crew

You might get to this, but I'd be very interested

1:36:08

in knowing, number one, your feelings, the,

1:36:10

and you've kind of touched on this, but how do you feel

1:36:16

about your choice of law as a profession?

1:36:19

And second, have your feelings about your country changed?

1:36:26

-

Yes. And many times over the past several years (laughs).

1:36:31

But I'll start with the first question, which is, you know,

1:36:36

in the beginning, when we got so much resistance,

1:36:41

and Tom and I, at some point, we'd say, you know,

1:36:46

"If some of this, even this," you know,

1:36:48

I've always been sort of one to challenge authority,

1:36:52

just like Tom.

1:36:54

So, I think it's, that sort of motivated us a little bit,

1:36:54

the fact that so many people were against it, like,

1:36:57

you know, we'll show you

1:36:59

and, you know, so it's sort of,

1:37:02

it was a little bit of that, you know,

1:37:05

and I've always felt, I guess,

1:37:08

I've always felt very strongly about the law.

1:37:12

You know, I mean the law,

1:37:18

sort of the law is a law, and yes, some laws are bad

1:37:20

but you know, there's, the law is,

1:37:23

that's why we're a great country

1:37:25

because we believe in the law.

1:37:27

We don't have dictators, we don't have, you know?

1:37:28

So in that sense, you know,

1:37:30

sort of when I would get sort of down on myself or wonder,

1:37:32

am I representing terrorist, is he really a terrorist?

1:37:37

Am I doing the wrong thing?

1:37:40

I'd sort of bring myself back to that.

1:37:42

You know, what I'm really doing.

1:37:43

If I, you know, putting the individual person aside,

1:37:46

you know, I'm doing what I was trained to do

1:37:50

and what I believe very strongly in, you know,

1:37:54

that we are a country of laws, the law matters, right?

1:37:56

But there were times when, you know,

1:38:01

like when I started representing Omar and you know,

1:38:03

"Oh my gosh, he's accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

1:38:05

"What if he did?

1:38:08

"What does that, you know,

1:38:09

"what does that make me?

1:38:10

"What does that mean for me personally?"

1:38:12

You know, and then I guess I also thought like, well,

1:38:16

what about all those people who are lawyers

1:38:19

who are criminal defense lawyers?

1:38:21

I mean, they're not bad people, you know?

1:38:23

And I really, but I had to think at that level

1:38:25

and say like, you know, "They're doing their job."

1:38:28

And we, as a society,

1:38:32

believe that they're an important piece of society.

1:38:35

So, you know, that's my role too.

1:38:38

So, but I did, I had to have a lot of talks

1:38:43

with myself (laughs).

1:38:46

I had to walk myself through, you know, about my role.

1:38:47

Where do I fit in?

1:38:51

And, you know, my country, I mean, that's,

1:38:53

you know, I've having lived overseas and I mean,

1:38:55

and seen some crazy you know, I mean, let me tell you Angola

1:38:57

in the middle of the civil war, I mean, that is crazy.

1:39:01

And, you know, I had the opportunity to travel a lot

1:39:04

and I've always felt, you know,

1:39:07

as much as I love traveling, I love being a U.S. citizen.

1:39:10

I love living in America.

1:39:14

And, you know, part of what I love about it is

1:39:18

that we are sort of a country of laws, by and large,

1:39:21

you know, generally I know people say like,

1:39:26

"Oh, we have this," you know?

1:39:27

So, when we really,

1:39:31

I think with Guantanamo, we just hit such a low.

1:39:36

We just, I mean, I think we just, we just fell right off.

1:39:40

We just fell right off the edge.

1:39:43

And it was so depressing to go overseas

1:39:44

and hear people say, "What are you doing?"

1:39:48

America is the sort of the gold standard, you know,

1:39:55

even European countries would say that.

1:40:00

And I think to see America do that,

1:40:03

it sort of devastated the international community

1:40:06

because it was like, you know, "How can,

1:40:09

"if you do that, every country that's already doing

1:40:12

"that is just going to see that as being justified."

1:40:15

And in fact, other countries have used, you know,

1:40:17

national security, this, that, and the other, as excuses.

1:40:19

So, I felt like very, you know, like sad,

1:40:23

that I felt almost embarrassed.

1:40:28

I felt embarrassed to be overseas.

1:40:34

And it was kind of funny.

1:40:38

But here, I was almost sometimes embarrassed to say,

1:40:40

"Oh, I've represented Guantanamo detainees (murmurs)."

