Adams, John - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Honigsberg

Okay, good morning.

0:05

-

Good morning, professor.

0:07

Honigsberg

We are very grateful to you

0:08

for participating in the witness to Guantanamo project,

0:09

we invite you to speak of your experiences and involvement

0:14

at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,

0:18

and we are hoping to provide you with an opportunity

0:20

to tell you a story in your own words.

0:23

-

Thank you, professor Honigsberg,

0:27

it's really a privilege to meet you

0:28

and to work with you on this project.

0:30

Honigsberg

Thank you, honored to have you here today.

0:32

We are creating an archive of stories,

0:36

so that people in America and around the world

0:38

will have a better understanding of what you

0:41

and others have experienced and observed.

0:44

Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo

0:49

and by telling your story you're contributing to history.

0:53

And if there's anything that you say

0:57

that you'd like us to remove let us know

0:59

and if you'd like to take a break at any time

1:01

let us know and we're happy to do that as well.

1:04

And we'd like to begin by just asking you

1:07

some personal questions, like your name,

1:09

and your hometown and your birth date and age,

1:12

maybe we can begin with

1:14

-

Sure.

1:16

My name is John Adams,

1:18

my hometown is Tucson, Arizona,

1:20

I was born on July 15, 1954, and I'm currently 58 years old.

1:23

Honigsberg

And your marital status?

1:30

-

I'm married.

1:33

Honigsberg

And, oh, I'm sorry.

1:34

-

No I'm happily.

1:36

Honigsberg

Your education.

-

I'm sorry.

1:39

Honigsberg

Your education.

1:39

-

I am a PhD candidate at the school of government

1:40

and public policy at the University of Arizona.

1:44

I have three master's degrees,

1:46

one in English from the University of Massachusetts,

1:49

one in international relations from Boston University,

1:53

and one in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.

1:57

Honigsberg

And maybe you can just briefly tell us

2:01

your previous occupation and your current occupation.

2:02

-

I served in the United States army on active duty

2:06

from 1976, until 2007.

2:09

I retired as a Brigadier general in September, 2007.

2:13

Honigsberg

And You currently.

2:18

-

Currently I am a PhD candidate

2:19

which is an occupation in and of itself,

2:22

but I also run a consulting business

2:25

for national security and defense related issues.

2:28

Honigsberg

And did you say where you live probably?

2:34

-

I live in Tucson, Arizona.

2:35

So I think you asked where is my hometown?

2:37

Honigsberg

Yes.

2:40

-

I immediately thought, well, I live in Tucson, Arizona,

2:41

but I was born in Washington DC.

2:44

Honigsberg

Thank you.

2:47

Okay well, we'd like to begin

2:48

with when you joined the military

2:50

and why did you join the military?

2:53

Just a little background there.

2:54

-

Sure.

2:55

Well, I joined the military in December, 1976,

2:56

I was a student in fact I have a bachelor's

3:01

in economics from the North Carolina State University

3:05

and while I was at the university

3:08

I was in the reserve officer training Corps program

3:10

and was commissioned as a second Lieutenant the same day

3:13

as I graduated from college.

3:15

I had always wanted to join the military

3:19

I think because and there was a couple of reasons one,

3:21

my dad was in the military during world war II.

3:25

He worked in the defense department after that.

3:28

And so it I saw working for the defense department

3:32

and being in the military as an honorable profession,

3:37

and still do of course, but it was something

3:40

that I grew up with and felt comfortable

3:43

in fact, I thought I believed then and still do

3:46

that it was a privilege to serve our country

3:49

and serve our constitution.

3:52

Honigsberg

Just briefly could you give us

3:55

a little background as to what work you did

3:56

between 1976 and say the year 2001?

3:59

-

Sure.

4:03

I began as most newly commissioned officers do,

4:05

as a second Lieutenant,

4:09

I was commissioned in the military intelligence Corps,

4:11

my first assignments though were in the field artillery

4:14

as a second Lieutenant.

4:18

I then after a couple of years

4:20

I went to army flight school where I flew helicopters

4:22

and also flew fixed wing aircraft,

4:25

for several years up until the mid 1980s.

4:29

And then I went, I was sent back

4:33

to military intelligence jobs

4:36

when I was assigned to NATO headquarters

4:38

in Brussels in 1983,

4:41

I was there for three years as a very junior officer

4:44

at this very high level headquarters

4:48

but it was a real education.

4:50

And I was there again for three years,

4:52

working at NATO headquarters and made my share of coffee,

4:54

but, I also had the chance to learn from and observe

4:58

senior leaders who were working

5:03

at a very different, higher level of responsibility

5:05

than I could I'd ever seen before.

5:07

And then I went to West Point to teach English

5:10

after earning a master's degree in English

5:14

at University of Massachusetts.

5:18

I taught English at West Point for a bit over two years,

5:20

and in 1991, I went to Desert Storm,

5:25

worked in battle damage assessment and targeting,

5:30

in CENTCOM headquarters there,

5:34

and then after that experience in Desert Storm,

5:37

I went to, an infantry division in Germany for three years,

5:40

in intelligence, military intelligence assignments,

5:45

tactical military intelligence.

5:47

And when I finished that in 1994,

5:49

I became what the army refers to as a foreign area officer.

5:52

These are officers who are trained in language,

5:56

culture and regional experience

5:59

to serve in assignments that require working

6:03

with other countries, either in,

6:06

from a standpoint of being an advisor

6:10

to army units or from the standpoint

6:12

of being in political military organizations

6:15

as advisors or staff officers.

6:19

In my case, I became an attache,

6:24

which is a little bit more specialized

6:27

in the sense that you don't work in an army organization,

6:29

you actually work in an embassy.

6:32

And so I was assigned as a foreign area officer

6:34

as an attache in Belgium, in Croatia,

6:37

and in Korea over the course of the next decade.

6:43

In between my assignment in Croatia,

6:48

and I have to say I was also temporary duty in Rwanda

6:51

in 1996 to, augment the U.S. embassy there in Rwanda.

6:55

And that proved pretty stressful time.

7:01

I had an assignment between my time in Croatia and in Korea

7:05

in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,

7:10

and that was in 2001, September 11th, 2001.

7:12

I was assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense

7:16

in the Pentagon on that day.

7:18

Honigsberg

Well, I'll ask you about that in a moment,

7:21

I just want to know what languages were you trained in?

7:22

Do you speak other languages besides English?

7:25

-

Yes, although I have to say I would be arrogant to say

7:28

that my language skills are, are very good,

7:32

but no, I can get by pretty well

7:35

in French Dutch, German and Croatian.

7:38

Honigsberg

And were you trained in the cultures

7:41

of these nations that you served in as well?

7:43

Did you have any actual training?

7:46

-

I had school in Croatian language

7:49

and it was a lot of cultural training as well,

7:53

prior to my assignment and in Croatia in 1998.

7:58

And, I think there's a certain amount of cultural background

8:03

that you get from living in a country,

8:06

so I had, I had lived in Belgium for,

8:09

but, I'd already lived there for three years

8:13

by the time I became an attache at our embassy in Brussels,

8:16

when I was assigned to NATO headquarters,

8:20

and lived in Belgium.

8:22

And so, you know, I'd learned, I spoke the language

8:25

French, and Dutch.

8:27

I was able to get by pretty well, and that helped a lot.

8:30

And then just being, living in the, in Western Europe

8:33

I mean, I was what is called a European foreign area officer

8:37

and someone who lives in Europe and has taken courses

8:43

in language, or has learned a language from in other ways

8:47

or has an advanced degree in this case

8:50

in international relations really helped a lot

8:53

to bridge that cultural gap

8:57

between being an American guy from, you know,

8:59

Maryland, Washington DC area,

9:03

and somebody who has to live work and,

9:05

really to understand the people and the organizations

9:08

and the way of life in Western Europe.

9:13

Honigsberg

And just really briefly,

9:17

how long were you in Rwanda when you were there?

9:19

-

I was there for a month.

9:22

Honigsberg

Okay.

9:23

-

So a brief period of time.

9:24

Honigsberg

Can you tell us how it was for you at 9/11,

9:27

exactly where you were and how you reacted

9:30

or what was the reaction around you.

9:33

-

Sure.

9:35

Well, it was a bad day for everybody.

9:37

And I think the further away, or the further you get,

9:42

or the closer you get to, you know, the,

9:44

in this case the crash site at the Pentagon

9:47

or to ground zero in New York,

9:49

the more intense and the more traumatic the experience,

9:52

and I take nothing away

9:55

from people that have family there at all,

9:56

'cause it's obviously massively traumatic for them as well.

9:58

But I was about 100 meters away from the crash site

10:02

where the plane actually entered the building.

10:08

My, you know, I know no one from my office

10:11

was killed or injured, thank God,

10:15

but there were roughly 120 of our brothers and sisters

10:19

who were some of whom I knew.

10:24

And, you know, I just, you know, describe the scene briefly.

10:28

It was, you know, just a few minutes before nine,

10:33

and some of us, I was the deputy director of European policy

10:36

in the Office of Secretary of Defense,

10:40

and we, a number of us would watch split-screen CNN,

10:42

or I don't know maybe other people

10:47

were watching other things, but usually it was CNN,

10:48

and CNN was on shortly before nine o'clock,

10:51

and I distinctly remember one of our, my office colleagues,

10:54

an air force Colonel in this case said,

11:00

"Whoa, some plane just hit, you know

11:03

one of the World Trade Center towers."

11:06

Well, that's remarkable under any circumstances

11:08

but then as soon as some of us came in to join him

11:11

watching the scene, another plane hit the building

11:14

and it was much clearer that this was not a Cessna

11:17

from the local airport, that it was a jetliner,

11:22

and so it was pretty clear to everybody at that point

11:26

this was not, it's not one, not a coincidence

11:29

and two it's a tragedy of massive scale.

11:32

So, it was disturbing to say the least.