1:40:42

You know?

1:40:45

And then overseas, "Oh, I'm an American," you know?

1:40:46

I mean, it was sort of like, you know,

1:40:48

I know embarrassed is kind of funny,

1:40:49

but it was at times embarrassing to be an American,

1:40:51

to say, "Yeah, that's what my country is doing."

1:40:58

'Cause it was really wrong, so.

1:41:02

Peter

I want to take the other side of that.

1:41:04

Was there anything positive that came out of this experience

1:41:06

in the last eight years?

1:41:09

-

Anything positive?

1:41:10

-

Positive.

-

Oh yeah (laughs). A lot.

1:41:12

I mean, you know, I tried to,

1:41:15

I try to always look back

1:41:16

and whatever experience you have,

1:41:18

even if it's very bad at the time, I mean, it adds,

1:41:19

only adds to your portrait of yourself

1:41:22

and your experience and your learning

1:41:25

and you should always learn from everything.

1:41:27

So, you know, everything that came out of Guantanamo

1:41:29

in my view is positive because it, you know,

1:41:34

it made me who I am today, you know,

1:41:37

but sort of from a career standpoint, I mean,

1:41:40

it really gave me my career.

1:41:43

When I started, you know,

1:41:48

when I started the case and when there was very few lawyers

1:41:49

and I was, Tom was so supportive of, you know,

1:41:52

if we got a call to do press or whatever,

1:41:55

he'd say, "Oh, you should, you know, you should go do it."

1:41:57

So, that very quickly made me very visible

1:41:59

as a person who was very involved

1:42:02

in Guantanamo and all that.

1:42:05

And then, you know, for panels and stuff like that,

1:42:07

people would reach out to me and I took those opportunities.

1:42:09

And so, I created my own area of expertise, which,

1:42:12

you know, so, and that allowed me to go and teach

1:42:15

and to open a clinic and be the director and, you know,

1:42:20

be a detention expert, which is, you know,

1:42:23

a few years ago, you might sort of thought that was funny.

1:42:25

But now the fact is we are going to have detention clearly

1:42:27

for some time.

1:42:30

So, you know, it gave me an opportunity

1:42:31

to create an area of expertise for myself and,

1:42:35

you know, and be a professor which I enjoy.

1:42:40

I enjoy being a professor.

1:42:42

It's fun.

1:42:43

I love students.

1:42:44

So that, you know, that was very positive.

1:42:46

And, you know, I think it also, I mean,

1:42:48

there were times when it was physically very hard just going

1:42:54

to Guantanamo and making the trip and all that.

1:42:57

And, you know, and then going to see these guys

1:42:59

that you've been working so hard on

1:43:02

and they're looking at you like, Oh, what use are you?

1:43:04

You know? It's like, that sort of difficulty.

1:43:07

but to have had that experience, you know,

1:43:17

and especially now in hindsight, and to be, you know,

1:43:20

one of the few lawyers who have been doing it that long,

1:43:23

it's like, you know, seeing what Guantanamo was,

1:43:26

what it is now, but also what we, you know,

1:43:32

that if we're not careful,

1:43:35

we can sort of go back to that, you know?

1:43:36

And we're still, we're not in a clear, by any means,

1:43:38

you know, we still have a Guantanamo.

1:43:41

I actually had somebody say to me,

1:43:43

"Oh, isn't it closed?"

1:43:44

And I said, "No!"

1:43:46

You know, so just sort of living

1:43:49

through what I think was a very dark time, I do.

1:43:52

I mean, what Bush did, the administration did,

1:43:57

with the Guantanamo detainees those first several years,

1:44:02

things loosened up a little bit

1:44:06

but those first several years, I mean, what a dark period?

1:44:08

I think it's akin to the Japanese American internment,

1:44:11

you know, so, to have been part of that

1:44:15

and to have seen it firsthand what a government can do

1:44:17

when fear and arrogance drive you, you know?

1:44:20

I think that's, I'm, you know,

1:44:25

I guess I'm sort of glad to have seen that firsthand

1:44:26

and hopefully I will not forget that

1:44:30

and be able to use that somehow.

1:44:33

So, we don't slide

1:44:37

into the dark period again.

1:44:38

-

Do you think it's better

under Obama?

1:44:39

-

So, okay.

1:44:42

The Obama administration, oh gosh.

1:44:43

You know, it's very sad.

1:44:45

I ended my book basically with,

1:44:48

it's an afterword of, you know, the book sort of ends

1:44:51

before the Obama administration comes in.

1:44:56

But then I did an afterword of like his, you know,

1:44:58

of hearing his inauguration, his inaugural address,

1:45:01

which is great and how we're not going to choose between,

1:45:04

you know, liberty and national security.

1:45:08

That's a false choice.

1:45:10

I don't know if you remember.

1:45:11

And then two days later he signs

1:45:13

the executive order closing Guantanamo down

1:45:16

and then this is sort of how I end my book.

1:45:18

I have hope.

1:45:19

That's what I said, "I have hope."

1:45:20

And then here we are, you know, a year and a half later.

1:45:22

I, you know, I think he probably,

1:45:25

as much as I liked the executive order calling

1:45:28

for the closure of Guantanamo, I think he acted too quickly,

1:45:30

obviously in hindsight, I think it was like a,

1:45:34

sort of a great kind of grandstanding thing to do,

1:45:36

a great show of this is, you know, what I believe in

1:45:39

but then I don't think politically, he really,

1:45:44

he didn't gather the right support.

1:45:47

In fact, most of the Democrats afterwards,

1:45:50

you know, didn't even, they helped pass legislation

1:45:52

that made shutting down Guantanamo almost impossible.

1:45:56

So, he didn't gather the right support.

1:45:59

He really didn't do his homework.

1:46:00

So, in some ways you sort of say like,

1:46:01

"Well, you sorta screwed that up, buddy."

1:46:03

But you know, even that aside,

1:46:08

you know, he hasn't made that much change,

1:46:12

you know, putting aside shutting Guantanamo down,

1:46:16

he hasn't, you know, under him,

1:46:19

and he advocated for the passage

1:46:21

of the Military Commissions Act of 2009.

1:46:23

We still have military commissions, you know,

1:46:26

which is I think sort of, I don't

1:46:29

I think military commissions are good for certain things,

1:46:32

but I think, you know,

1:46:35

given the history of these military commissions,

1:46:37

given the fact that you've got people

1:46:40

who are picked up in the U.S. for the same crimes overseas

1:46:42

who are being charged in our federal courts

1:46:45

under a slew of materials, terrorism statutes,

1:46:48

it doesn't make any sense, you know?

1:46:53

And he is bowing to political pressure.

1:46:56

'Cause he, you remember he said,

1:46:59

"Oh, we're going to charge the six

1:47:00

"or the five in federal court."

1:47:01

And then all of a sudden it was like, oh no.

1:47:03

Oh, okay, well, maybe we should charge

1:47:05

in a military commission.

1:47:07

Well, what's he going to do next? You know?

1:47:07

Oh, you know, nobody likes that?

1:47:09

Okay. Well, maybe we'll just keep Guantanamo open.

1:47:10

So, you know, I'm disappointed

1:47:12

that he sort of seems to be

1:47:15

sort of much more going with the political wind.

1:47:18

I really didn't think that he was gonna be that way.

1:47:22

Maybe that's really naive of me to say that.

1:47:25

-

You're not alone.

1:47:28

(Kristine laughs)

-

I think a lot of people are disappointed.

1:47:30

I think a lot of people expected a lot of,

1:47:31

a lot more policy change

1:47:34

especially with respect to national security.

1:47:36

But in fact, the state secrets doctrine is being used

1:47:38

just as much as it was.

1:47:43

You've got people who are making the same arguments

1:47:45

in court papers

1:47:49

that they made under the Bush administration.

1:47:50

So, there hasn't been a huge shift

1:47:53

I think of the sort that a lot of people thought

1:47:57

that they would see and that at least, you know,

1:48:00

several people I know would like to see,

1:48:04

at least some portion of the country, including myself.

1:48:06

So, I'm disappointed.

1:48:09

I'm very disappointed, you know, but I,

1:48:11

but I'm also a realist.

1:48:18

I don't think, you know, anybody can come in

1:48:19

and all of a sudden Guantanamo will just be cleaned up

1:48:22

just like that.

1:48:25

And all of sudden we'll have no Guantanamo

1:48:26

and we'll, you know, have,

1:48:27

we'll go back to sort of pre-9/11.

1:48:30

I don't think, I don't know that we can do that.

1:48:32

I think we've sort of gone too far.

1:48:34

And I think that, you know, I think that realistically some

1:48:36

of the dangers might actually be more than they were.