11:35

The leadership in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,

11:39

and this is about at nine o'clock,

11:43

my boss, who was the deputy assistant secretary

11:46

for Europe and NATO was in a meeting with his boss,

11:49

or in this case, her boss who was the assistant secretary

11:54

of defense, or one of the assistant secretaries of defense,

11:58

and that meeting would normally last 10 or 15 minutes

12:01

from nine to 9:10 or 9:15.

12:04

Well, it didn't, it lasted another five or so,

12:06

because there was this huge problem

12:08

that although that office could not do much about it,

12:10

it certainly sparked a great deal of discussion

12:15

about what is going on and what should we do.

12:17

And so in this case, my, she, my boss

12:20

the deputy assistant secretary--

12:24

Honigsberg

What's her name?

12:25

Can you tells us her name.

12:26

-

Lisa Bronson and as I mentioned her name

12:27

I will mention her with great respect

12:30

because she was an excellent leader that day,

12:32

she did, I mean, really I was proud to work

12:36

with and for her, on that day and days after,

12:40

because of her leadership skills and because of her,

12:44

really her devotion to not only taking care of our country

12:47

but taking care of the people that she worked with.

12:51

She was, she's really a hero.

12:54

And she's one of the most,

12:56

and I think her comportment that day was remarkable,

12:58

and I'll get to that in just a second.

13:02

But she came back from the meeting with her boss

13:04

the assistant Secretary of Defense,

13:06

and it was clear we had a problem,

13:08

but we'd only started our meeting

13:10

which our meeting was supposed to,

13:12

and I think start at 9:20,

13:13

and it was just a few minutes later,

13:15

and there was an army major general

13:16

who was her deputy there,

13:19

and he was an air defense officer,

13:21

very astute gentlemen in all situations,

13:23

but he said, "We should get some fighter combat air patrol

13:27

up over the Pentagon."

13:30

Which good idea, unfortunately, less than a minute later,

13:32

things don't happen from that quickly,

13:36

and probably there were others astute as he,

13:39

who were thinking the same thing,

13:42

clearly there were, we know from history

13:44

that that's what happened,

13:45

but, it was there wasn't fighter combat air patrol

13:46

of the Pentagon and the plane hit the building.

13:50

So for us, it was already a great deal

13:53

of wondering what's going on,

13:57

but then the term, the thoughts turned to how are the people

14:00

with whom we work?

14:03

Because it was a loud explosion

14:05

that we didn't have any damage to our office,

14:07

but it was clear as soon as we left the room

14:10

and went into the hallway that there had been a fire

14:14

and explosion and it was ongoing.

14:17

So--

14:19

Honigsberg

You know it was a plane at that time?

14:20

-

No, I didn't.

14:21

I think we surmised that it might be

14:23

if only because we'd seen the two planes

14:26

hit the World Trade Center,

14:28

but it was, we didn't at the time know that it was a plane.

14:31

I think a lot of us thought it was probably a plane,

14:34

but we didn't know, we didn't know

14:36

when we got outside though.

14:38

We went outside and we formed,

14:39

the military officers, not just officers,

14:44

but I mean everybody who was there in uniform, military,

14:48

formed, and at least to me as an army Colonel,

14:52

so, I mean, there's a whole pair number of army colonels

14:57

who were assigned to the Pentagon at any one time,

15:00

to me as an army Colonel, it was almost,

15:05

I mean we didn't have somebody barking orders

15:08

to anybody at that point.

15:10

We, sort of, and I think it was more a question of,

15:13

there are people in the building,

15:17

we need to get in there and help them.

15:19

We need to go in and try to organize ourselves

15:21

to evacuate casualties

15:24

and, you know, at least begin first aid of some sort,

15:27

'cause it was clear that there was a crash

15:30

at the side of the building.

15:32

We could see parts of the plane around.

15:33

So at that time at that point we knew it was an aircraft.

15:37

But, and we formed into four-man teams and we'd lined up,

15:39

which I was, you know, in retrospect

15:43

I'm glad we got to that level of organization,

15:46

but it wasn't very long after that,

15:50

and this all happens in about 15 minutes.

15:51

So we're not talking about a long period of time.

15:54

The, side of the building literally collapsed.

15:57

So there was a hole in the building,

16:00

when we first went out there was a hole in the building

16:01

where the aircraft went through the side of the building,

16:03

and the first couple of floors,

16:06

the first two or three floors were gone,

16:08

but there was a sort of an archway,

16:09

so the top floors were not gone,

16:13

the plane went in and made a big hole,

16:15

and there was a fire and explosion,

16:17

but the real fire and the real explosion

16:20

and the much larger one took place about 15

16:22

to 20 minutes after the initial crash.

16:24

And that dropped the side of the building.

16:27

So as you may have seen from pictures,

16:30

you know there're picture taken immediately after the crash,

16:34

then you'll see this hole,

16:36

and if you see a picture taken later,

16:38

there's really almost a cut in the side of the building.

16:41

And it got larger because there was more fire

16:44

more destruction and so forth.

16:46

So, some people would went in, but not too many.

16:48

And, then, and so we stopped going in,

16:53

but we did spend the rest of the day,

16:56

there was probably, you know, several 100 to 1000

16:59

or so military who stayed until roughly four or 4:30

17:03

that afternoon, so about six hours I guess,

17:08

just making IV bottles.

17:11

I mean, rescue squads

17:14

from all over the Northern Virginia area in DC

17:16

came to provide the, you know

17:18

the initial response to a mass casualty.

17:20

And so we set up cots and set up IV bottles

17:24

and treated the casualties as they were available to,

17:29

as we could get them out of the building.

17:34

I didn't go into the building,

17:36

I had, you know, I just didn't go in,

17:37

I mean, it was, again, we were lined up

17:40

and there was a huge fire after about 20 minutes,

17:41

but it was a very disturbing day.

17:44

But we, stayed there till again about four, 4:30,

17:49

and, then the battalion that was a stationed there,

17:53

the old guard, which is the same soldiers

17:58

who guard, a team of the (indistinct) soldier

18:03

is an army infantry unit,

18:07

and they arrived on the scene around three 3:30 as a unit,

18:10

and then they took our places and we left.

18:15

Honigsberg

Well, was anyone thinking about what reaction

18:20

the U.S. should take at that time,

18:23

or people were just thinking of saving lives?

18:24

-

You know, it's hard to know,

18:28

I think most of us were just thinking

18:31

about saving lives at that point.

18:34

I mean, there was people, we were angry, absolutely.

18:36

Honigsberg

Did you know or you didn't.

18:40

-

I didn't know.

18:41

Honigsberg

You were just angry.

18:42

-

No, we didn't know, we were angry that somebody would--

18:43

Honigsberg

Were you afraid too?

18:44

You think were people afraid?

18:46

-

Yeah, absolutely.

18:47

I mean I remember thinking this maybe is,

18:48

this is maybe it for me, who knows?

18:51

It might be.

18:53

Honigsberg

You are expecting another plane

18:55

going into the Pentagon?

18:57

-

I didn't, but I, but the reason,

18:58

but that didn't say it does,

19:01

but that's an interesting question in the sense that,

19:02

you know, for, for the rest of the afternoon,

19:04

there were F-16s flying low over the building.

19:07

And it was interesting I mean, especially in retrospect

19:13

at the time it wasn't interesting, it was disturbing,

19:17

but in retrospect of what would happen,

19:20

I mean, again you've got maybe 1000

19:23

or more people outside at a certain level of organization.

19:25

And I have to say the other,

19:30

I wanna talk about Lisa Bronson since we mentioned her,

19:32

I wanna give honor to her,

19:34

but let me talk about some other group of people

19:36

that really deserves a great deal of respect and credit

19:39

for how they behaved and how they comported

19:42

themselves that day.

19:43

Were the paramedics from the various

19:45

first responder units and civilians,

19:48

but working for fire departments and rescue squads

19:51

who came in from, you know, wherever,

19:53

Northern Virginia, Maryland, DC, to help out

19:57

because of who they are.

20:01

And they were fantastic,

20:03

because all of us have some

20:06

rudimentary knowledge of first aid,

20:07

I mean, we can do first aid and combat lifesaving

20:09

and things like that, that we're all trained to do,

20:13

but I mean, we don't have the skill sets

20:15

to really organize a mass casualty scenario.

20:19

And, but these guys did, and they took charge.

20:23

And it wasn't a question of rank.

20:28

There were privates there, and there were,

20:32

I remember seeing a good friend of mine

20:34

who was a Lieutenant general

20:36

that I'd worked for at one point, and he showed up.

20:37

And I don't think he was assigned in the Pentagon,

20:40

but he came there because he knew

20:42

that that's where his duty station needed to be.

20:44

And we're all doing the same thing.

20:47

And the guys we were listening to, were the paramedics

20:48

who spoke with authority and competence

20:52

about how to organize,

20:55

to handle taking care of the casualties

20:57

and behaving in a way that would facilitate

20:59

getting professionals in there to do what they do,

21:03

put the fire out, identifying and evacuate the casualties,

21:07

and then treat them and get them to the hospital.

21:11

So we were just trying to be helpful.

21:13

I don't think it was a, from my perspective,

21:16

we would, we were thinking about the guys

21:20

who were hurt that day.

21:23

We were also thinking about our families, you know?

21:25

I mean--

21:27

Honigsberg

Did you call home?

21:28

-

I tried, but we, the phones weren't working that day,

21:30

the cell phones just didn't work.

21:34

They were, I mean, it was a couple of hours

21:36

before I got through.

21:39

You know, at first couple of times

21:43

you're like, "No, okay, it's not working,"

21:44

and everyone else has got the same problem,

21:45

so you don't spend a lot of time doing that.

21:47

But I mean, it was a matter of hit or miss,

21:49

and I think after three, four hours, there was enough,

21:51

I don't know if the word is bandwidth

21:54

but enough telecommunications space

21:56

for us to actually get through,

22:00

and we had, I had a conversation with my wife

22:01

and that was a very important conversation.

22:04

My kids, well, let me get back if may,

22:08

you asked about the aircraft.

22:11

We, F-16s would be flying over and I'm not kidding,

22:13

it was really a mass movement away from the building

22:16

when the F-16s would come in.

22:21

Because I think it was, you know, we're all adults

22:23

and you know, we're also human adults,

22:26

and we'd already seen one aircraft or felt one aircraft,

22:30

and we could see the results

22:33

of one aircraft flying in the building,

22:34

we didn't know what, whether it was an F-16,

22:36

or there's another aircraft, you know,

22:38

who knows who this is?

22:40

People would literally run away from the building.

22:41

So it was every time a big airplane would come,

22:44

or an airplane, we go, "Okay, let's get away from this,"

22:46

who knows what's gonna happen next?

22:48

And we were really, it was really a movement

22:50

back and forth across the lawn, outside the Pentagon.

22:52

Very interesting.

22:55

But I was gonna say, and I don't know,

22:56

do you want me to continue to talk about this?

22:59

Honigsberg

Well, what else, what we're gonna say?

23:01

-

I was gonna say about my kids,

23:02

I was really proud of my daughters.

23:04

My oldest daughter was in, they were both in school,

23:10

and to be in Northern Virginia is a lot of kids

23:13

who have come from military families,

23:16

and so the fact that you'd have a mother or father

23:17

who worked at the Pentagon is not unusual, you know, a lot,

23:21

but I remember and this is what my daughter told me,

23:25

but knowing her I can totally see her doing this.

23:28

She's strong.

23:31

And, the teacher told the kids,

23:33

"Ah, there's been a an accident that Pentagon,

23:36

so stay right here."

23:39

And she said, "No, I'm gonna go home."

23:42

And I thought when I heard that story

23:46

I was like, "That"--

23:48

Honigsberg

How old was she?

23:49

-

Let's see, she would have been 15, strong girl.

23:51

She didn't, and the rest of the kids

23:56

said the same thing when they heard her say that,

23:58

they were like, "okay, Joel has, we're going home too."

24:00

But, she, her first thought was, "I gotta get home to mom,

24:03

and I get home to dad."

24:07

I'm sorry.

24:09

Honigsberg

It's okay.

24:10

-

But yeah, real proud of her.

24:11

Honigsberg

Well, can you tell us

24:15

what happened that evening or the next day,

24:17

you must have been called to,

24:19

do you wanna take a break?

24:21

Are you okay?

24:22

-

I'm okay.

24:23

Honigsberg

As to, you must have been called

24:24

to do something more than saving lives, you know

24:26

with your position and your knowledge and skillset.

24:30

-

Well, the first thing we did is we got back to work

24:34

the next day.

24:37

Honigsberg

In the pentagon?

24:39

-

Yeah, we did.

24:40

I mean, and this is again, let me get back to Lisa Bronson.

24:41

I mean, one of her first things was,

24:44

"You know we need to be strong,

24:46

we need to come back to work,

24:47

we need to get busy with what we need to do,

24:48

'cause our mission was to,

24:50

we had both the multilateral relationship with NATO

24:52

which was huge, and as you may remember,

24:56

the next day NATO declared

24:58

that an attack on the United States is attack on whole NATO

25:00

which is the first time they ever did that,

25:03

I mean, it's the core of the North Atlantic treaty

25:04

is the attack on one is attack on all.

25:06

And, it was reassuring certainly to me,

25:08

as somebody who had worked at NATO and felt strongly

25:12

that the Alliance was a good thing

25:15

that in fact it lived up to that core

25:16

of its own ethics, so to speak, but they did,

25:20

and, but our job, it was not only the,

25:24

the job of relating to our European allies

25:28

to North Atlantic treaty organization

25:30

but also the bilateral relationship.

25:32

So the challenge really from that point on,

25:34

for the next months was to focus on,

25:38

what can we do to harness this sense of unity

25:44

among our Alliance, and also the sense of,

25:50

the bond between us and our bilateral European allies,

25:53

to appropriately respond

25:58

to this attack on the United States.

26:00

Honigsberg

At hat time, that morning,

26:02

did you know that Al Qaeda was involved?

26:04

-

No, no.

26:08

I think that came out only in the next few days.

26:09

My recollection is, and there may have been others

26:12

who were more astute than me,

26:14

but I mean, I was pretty much in the loop

26:16

so I suspect that it was, it did take a few,

26:19

it took some time before it was clear who was responsible.

26:21

But if I recall it was a matter of days

26:27

before it was crystal clear that Al Qaeda

26:30

was responsible for the attack.

26:34

Honigsberg

And did the Secretary of Defense

26:36

or anyone from his office come through

26:39

to talk to your office about policy

26:42

or what you might be doing going forward?

26:45

-

Not directly, but I know in the case of my boss,

26:48

the deputy assistant secretary for defense,

26:54

I mean she had clear guidance from Secretary Rumsfeld

26:56

in this case to work closely with NATO,

27:00

and with our bilateral European allies

27:03

to harness, not only the Goodwill,

27:06

but frankly the real capabilities that our European allies

27:09

both multilaterally and bilaterally have,

27:13

for the common objective of,

27:16

"How do we approach or how do we address this attack?

27:22

Who did it, let's let's attack them, let's eliminate them,

27:29

and let's do we can to try to prevent any further attacks,"

27:34

I mean, that was really the objective.

27:37

So, not with me personally,

27:38

but I know I have absolutely no doubt

27:41

that she had, she Lisa Bronson had a personal contact

27:43

with the secretary almost immediately.

27:47

In fact, again, to her credit,

27:50

and not everyone did what she did,

27:53

but because she was very competent and because she had,

27:55

she was a good leader,

27:58

she was one of the senior officials in the Pentagon

28:00

in the days, following who really stood on duty

28:03

almost 24 seven, and she really worked hard,

28:09

and we could tell it was her,

28:11

and that meant a lot to us.

28:14

I mean, here's someone who really cares,

28:15

and someone who again cares about the United States

28:19

but also cares about the people she works with.

28:22

It was inspirational.

28:24

Honigsberg

So as time went on,

28:26

and since this project is about Guantanamo,

28:27

did you hear about Guantanamo early on

28:30

while you were working,

28:33

I assume you were still in the Pentagon,

28:35

did that word go through,

28:37

it would not have gone through your office.

28:38

-

No, we didn't handle a Guantanamo per se,

28:41

but because there were many European nationals

28:46

who found themselves detained in Guantanamo,

28:49

we got involved in the bilateral issues

28:55

between France and Spain and the U.K.,

28:58

because they all had nationals at Guantanamo.

29:04

Honigsberg

Can you explain how, what that means,

29:07

how you got involved.

29:10

-

Well our, each of our office was organized

29:11

so that, again, my, I was the deputy director

29:14

of European policy, so that the officers

29:16

and civilians who worked in my office,

29:19

each of them were responsible for one or more,

29:21

European countries, bilateral defense relationships.

29:25

So, and you know, let's imagine that Spain for example,

29:29

we had an officer or a civilian,

29:35

I think it was actually a Navy captain

29:37

who had responsibility for Spain,

29:39

but in any case, his portfolio was to work

29:41

on all aspects of the bilateral defense relationship.

29:49

And where we had, Spanish nationals in Guantanamo,

29:52

he would be the point of contact for the Spanish embassy

30:00

to talk to the Office of the Secretary of Defense

30:06

about Guantanamo issues.

30:09

So those issues would cross his desk.

30:10

Same with the UK, same with France,

30:14

same with other European countries

30:18

that happened to have nationals detained at Guantanamo.

30:20

So, that was our involvement.

30:23

And it was in, although it wasn't a matter of, you know

30:26

there was no sense of, that officer

30:30

or our office supervising the detainee

30:32

in Guantanamo, those were military corrections officers

30:37

who were actually doing the work at Guantanamo itself,

30:43

but in terms of the of handling the various issues

30:47

that would come up between the embassy,

30:50

that had an interest in their national in Guantanamo,

30:53

they would be, our office and that particular officer

30:57

who had that country's portfolio

31:01

would be the one to handle those relationships.

31:02

Honigsberg

What would be an issue that would come up?

31:05

-

Access primarily.

31:07

Ability to check on the welfare,

31:10

the ability to visit and talk, just like--

31:12

Honigsberg

And your office would set that up.

31:15

-

We, we would definitely set that up.

31:16

We would be the ones to coordinate that access.

31:19

Honigsberg

And in that process, did you ever hear,

31:22

or did any of the men and women who were involved

31:25

in that hear of complaints that maybe some of these men

31:27

had been mistreated?

31:31

Is that, did that come up in these conversations?

31:32

-

You know what I heard, and I'll only say

31:35

what I know was that,

31:39

that it was difficult to gain access,

31:41

or that in the case of the country involved,

31:46

and I wish I could give you specific examples,

31:49

but I remember clearly discussions

31:52

of the difficulty to gain access.

31:54

There were some countries who had trouble

31:57

or their perspective was that,

32:00

the process of gaining access to their nationals

32:03

was burdensome.

32:06

And, so they felt as if they were being,

32:08

themselves there was a hindrance to the kind of access

32:15

that they thought they needed to do

32:19

to get in order to check on the welfare of their nationals.

32:21

Which, you know, I think history has told us

32:25

that, that in fact happened.

32:28

Some of that is just pure bureaucracy.

32:30

And, so, but if you, if you are concerned

32:34

about your citizen, and you can't get access,

32:38

it's not important to you why,

32:41

you just realized that the person to whom

32:44

you would like to, not just talk to,

32:46

but again the whole objective is to verify

32:48

the health and the welfare of the national.

32:51

And the more you hear about the fact that the national

32:55

is there with no charges,

32:58

the more you hear about the fact that the nationals there

33:00

on a period of undefined period of time,

33:04

the more concerned you become,

33:09

and I can appreciate that.