1:48:40

It might actually be a more dangerous world

1:48:46

that we live in as far as, you know, terrorism goes.

1:48:49

But I say that with a caveat

1:48:53

which is to say, it's interesting,

1:48:54

because I think when people think

1:48:56

of national security and terrorism,

1:48:58

they're thinking a very particular type of terrorism,

1:49:00

terrorism by Islamic extremists.

1:49:02

They're not thinking of,

1:49:05

"Oh, let's have military commissions

1:49:07

"for those terrorists out in Montana," the whole, you know,

1:49:08

Hutaree family or whatever that was found with, you know,

1:49:11

a pile of arms and, you know, and charged with treason.

1:49:13

That, those aren't the terrorists

1:49:17

for the military commissions.

1:49:19

It's the other people.

1:49:20

So it's, you know, to me,

1:49:21

that I find that distinction and, you know,

1:49:23

discrimination very troubling and upsetting.

1:49:27

Peter

So has the world changed?

1:49:31

It'll never go back to pre-9/11?

1:49:33

-

(sighs) I think the world, I mean, I think,

1:49:36

I think the world has changed

1:49:42

and I don't think it will go back to pre-9/11.

1:49:43

And I think, you know,

1:49:46

maybe there are some laws that could be stronger

1:49:47

in terms of,

1:49:51

stronger in terms of people would say, you know,

1:49:54

infringing on our civil liberties.

1:49:59

That might be necessary, you know,

1:50:03

but it depends on what the law is.

1:50:06

And I think also, you know,

1:50:08

you have to look at it all as a whole.

1:50:10

Are there some places where we can give a little bit,

1:50:13

have a little bit stronger laws

1:50:16

so that overall we can have as open

1:50:18

and a free society as possible?

1:50:20

Without, you know, one thing

1:50:22

that really bothers me is the idea

1:50:24

that we could have military commissions be part

1:50:26

of the fabric of our society

1:50:29

for the rest of our time,

1:50:30

because that's what people are suggesting when they say,

1:50:33

"Well, we're in a war against terrorism"

1:50:36

and that's never going to end.

1:50:38

And so if we are always in a war against terrorism,

1:50:41

and military commissions is the way to prosecute terrorists,

1:50:44

then we will always have a military commissions

1:50:47

and military detention.

1:50:50

And so, I think that, you know, that that needs to go

1:50:52

but there might be some other areas where, you know,

1:50:56

maybe in the big picture giving up a little freedom

1:50:59

in those areas might be okay.

1:51:03

I'm not sure though.

1:51:05

I don't know. It's scary to say that.

1:51:06

It's scary to say that.

1:51:08

As one of my students said, it's such a slippery slope.

1:51:09

Peter

I have one more question before, can you,

1:51:13

and that is there something that I didn't ask you

1:51:16

that just, in terms of all that you've seen

1:51:18

in the last 10 years

1:51:22

and about yourself that maybe I didn't ask you

1:51:23

that you just wanted to share with us?

1:51:25

(Kristine sighs)

1:51:28

-

I guess, you know,

1:51:32

what's really sort of terrible

1:51:37

about all this is that there is such a human side to it

1:51:40

that I think sometimes as lawyers and professors,

1:51:47

we can get really abstract

1:51:50

and we can get caught up in the law and the theory

1:51:52

and all that, you know?

1:51:55

But at the end of the day,

1:51:57

there's always some person who is hurt unfairly,

1:52:00

an innocent person with family

1:52:07

who is hurt by all of, you know, by all of this.

1:52:09

And so, you know, it's sort of,

1:52:13

you know, it's sort of easy for,

1:52:16

I think for people to talk about like,

1:52:18

"Oh, national security, and we should have these laws

1:52:19

"and that laws."

1:52:21

And, but we should sort of never, yeah,

1:52:21

never lose sight of the fact that what we're talking

1:52:24

about is laws that affect people's lives, you know?

1:52:26

So, yeah.

1:52:32

And that's probably the most valuable thing

1:52:35

that I learned in all of this.

1:52:39

Yeah.

1:52:42

Peter

That was great.

1:52:44

And I have some to add to that off camera,

1:52:45

but I think,

1:52:47

-

Oh, okay.

Peter

I think Theo wants 20 seconds of room tone.

1:52:48

Tony

Yeah. I'd like that.

1:52:51

Okay, thank you.

1:53:10

Husky, Kristine - Interview master file

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