33:11

And I think that was the real sense of,

33:12

yeah, the bureau, whether it's bureaucracy

33:16

or intentionally trying to hinder access,

33:19

the result is the same in terms of your concern

33:22

about your citizens.

33:24

Honigsberg

Well could you describe if the liaison

33:26

was trying to smooth the waters between

33:29

the nation that is interested

33:31

like Spain as you use before and access,

33:35

what would the liaison do,

33:38

would he go up the chain of command to try to get access

33:40

and be pushed back?

33:43

-

Well, there was, you know there are different levels

33:45

of course of complaint,

33:48

if let's say, I mean, just take a--

33:51

Honigsberg

Yeah.

33:53

-

I wanna use, I say the word hypothetical,

33:54

but, again I don't have the records,

33:55

but what I remember is that there were instances

33:59

where it was clear that one of the,

34:02

one or more of the European countries

34:07

was concerned that they didn't have the level of access

34:09

that they felt comfortable with.

34:12

And so it would become elevated beyond our office,

34:14

because we were at the entry level for the embassy,

34:19

one of the embassy, let's say the political officer

34:22

from the European embassy would contact,

34:25

or the defense attache, or somebody from the embassy

34:28

who related with the Office of the Secretary of Defense

34:32

would contact our office,

34:34

and if we, they didn't get the satisfaction that they wanted

34:36

if they were unsuccessful in gaining access,

34:39

or arranging a visit, then it would be elevated

34:42

to another level up to, you know,

34:45

I don't recall any specific conversation with the secretary,

34:48

but of course that could have happened.

34:52

Honigsberg

But you didn't have,

34:55

or your office didn't have authority to provide access.

34:56

-

No, we had to try to arrange it.

34:59

Our, job was to facilitate,

35:02

our job was to facilitate it as to the extent

35:04

that we had guidance to facilitate it.

35:09

And I, my sense, and I, again, this is only my sense,

35:12

my sense is that there was not a great deal of interest

35:17

in facilitating access, if only because

35:20

there were other things that we wanted to do.

35:25

And that's, I think from a standpoint

35:27

of gathering intelligence and isolating the prisoner,

35:30

bureaucracy would tend to be something

35:35

that we would like to have to make it more difficult

35:37

for others outsiders to gain that.

35:42

Honigsberg

What time period are we talking about?

35:46

Are we talking about early 2002 or later?

35:48

-

Well you know the time period

35:52

that I'm thinking of is early 2002,

35:53

when it really reached a head about that period.

35:56

Honigsberg

And what were you thinking during that time,

35:59

the way you described it, you must use,

36:02

you've seen this blocking of access essentially

36:05

or this pushback on access,

36:07

did you have any thoughts about what might be going on,

36:10

or did you think that was probably a good idea

36:12

because that you were looking for intel

36:14

or the government's looking for Intel?

36:17

What were your thoughts during this (indistinct)?

36:19

-

Well our mission was to try to build a good relationship

36:20

and build cooperation with European countries.

36:24

So, and, you know there are many different strands

36:28

working towards ultimately the goal of increasing

36:33

or helping the national security in the United States,

36:36

and we just part of that.

36:38

But from, but our our part was to build

36:40

a stronger relationship, and frankly, to identify

36:42

and harness those capabilities that our European allies

36:46

would wanna contribute to the common defense.

36:51

And, so I do actually remember thinking to myself,

36:54

that you know, at least in this case

36:58

where we have on the one hand, created the perception

37:00

of a difficulty of gaining access in the country,

37:04

and at the same time as we're essentially

37:10

asking them to help us,

37:12

either financially or with military capabilities,

37:14

that's working across purposes.

37:18

And it was, we had discussions about that,

37:20

how to manage that tension.

37:22

I'm not sure you can avoid that tension,

37:24

but it was there and we had to deal with that.

37:26

Honigsberg

Was it ever resolved or as time went on?

37:30

What unfolded?

37:34

-

You know, and I feel at a loss

37:37

to give you specific examples,

37:40

so these are my impressions.

37:42

Honigsberg

Yes that would be fine.

37:43

-

You know, I think a lot of the way it was resolved

37:45

was that, we move beyond the need

37:48

to work specific capabilities issues as time went on.

37:56

Afghanistan was occupied.

38:00

There were different issues that we needed to address,

38:05

at as you remember, as we know in the spring of 2002,

38:10

the focus turned from Afghanistan to Iraq,

38:15

a different set of issues.

38:19

And in some cases, a different set of reasons

38:21

to detain people, you know, as the war went on.

38:24

So in some cases, the tension worked itself out over time.

38:29

In other cases, I think it caused some difficulties,

38:37

especially with some of the countries

38:41

that were allied with it really couldn't understand

38:43

why we wouldn't give access to their nationals

38:46

in Guantanamo.

38:50

And so it became a sticking point that lasted.

38:52

And I didn't know that because we know that from history

38:55

that that was in fact the case.

38:58

Honigsberg

And we understood from speaking to detainees

39:00

that, at cliches or diplomats

39:02

or whomever from that countries did interview

39:06

or interrogate them at some point

39:10

while they were in Guantanamo,

39:12

so clearly some people did have access.

39:14

-

Clearly they did.

39:19

Honigsberg

And do you know who those people were?

39:20

Were they essentially investigating offices

39:21

who were trying to seek more information?

39:24

-

The people that I am familiar with trying to gain access

39:26

were representatives of the government who were concerned

39:30

with verifying the health and welfare that are nationals,

39:35

as opposed to trying to gather information.

39:38

And there that may have happened as well,

39:40

I'm not, I don't, that's not my recollection.

39:42

Honigsberg

And that wouldn't have gone

39:46

through your office then?

39:47

The investigative side.

39:49

-

If there were an attempt to interrogate,

39:51

we wouldn't know that.

39:56

That would not be something that we would clear.

39:58

But then we might not know if let's say,

39:59

a diplomat from country like Spain

40:04

was also a Spanish intelligence officer,

40:08

I mean, they don't wear a badge,

40:11

so it's, a matter of, you just know

40:13

that this this country's diplomat once access,

40:17

and for, and you entertain the request based on protocol

40:21

like anything else.

40:27

And you can either operate,

40:28

I mean, there's just the, this is a bureaucracy part.

40:30

I mean, again, if you are a demander,

40:33

and you don't get what you want,

40:36

you don't care why, you just don't get what you want.

40:39

And so that's really what we're talking about

40:42

from their perspective, from the perspective

40:44

of the embassy requesting access,

40:46

then you can't, they can't get it fast enough

40:49

and they, and there's only one measure of success is,

40:52

"I got access."

40:56

And iF anything else is, "I didn't get access

40:57

and I'm not happy."

41:00

And that's what we heard.

41:02

So, but we don't know whether the access in the end

41:03

was desired in order to interrogate

41:07

or to gather intelligence, or as we were told to understand,

41:10

and I, again, I had no reason at the time,

41:17

and although I can understand why a country

41:21

might wanna interrogate their national,

41:23

at the time the issue that was presented

41:26

as far as I remember was to gain access

41:28

to the detainee in order to verify the health and welfare.

41:31

Honigsberg

Did the ICRC go through your office too?

41:35

-

Not to my recollection, no.

41:38

We didn't work with the ICRC.

41:41

Honigsberg

And did you continue in the role

41:43

you described to us for several years?

41:45

-

I was assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense

41:49

from July of 2001 until August, 2002.

41:52

I began getting prepared for my subsequent assignment in,

42:00

I think, April or may,

42:04

I was assigned to be the defense attache in South Korea,

42:07

and I proceeded there in September.

42:11

So I had a couple of months

42:13

to go through the requisite training

42:14

and preparation for that new assignment.

42:16

Honigsberg

Before you went to Korea

42:20

did you have a chance to go to Guantanamo?

42:21

-

I did not.

42:23

Honigsberg

Were you interested,

42:25

would you been able to have you to, had you?

42:26

-

You know, I don't know,

42:28

I didn't, it wasn't, it wouldn't have been

42:29

in my portfolio to do that.

42:31

And I don't recall having thought to myself,

42:35

"I want to go there."

42:39

Honigsberg

Is there anything else about that period

42:40

before you left for Korea that I didn't ask you

42:42

that might be interesting

42:45

in terms of issues with Guantanamo?

42:46

-

I think I've described it as best I can

42:57

on my recollection.

43:00

Honigsberg

So after Korea, how long were you in Korea?

43:01

-

I was there for, I went there in September

43:05

and I returned in May the following year.

43:09

Honigsberg

And what did you do when you returned?

43:11

-

I was assigned as the assistant deputy chief of staff

43:13

on the army G2, which is the army intelligence staff

43:18

in the army staff.

43:22

Honigsberg

For what purpose?

43:24

-

I was the senior, we had a three-star army general

43:25

who was the G2, the army intelligence officer,

43:31

we had a civilian senior executive service civilian

43:36

who was the, who was an assistant deputy chief of staff,

43:41

civilian and I was the military

43:45

assistant deputy chief of staff.

43:47

So it was a one-star assignment

43:48

but I was a Colonel on the list to be promoted,

43:51

so that was my assignment.

43:54

Honigsberg

What was your role?

43:56

What exactly was you job?

43:57

-

I was the, essentially the number two military officer

44:00

in the G2.

44:04

So the G2 of the army is responsible for,

44:05

all matters related to intelligence and security for--

44:10

Honigsberg

World wide?

44:14

-

For the United States army.

44:15

And of course it's organized in the sense

44:17

that the army staff is a staff organization,

44:18

so it's not a command,

44:22

but the army staff organization is develop,

44:23

or is the senior headquarters, the senior representative

44:28

in the headquarters of the army for,

44:33

a different for everything from, I mean,

44:36

there's a senior official who's responsible for personnel

44:38

and administration.

44:42

There's a senior officials responsible for intelligence.

44:44

Senior officials responsible for operations and logistics.

44:47

And so there's different staffs that do different things

44:52

in our case, our office was responsible

44:55

for all intelligence matters.

44:58

Honigsberg

So did you,

45:01

clearly Iraq was going on at that time,

45:02

so you must've been very involved in that,

45:04

but were you involved in intelligence in Guantanamo

45:06

at that point?

45:09

-

Not directly, although of course there,

45:11

we had army intelligence activities in Guantanamo and--

45:15

Honigsberg

What does that mean?

45:22

-

Well interrogations.

45:23

Honigsberg

About how intelligence

45:25

would pursue on their own.

45:26

-

No in cooperation with the joint task force that was there

45:29

but there we had, we certainly had personnel there,

45:33

and conducted intelligence activities there,

45:37

interrogations and so forth.

45:40

Honigsberg

Would you be involved in gathering

45:42

or hearing intelligence they obtained

45:44

and I dunno, maybe taking it to another level

45:48

or reviewing it yourself, or?

45:52

-

We had other agencies that would do that,

45:54

and in fact that didn't directly flow through our office,

45:56

although we would find out some of the intelligence

46:03

that was gathered, because it became intelligence

46:06

that we needed to provide to the rest of the army.

46:09

So--

46:12

Honigsberg

Why is that and?

46:13

-

Well anything, I mean not just Guantanamo,

46:15

but worldwide, if there was let's say intelligence

46:19

that one of our units obtained,

46:24

or that pertain to the army,

46:27

then it's important for us to make sure

46:30

that everybody in the army gets that information,

46:32

so dissemination of intelligence

46:37

so it's just part of our job.

46:39

Honigsberg

And in that period, did you ever hear

46:41

any words about an abuse of prisoners

46:44

or anything of harsh treatment

46:48

or anything along those lines, when you were--

46:50

-

In this assignment in Guantanamo?

46:54

I did not, I did not hear that.

46:56

I think where we, where the army was thrust

47:01

into the issue of detainees,

47:05

and how to properly handle them

47:09

really came to a head in late 2003 and early 2004,

47:13

so I had been there in the Pentagon for a number of months.

47:19

I got there in, actually, I really joined the staff in July

47:26

of 2003.

47:33

But it was it was several months before

47:35

the issues that happened at Abu Ghraib became notorious.

47:38

And we, and so that I spent a good deal of my time

47:44

on the army staff, in the office of the G2,

47:50

dealing with that in one way or another.

47:54

But it was related to, but again

47:58

we were not in charge of Abu Ghraib

48:02

nor were we in charge of Guantanamo,

48:05

nor in charge of Bagram,

48:07

or any of the other places where detainees were held.

48:09

But in terms of, and I just go to where I got intimately

48:14

involved was is the, was an officer

48:19

really the head of a task force was designed

48:23

to make sure that the way that the army

48:27

handled detainees was done according to army values,

48:33

and that our army values were reflected

48:38

in our procedures for all different

48:42

military operational specialties.

48:45

Honigsberg

When did that happen

48:48

and how did you get involved in that?

48:49

-

I was as the assistant deputy chief of staff G2

48:51

asked to work with in this case, the provost marshal

48:53

of the army or the provost marshal of the army,

48:56

who's also the head of the army

49:00

criminal investigation command,

49:02

provost Marshall is just as the army G2

49:04

is responsible for all matters related to intelligence

49:08

on the army staff, the Provost Marshall

49:11

was responsible for all matters related to military police

49:13

on the army staff.

49:17

And so he, who was a two star general

49:18

and I was just a one-star,

49:23

he was the overall director of this task force

49:25

and I was his action officer since I signed from the G2.

49:29

Because so much of the handling of detainees

49:33

is a really a collaborative work

49:37

between in this case, military police and intelligence.

49:40

So it made sense to, made sense for us to work together.

49:46

And, the result of our work together

49:50

was to take, the army has a term called

49:52

DOTMLPF, doctrine operations, training,

49:57

material leadership and education personnel, and facilities.

50:02

And the whole point of doing,

50:07

of putting all those together

50:09

is because if you are looking at a problem of some sort,

50:10

a larger problem of some sort, then you have to have the,

50:16

the capabilities in all those areas

50:21

in order to address the problem comprehensively.

50:24

And so what we did was we took,

50:26

all of the military operational specialties,

50:32

for example, military corrections,

50:36

military police, tactical military police,

50:40

army human intelligence collector, army interrogator.

50:43

I mean, there's, you know, you could put cooks

50:48

and chaplain's assistants and everything else

50:50

and I think we actually did,

50:51

we took every military operational specialty

50:53

that we thought would be involved in any way with detainees,

50:57

I mean, it was a comprehensive list,

51:02

and their tasks what tasks do these specialties have?

51:04

And then cross and make a matrix across walk

51:08

of the DOTMLPF, across this whole range

51:12

of capabilities that we need to make sure we have.

51:16

And it was, and I'll be honest with you,

51:19

I mean, the colonel who was working on this project,

51:21

much smarter than me, and he really,

51:26

I wish I remembered the gentleman's name,

51:30

I don't remember his name, but he really was a very good

51:32

at putting this whole matrix together,

51:35

but we, our team was successful in taking army procedures

51:38

which on the whole were pretty good,

51:43

but needed to be tightened up,

51:48

and it had to be tightened up

51:50

in order to make sure we didn't have any abuse.

51:52

The spark for our taskforce

51:54

was the documented cases of abuse at Abu Ghraib.

51:58

It also addressed all places where the army

52:03

would conduct any detainee operations,

52:06

detainee operations task force

52:10

was the name of our task force.

52:11

Honigsberg

When did that?

52:13

-

We stood up if I recall it was in April or may of 2004.

52:14

After the completion of a couple of different

52:21

investigations, there was an investigation

52:24

by General Taguba, who looked very closely

52:27

at the conduct of military police at Abu Ghraib,

52:31

and in fact, as a result of that investigation

52:37

and subsequent investigations

52:39

there were seven army military policemen

52:40

who were actually put on trial for misconduct at Abu Ghraib.

52:43

And then General's Fay and Jones,

52:47

Lieutenant General Jones and Major General Fay,

52:52

General Fay was from our office,

52:55

conducted another investigation

52:57

specifically looking at the, in this case

52:59

the two of fifth military intelligence brigade

53:01

which was responsible for the detainee operations in Iraq.

53:02

And there were, if I recall correctly,

53:07

roughly 28 military intelligence soldiers

53:09

who were ultimately put on court martial

53:12

or somehow punished for their misconduct.

53:17

And to be honest, again, I think the major failure

53:21

that was documented by this work,

53:26

I mean, clearly some misconduct

53:30

by some of the army corrections officers

53:34

and corrections personnel who did bad things.

53:42

And clearly some misconduct

53:46

by some of the army military intelligence personnel

53:48

did bad things, but the real reason,

53:50

and this is my, what I believe,

53:52

but it's also I think born out in the investigation,

53:55

none of this would happen, would have happened

53:58

had we had strong leadership

54:00

that looked at the detainees as they should have,

54:04

as human beings and not allowed abuses

54:08

of our own regulations.

54:13

And a part of it is just pure, you know

54:15

lack of supervision, an approach,

54:19

a really ineffective approach to duty, at different levels

54:22

but at the, at sometimes at the senior level

54:26

a lack of supervision and a lack of concern

54:29

for what the subordinates are doing.

54:31

You can take a soldier or or any other person

54:34

in any walk of life, and if a leader

54:39

doesn't give that person the training

54:43

and the supervision, then you will pay

54:46

because that person with lack of experience,

54:50

a lack of knowledge, a lack of a proper supervision,

54:54

they don't know what they're doing.

54:59

And we had a number of problems in,

55:01

and I speak about what I know

55:03

because we took a hard look at Abu Ghraib,

55:06

and I, but I know this problem was one that was shared

55:08

with Guantanamo to a certain extent.

55:12

I also know from my own observation

55:15

it was shared in Bagram, I did visit Bagram in 2004,

55:18

which had some of the same problems.

55:24

But one of the problems that they had in Abu Ghraib

55:27

specifically was they first they took over a prison

55:30

that had been part of the former regime,

55:37

Saddam Hussein regime, that held,

55:40

I mean they probably had people

55:42

that shouldn't have been there

55:44

but they also had criminals,

55:45

hard criminals people that probably would be in prison

55:47

no matter what country for all kinds of reasons,

55:50

and they put, then you take people off the battlefield

55:53

for a variety of reasons, sometimes poor reasons,

55:57

and put literally 1000s of people in a facility

56:01

that probably should only hold a few 100.

56:06

At one point in late 2003, they had 7,500 detainees

56:09

in a facility that probably should have handled

56:15

less than 2000 people.

56:17

And so you also had a shift in the war,

56:20

and in the expectations and in the personnel assigned,

56:26

I mean, and this is where problems come with,

56:29

there's no, excuse, I'm not excusing it,

56:35

but this is the context within which problems can occur,

56:37

the expectation that certainly in Iraq

56:43

that our forces had was that after the invasion

56:46

we would reach some semblance of stability.

56:51

That the war would be, that we would shift to stability

56:56

and operations as opposed to actually fighting a war.

57:01

And certainly the combat was different a sword,

57:05

and combating insurgents

57:10

rather than combating organized units,

57:12

or work large organized units.

57:14

But, it didn't work out like that,

57:17

it was not stability operations

57:20

or trying to conduct stability operations

57:22

when there is no census stability is fruitless.

57:24

So, we had our troops being mortared,

57:28

people who were doing corrections jobs or interrogation jobs

57:32

or working in a prison where you've got hard criminals

57:37

as well as detainees, where you're getting attacked

57:40

by mortars and effecting, I mean,

57:44

a mortar knows no, I mean it's just gonna blow,

57:47

and so it's hitting the, it's hitting our guys,

57:51

it's hitting their guys,

57:54

and it was just a tremendous amount of chaos.

57:55

And at the same time you've got a lot of people

58:00

who are mobilized for duty

58:02

who have not had years of experience in the military.

58:06

So, we like to think, and, I think we should think,

58:10

that our military operates according

58:15

to the highest set of values.

58:17

And certainly that's what we aspire to.

58:20

We don't always, but that's the aspiration.

58:22

But it's hard to operate according to those values

58:25

with people who've not been raised in those values.

58:28

And they're motive, they're good young Americans,

58:31

but the, you know, two months before

58:36

they may have been primarily working in you know, a store,

58:38

and that's not the same thing

58:43

as taking someone who has steeped in the military values

58:44

'cause they've spent a career learning them,

58:48

and living by them.

58:52

And so we had problems with that.

58:53

Honigsberg

So there's two questions

58:55

that come out that general--

58:57

-

Please, sure.

Honigsberg

One is you seek to say the leadership failed

58:58

in not supervising the people below them,

59:01

is that what I'm hearing?

59:05

-

That certainly was the case in several instances.

59:07

Honigsberg

And you know there was--

59:10

-

And they were responsible for that.

59:11

Honigsberg

They were?

59:13

-

Yes, there were--

59:14

-

I mean I know Janis Karpinski was, but--

59:15

-

She was, and I don't wanna to tarnish her record at all

59:17

but I just, you know, refer to the record.

59:21

Honigsberg

But I do, I've also heard

59:24

and you've heard, and many people I've heard that

59:26

in fact, some of this behavior might've come top down

59:28

that when General Miller came to Iraq

59:33

he might have directed some of this behavior

59:36

that we saw in that the reason

59:39

why those people on the ground were arrested

59:42

and convicted of those crimes of abusing the prisoners,

59:45

might've been a direction of a higher ops

59:49

as opposed to just when you call it chaos,

59:51

where they just had no discipline

59:54

and just behaved as thugs.

59:56

-

I can't say that.

1:00:02

And I, that was not my recollection.

1:00:04

My recollection was that, General Miller, when he came,

1:00:07

actually made the situation better not worse,

1:00:14

because he's disciplined.

1:00:19

And I served with him, you know, years before,

1:00:21

when I was a Lieutenant, he was a captain,

1:00:25

and he was a hard guy, but he was dedicated.

1:00:27

And, he was dedicated as a captain.

1:00:31

We were all very convinced

1:00:34

that he was gonna do well in the army.

1:00:37

And he did, but I sense that when he actually came

1:00:39

as the, to supervise detaining operations in Iraq,

1:00:43

that one of the things he brought was,

1:00:48

this sense of discipline and education,

1:00:51

or discipline, dedication to his job,

1:00:53

so I, my recollection and I, you know

1:00:55

I haven't had a chance to speak with him about this,

1:00:59

but I suspect that if I did

1:01:01

it would be a conversation where I would say,

1:01:03

"I appreciate what you did,"

1:01:06

'cause we did, we had real problems,

1:01:08

and what we needed was strong leadership.

1:01:10

That was in my mind, that was the real problem,

1:01:12

is we didn't have strong leadership

1:01:14

that was doing the kind of supervision.

1:01:16

And frankly, not just supervision,

1:01:18

I think that's part of it,

1:01:20

but the real part of it is, I mean

1:01:23

you can't take a young soldier or anybody who's trying,

1:01:24

who's put in a position,

1:01:29

a very stressful difficult position,

1:01:30

and just let them flail around, that's just crazy.

1:01:32

You have to support him,

1:01:35

and part of being part of being supportive

1:01:36

is not to coddle them, but to tell him,

1:01:38

"Well, this is what I expect you to do,

1:01:40

and I'm gonna give you the tools to do it,"

1:01:41

and if you can't do that, you need to go up

1:01:43

and stand up as a leader and say,

1:01:45

you know, "I can't, you're, I need to support my guys,"

1:01:48

and I don't think there was enough of that going on

1:01:53

at Abu Ghraib.

1:01:55

Honigsberg

Who would think to do

1:01:56

what those people did on the ground,

1:01:57

I mean, it seems to me, someone, it just seemed too strange

1:01:59

to have that many people behave like that,

1:02:05

and nobody's watching and nobody--

1:02:08

-

It is strange and it was shocking,

1:02:10

and it shouldn't have happened.

1:02:12

No doubt.

1:02:15

I really think that when, and again,

1:02:17

supervision is a broad term,

1:02:21

but it really includes supporting

1:02:23

and taking care of your soldiers,

1:02:26

and taking care of the detainees.

1:02:28

I mean, you have somebody under your control

1:02:30

though the term of our, in early 2004

1:02:32

was persons under control.

1:02:35

you've probably heard that term, PUCs.

1:02:37

If you have responsibility for somebody,

1:02:40

whether they're yours, in other words, your soldiers,

1:02:42

or their detainees, you've got responsibility for them,

1:02:46

it's an ethical charge.

1:02:50

In my mind, and I think for, you know, our leaders,

1:02:53

those that took their responsibility seriously,

1:02:57

and did it well, that's how they thought of it.

1:03:01

And, but we had someone who did not,

1:03:04

for whatever reason, and I mean, there's not,

1:03:07

I'm not, again I'm not excusing,

1:03:09

or I'm not, I don't wanna throw rocks at somebody,

1:03:10

especially I wasn't in his or her position,

1:03:15

so I can't, you know, I would be the last person to do that.

1:03:20

But, I'm just speaking as a professional,

1:03:24

you know my first charge as a professional

1:03:27

is to not to take care of the guys above me,

1:03:29

but to take care of my people.

1:03:33

That's what comes to mind first.

1:03:35

And if you've got somebody who's doing misconduct,

1:03:37

who works for you, you're not taking care of them.

1:03:41

You're not doing what you're supposed to do as a leader.

1:03:44

And I think that was where the real, we had the real fault

1:03:47

in Abu Ghraib, both in the MP side,

1:03:50

with non-commissioned officers who should have known better,

1:03:53

and officers who should have known better,

1:03:56

and on the military intelligence side

1:03:58

where we had soldiers and officers, NCOs,

1:04:00

all didn't know,

1:04:03

either didn't take their responsibilities seriously,

1:04:05

or should have known better than to allow abuses to occur.

1:04:07

So we try, we were, I don't think anybody,

1:04:12

I mean, I don't know anybody in the army

1:04:16

who I knew at any level who felt anything

1:04:21

other than shock and dismay that these things occurred.

1:04:25

Honigsberg

Did you ever talk to General Miller

1:04:31

after Abu Ghraib?

1:04:32

-

No, I'd really like to,

1:04:34

But I have never had the opportunity.

1:04:35

Honigsberg

And do you think the same description

1:04:37

that you just gave us applies to Guantanamo too?

1:04:40

Since you know, you also did some investigation there?

1:04:44

-

I think that, you know, I've heard enough about it

1:04:47

from other sources, not again,

1:04:52

we looked at primarily Abu Ghraib,

1:04:55

and I had my own personal experience at Bagram,

1:04:59

and I think Bagram is probably a better comparison

1:05:04

than Abu Ghraib, better than Bagram

1:05:09

and it still exists, it's still a joint facility

1:05:12

between us and the Afghanis,

1:05:15

although it was supposed to turnover I guess two weeks ago.

1:05:16

What I saw at Bagram was disturbing,

1:05:23

and again, I'm speaking about what I saw at Bagram

1:05:27

not at Guantanamo, so two different things.

1:05:30

But I think that both facilities operated

1:05:33

along much the same lines and where you've got a tension

1:05:38

between, gathering intelligence or preventing someone

1:05:42

from returning to the battlefield,

1:05:48

which is another strong reason to, or justification

1:05:50

not just, it's not the right word, rationale,

1:05:55

purported rationale for keeping people

1:05:59

in indefinite detention is to keep them off the battlefield.

1:06:02

You've got a tension between that

1:06:06

and everything that our country

1:06:08

stands for in terms of equal treatment under the law,

1:06:12

and human rights.

1:06:15

There will be, I mean that tension

1:06:19

is gonna be resolved sometimes

1:06:21

in a way that's on the side of abuse.

1:06:22

And I believe that certainly what I saw at Bagram

1:06:27

told me that.

1:06:31

Honigsberg

What did you see at Bagram?

1:06:32

-

I saw prisoners there who were clearly,

1:06:33

I mean, and I was, I was just there for one day,

1:06:39

but it seemed to me that the sort of behavior

1:06:42

that was going on with some of the prisoners

1:06:46

was brutal and inappropriate, and it was shocking.

1:06:48

Honigsberg

By whom?

1:06:53

-

By the people who ran the facility,

1:06:55

and they were--

1:06:57

Honigsberg

They weren't afraid to hide it from you,

1:06:59

knowing you were--

1:07:01

-

They showed me,

1:07:02

I was taking a, essentially to look at the facility

1:07:03

to see what it was like.

1:07:06

And, I know they, just to give you a couple examples

1:07:08

there is, she may have been the worst person

1:07:11

in the world possible, I don't know,

1:07:16

I mean, here I am making a judgment based

1:07:20

on personal observation at one point in time,

1:07:22

but I, it just struck me as odd that this would occur.

1:07:26

There was a woman who maybe she was 30, I don't know,

1:07:31

but she looked like she was 90 and she was frail,

1:07:34

clearly frail, clearly not in good health,

1:07:38

and she was just cowering in the corner.

1:07:41

Just sobbing and weeping in the corner,

1:07:45

in a cell that was empty except for her.

1:07:48

And she was wearing clothes,

1:07:51

it wasn't like she was naked or anything,

1:07:52

but dirty, filthy this really very, very unsanitary.

1:07:53

I know that was unsanitary,

1:08:02

I could see results of the lack of sanitation.

1:08:04

I could, tell it was rags.

1:08:07

And she was looked to be a very old frail woman,

1:08:10

sobbing in the corner, and one of the guards

1:08:14

was like smacking on the door and yelling at her.

1:08:16

And I thought, "Really, how can this be?"

1:08:18

That doesn't make sense to me.

1:08:24

Honigsberg

Did you say anything?

1:08:26

-

No, I didn't.

1:08:28

Honigsberg

And what else?

1:08:32

You said you had another example.

1:08:33

-

I saw prisoners shackled to the floor

1:08:35

with their hands behind their back,

1:08:38

and I don't know how long they'd been there,

1:08:40

but there was 50 or 60 on one concrete slab,

1:08:42

all shackled to the floor by their wrists,

1:08:46

their legs folded in front of them.

1:08:49

Again, maybe they were there for five minutes,

1:08:51

maybe I doubt it,

1:08:53

they were probably there for a lot longer.

1:08:56

Honigsberg

And, did, people didn't try to explain to you

1:08:58

how they were running the prison, or?

1:09:02

-

They said these were dangerous people,

1:09:04

persons under control,

1:09:06

I know at the time the issue was, if they're released

1:09:08

then the Afghanis would turn lose, and they probably would,

1:09:11

but they need to be off the battlefield.

1:09:17

Honigsberg

Did you, write a report

1:09:21

about what you observed and--

1:09:23

-

Yes.

1:09:25

Honigsberg

In that did you also suggest better ways

1:09:27

of treating these, the people that we captured?

1:09:31

-

Yes.

1:09:33

Honigsberg

And did anybody read your report?

1:09:34

-

I don't know.

1:09:36

Honigsberg

Who was your report supposed to be for?

1:09:38

-

I reported to the G2 the army.

1:09:41

Honigsberg

And did you ever have a conversation

1:09:46

with the G2 as to what you observed?

1:09:47

-

I don't recall.

1:09:50

Honigsberg

Well, do you thoughts change

1:09:53

after you went to Bagram and saw this?

1:09:55

Did you know, firsthand?

1:09:58

-

It was disturbing, but to me,

1:10:01

and I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it

1:10:04

other than what I saw was disturbing.

1:10:08

But I also understood that the rationale

1:10:11

was that these were dangerous people

1:10:14

that needed to be detained.

1:10:15

And again, I have no knowledge either then or since then

1:10:19

of the specific individuals that I saw.

1:10:25

I'm simply describing what I saw.

1:10:29

And, so there, again

1:10:32

maybe these were really dangerous people,

1:10:35

but I mean I had no doubt that they were there

1:10:39

for some reason, but I don't know what that was.

1:10:41

And nor do I know if perhaps they were released the next day

1:10:45

because maybe they didn't,

1:10:48

they weren't supposed to be there.

1:10:49

I don't know that, but I wasn't there,

1:10:50

honestly, I wasn't there to conduct an investigation

1:10:54

of that facility, that was not the mission I was on.

1:10:58

Honigsberg

What was the mission?

1:11:03

-

The mission was to look at, to examine the threats

1:11:05

to our force flow, our transfer of units

1:11:12

to and from Afghanistan and Iraq,

1:11:17

to and from the United States.

1:11:20

And to look at force protection issues.

1:11:22

Honigsberg

After you observed the two situations

1:11:25

you just told us about, did you talk to anybody

1:11:28

have a conversation with anybody about what you observed

1:11:32

and whether they reinforced what you felt or saw?

1:11:34

-

Yeah, I mean at the time the discussion

1:11:38

was why are these people here?

1:11:41

And the answer, which honestly in the context

1:11:45

of what we were doing in Afghanistan,

1:11:48

which may had a certain degree of sense to it,

1:11:51

and still has a certain degree of sense to it,

1:11:56

is that there are people who we pick up on the battlefield

1:11:58

either in combat or in other operations,

1:12:02

or who were provided given to us by Afghan,

1:12:05

or by other units, by other countries units,

1:12:09

who are who need to be interrogated,

1:12:12

who need to be secured because they're conducting

1:12:16

insurgent operations.

1:12:20

And of course we want to do that.

1:12:22

It, we would be profligated

1:12:26

if we didn't treat them carefully.

1:12:28

But again, there are specific rules for handling detainees,

1:12:31

which is exactly what we took back to our project.

1:12:39

Again, I was there for another mission, but believe me,

1:12:45

we took that experience back to our project,

1:12:47

and we said, "Okay, so this is how we should treat detainees

1:12:50

at each different military occupational specialty,

1:12:58

and across these capability levels.

1:13:01

Let's make doctrine for the corrections NCO,

1:13:06

that he conducts his corrections operations a certain way.

1:13:11

Let's give him tasks that he has to perform

1:13:17

that will tell him these are the standards

1:13:20

that you have to perform, let's provide the,

1:13:24

I mean the doctrine is one thing,

1:13:27

let's give him the,

1:13:28

let's make the organization robust enough

1:13:29

to provide for effective and ethical treatment of detainees.

1:13:33

Let's, train them to do that.

1:13:38

Let's give them the leadership to do that."

1:13:41

And so that's the way we organized our task force

1:13:43

is to take a look at each of the specialties

1:13:47

that would have any contact or dealings with detainees,

1:13:49

and then go through this crosswalk as it were,

1:13:53

to make sure that our doctrine and our organization,

1:13:59

our training, our material

1:14:02

we have to have the right equipment,

1:14:04

our leadership and education, and our personnel

1:14:05

are the right people and our facilities

1:14:08

are the right facilities.

1:14:10

Because if you don't do that

1:14:12

then you'll fix part of the problem,

1:14:13

but the rest of the problem gets ignored.

1:14:14

So, we took that experience, not just mine, of course,

1:14:16

but then we took the experience

1:14:19

of all of us who had some experience

1:14:21

or observation of detaining operations

1:14:24

and produced a, what I think was a pretty effective

1:14:26

change to army doctrine.

1:14:29

Honigsberg

So two questions,

1:14:31

one is other people observed similar instances

1:14:32

like you described to us.

1:14:36

-

Sure.

1:14:38

Honigsberg

And, that the program that you design

1:14:39

was it implemented?

1:14:43

-

Yes, yeah, and it was not, again,

1:14:44

I don't wanna I mean I was part of a team,

1:14:46

so it's not me personally,

1:14:51

it was the team, the task force.

1:14:52

And with support from the army leadership

1:14:55

who were genuinely concerned

1:14:57

that we needed to make sure that our detaining operations

1:14:59

were done effectively and ethically.

1:15:02

But yes, it was implemented.

1:15:05

There were changes that we made to the army

1:15:07

the way we handle detainees based on that report.

1:15:09

-

So isn't it, I know Guantanamo it's a team effort

1:15:12

of all branches of the military in the detention centers,

1:15:15

so if the army has a new protocol

1:15:22

in terms of how it treats prisoners,

1:15:25

what happens to the Navy and the Marines,

1:15:30

do they lock into that same step

1:15:32

or do they have a different protocol?

1:15:35

-

Well, the army was charged as the let's call it,

1:15:36

we'll call it the executive agent for the military

1:15:39

to come up with the doctrine and procedures

1:15:42

to handle the trainees.

1:15:44

Honigsberg

Oh, okay.

1:15:45

And that would be follow then by the branches?

1:15:46

-

Yes, yes.

1:15:47

Honigsberg

And your protocol

1:15:49

also would apply to Guantanamo--

1:15:51

-

For military operations, absolutely.

1:15:54

Honigsberg

And when was it implemented?

1:15:57

-

In late 2004.

1:15:59

Honigsberg

Huh, and so did you know of,

1:16:04

or did you ever go to Guantanamo?

1:16:07

-

No.

1:16:09

Honigsberg

Did you know of, or do you ever hear or see

1:16:10

that in fact there were significant changes

1:16:13

in the operations of detainees in achievement

1:16:15

of detainees following your protocol

1:16:19

that was implemented in late 2004?

1:16:22

-

As I understand it, the military

1:16:25

changed its procedures rather quickly,

1:16:29

and that all military operations involving detainees

1:16:33

had to conform with our view of detainee procedures.

1:16:37

Honigsberg

Just--

1:16:42

-

Whether it Guantanamo or wherever it was--

1:16:43

Honigsberg

Throughout the world.

1:16:45

-

Correct

1:16:46

Honigsberg

Just generally, I don't wanna get

1:16:47

into too many details and specific

1:16:48

'cause people could always read those procedures

1:16:50

they're public obviously--

1:16:52

-

Yeah.

1:16:53

Honigsberg

But just generally

1:16:54

can you tell us what significant changes

1:16:55

were made in your procedures that caused the difference?

1:16:58

-

You know, I think our main focus was ensuring

1:17:04

that detainee operations had the right training,

1:17:07

and had the right leadership,

1:17:12

so that there was supervision

1:17:16

at all levels of what detaining,

1:17:17

of any detaining operations.

1:17:20

Because that was the real problem,

1:17:22

that we identified as having looked at the way

1:17:25

we did things wrong, especially Abu Ghraib,

1:17:29

it was a question of training and supervision.

1:17:32

Honigsberg

So did you create or did the army create

1:17:34

new training programs specifically in response to--

1:17:37

-

Yes.

1:17:39

Honigsberg

Your protocol?

1:17:40

-

Yes, they did.

1:17:41

And it was done very quickly

1:17:42

to make sure we didn't have any more problems.

1:17:45

Honigsberg

Did you hear from people on the ground

1:17:48

that in fact they did see a change following your protocols?

1:17:50

-

You know, I don't know that they would say

1:17:54

that they saw a change based on those protocols,

1:17:55

but that it was very clear that the army took,

1:17:59

effective and ethical, which I would argue

1:18:05

are closely related, effective and ethical

1:18:09

detainee handling very seriously and continue to.

1:18:12

I'll just give you a personal example.

1:18:17

I, after I retired, our military intelligence interrogators

1:18:19

are trained at Fort Huachuca Arizona

1:18:28

a place I've known and love

1:18:31

'cause it's not far from where I live,

1:18:33

but that's where that's the home of military intelligence

1:18:36

and that's where they're trained.

1:18:38

And I spent some time, a couple of years

1:18:41

after I retired, with one of the classes of interrogators

1:18:46

and had a chance to speak

1:18:50

with some of these NCOs in this case, mostly NCOs,

1:18:52

usually junior NCOs, who were going through

1:18:56

interrogator training.

1:18:58

And it was clear to me that they had gotten it,

1:18:59

because they understood that their responsibility

1:19:04

was both for their soldiers and also for their detainees.

1:19:07

And what's a sense of responsibility

1:19:10

that they took very seriously.

1:19:13

Which was our, exactly our point.

1:19:14

You know, you have responsibility

1:19:18

for people under your charge.

1:19:21

Doesn't, of course you have response,

1:19:23

you know, because you wear the same uniform

1:19:26

you have responsibility for your soldiers,

1:19:28

but if that's the extent you're missing half of the problem.

1:19:31

You also have responsibilities for these others

1:19:34

who don't wear the uniform,

1:19:37

who have not been charged with a crime,

1:19:38

who may be just in the wrong place at the wrong time,

1:19:42

you're responsible for them too.

1:19:45

But these guys got it, I mean, it's be hard

1:19:47

to take a, you know, a group of 100 guys

1:19:50

and, you know, young leaders and say,

1:19:52

"well you all understand it exactly the same way,"

1:19:54

but spend a few minutes with them

1:19:56

and it was pretty clear that was where they were focused.

1:19:59

And they were focused on not only that,

1:20:01

but they were focused on serving our constitution.

1:20:03

And I came away inspired by that.

1:20:05

And I think that was the change I really do.

1:20:07

Honigsberg

So General, listening to you

1:20:10

it makes me wonder, tough me to imagine that the army

1:20:11

who I respect and the military respect,

1:20:14

would not have had something in place

1:20:17

the way you described it prior to your involvement

1:20:20

in these protocols.

1:20:24

I would think that it always was a disciplined organization

1:20:25

with a leadership that was strong and with,

1:20:29

somewhat a caring understanding of who's under your control.

1:20:33

So, I guess I just wanna clarify--

1:20:38

-

Yeah, sure.

1:20:41

Honigsberg

You're telling me that prior to 2004

1:20:42

the army did not have that.

1:20:44

And if they didn't why not?

1:20:46

-

And I'm not excusing any misconduct at all,

1:20:49

that's not my point.

1:20:55

But I think we have to look at the context.

1:20:57

And I'll just give an analogy, because we, you know

1:21:00

we did in Vietnam, we fought an insurgency,

1:21:06

to debatable level of success, but we fought an insurgency.

1:21:11

And then we trained for other types of conflict

1:21:16

specifically fighting the Warsaw Pact,

1:21:20

that was the focus, maneuver warfare, tanks and combat arms,

1:21:23

you know, not an insurgency, for the next 20 years.

1:21:29

And then we go to Iraq and we first fight a conventional war

1:21:34

and defeat the army of Iraq pretty quickly.

1:21:40

But, when Baghdad Bob said,

1:21:44

"We will fight you in the streets,

1:21:48

and we'll fight you in the villages,"

1:21:51

we all laughed because he was a joker, but he was right,

1:21:52

because that's exactly what happened.

1:21:56

And we were not prepared.

1:21:58

We were not expecting that.

1:22:01

We thought we'd beaten the army, we're here,

1:22:03

I think a lot of people thought they were gonna love us,

1:22:07

I mean, there was a tremendous number of misconceptions

1:22:11

about what we would face in Iraq

1:22:14

that were actually strengthened by our initial success.

1:22:16

And easy success breeds overconfidence and complacency,

1:22:23

and lack of preparation for future challenges.

1:22:29

So again, not excusing the misconduct,

1:22:33

but I think from a human standpoint,

1:22:35

and we are after all humans,

1:22:38

we were overconfident and over,

1:22:41

we expected again, stability operations.

1:22:45

We thought, "Okay, we just have to get through that,

1:22:49

we can actually, we'll fire all those Iraqi soldiers,

1:22:51

we'll just send them away, we don't need them."

1:22:55

It's, a peaceful country, they love us here.

1:22:58

And I was, I mean I don't need to go on

1:23:01

with the absurdity that, but I think

1:23:03

that was a big part of it.

1:23:06

And at the larger level, of course

1:23:07

we see it from the national level,

1:23:09

it's, you know, that was clearly

1:23:10

tragic for the United States.

1:23:15

But at the smaller level which frankly concerns me more

1:23:17

because these are my soldiers in there,

1:23:21

they're us, they're our kids at the smaller level,

1:23:24

down at the smaller unit level,

1:23:28

at the private and specialists level.

1:23:29

What we're doing is we're taking kids off American streets

1:23:33

and telling them, "You go over there

1:23:35

and we'll put you in a stability operations,

1:23:37

you kids that were two months ago, you were, you know

1:23:41

you were trained as reservists for national guard,

1:23:43

and maybe you got two more, two weeks a year training,

1:23:46

and now your job is to go over there and fight in a war

1:23:50

against people that want to kill you,

1:23:53

and want to mortar you, and do things

1:23:56

that you can't, you've never done before,

1:23:58

or you've done a little bit of it,"

1:24:00

and those are the kids that we we sent to Abu Ghraib.

1:24:02

Now, whose responsibility is that?

1:24:06

Honigsberg

And what about the people

1:24:08

we send to Guantanamo, were they same kind?

1:24:09

Do you think that explains (indistinct)?

1:24:12

-

You know I think and I don't know this, but I suspect

1:24:13

that we had a higher level of training and experience

1:24:16

of the personnel that we sent to Guantanamo,

1:24:19

if for no other reason that they were usually handpicked.

1:24:22

And, although I'm sure they were very competent reserve,

1:24:26

reserve personnel there,

1:24:31

in fact, I know there were a lot of reserve personnel there,

1:24:32

I suspect that they were there for,

1:24:35

because they'd been hand selected to go.

1:24:38

I don't know that, but I suspect that that's the case,

1:24:40

Honigsberg

So you don't think,

1:24:43

oh, so you didn't have necessarily

1:24:43

the same personnel sent to Guantanamo

1:24:44

as the ones you described on Abu Ghraib?

1:24:46

-

No, but let's again, I'm just you, I will take the Liberty

1:24:48

of speaking with professional speculation.

1:24:55

You know, I think to a certain extent,

1:25:01

the operations at Guantanamo, we're breaking

1:25:04

the same sort of new ground that we broke in Iraq.

1:25:07

Where you know suddenly, you know

1:25:10

I think in our distant past we've probably had situations

1:25:14

where Americans are responsible for the detention of,

1:25:17

prisoners or detainees, large numbers

1:25:23

for an extended period of time.

1:25:28

Where the rules didn't appear to be clear.

1:25:32

The difference with Guantanamo in my opinion,

1:25:37

is that not only were the rules not clear,

1:25:42

that it wasn't only that they were not clear,

1:25:45

is that they were designed not to be clear.

1:25:48

I mean, where in the world is it that you actually take,

1:25:52

not talking about the issue of sovereignty of Cuba here,

1:25:58

but this is not the United States of America.

1:26:03

It is Cuba, and it is neither on our territory

1:26:07

because, well it's not, and so our laws don't apply,

1:26:12

and Cuban law doesn't apply.

1:26:17

So what law does?

1:26:19

Why is it so vague?

1:26:22

Well, I think it's not just accidental,

1:26:25

it's, that's why it's there.

1:26:28

It just happens to be a very useful condition.

1:26:30

It doesn't belong to the United States,

1:26:35

it does belong to Cuba,

1:26:37

but Cuba doesn't have authority over it,

1:26:38

so whatever we wanna do, we can do,

1:26:40

and that's what we do.

1:26:43

Now I'm taking a military guy,

1:26:45

and I'm making him work there,

1:26:48

and all of a sudden, I've gotta explain to him

1:26:50

why is it that we don't have U.S. law

1:26:52

when you are a U.S. military person,

1:26:57

you're a soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine,

1:27:00

who works here, with these people are not,

1:27:02

they're not, we're not gonna treat them

1:27:06

like they're in the United States,

1:27:07

but they're under United States control.

1:27:09

I mean, my head hurts

1:27:10

I mean, it's really an unbelievable to me

1:27:12

that we would be able to justify that.

1:27:15

Again, personal opinion, I'm just saying,

1:27:18

I guess this is not just professional

1:27:22

it's also as an American, it bothers me.

1:27:23

So that, but, and that's having seen

1:27:26

how I think it should work,

1:27:30

where clearly we're gonna make mistakes in an operation

1:27:31

because we've never done it before.

1:27:35

But our determination should always be in my mind

1:27:37

to try to ground whatever we do in the future

1:27:41

in both effectiveness and ethics.

1:27:43

And we have, we know how to do that.

1:27:48

We are a, we pride ourselves on being a nation of law,

1:27:50

we pride ourselves in our constitution,

1:27:54

and should pride ourselves in our constitution,

1:27:57

and grounding our laws in the constitution

1:28:00

when we conduct ourselves in a way,

1:28:03

I don't care where it is in the world,

1:28:06

we conduct ourselves in a way that rides against that,

1:28:07

then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

1:28:11

Honigsberg

You're not a lawyer, right?

1:28:14

-

No.

1:28:16

Honigsberg

Were you familiar with the Geneva conventions

1:28:19

since you did some studying of international law?

1:28:21

-

Yes.

1:28:24

Honigsberg

So how did it strike you when you heard

1:28:25

that the Geneva conventions wouldn't be followed

1:28:27

in Guantanamo?

1:28:29

-

It's really disturbing,

1:28:31

you know, I think we should.

1:28:33

I don't think, I think, you know,

1:28:35

I, first of all I'm concerned

1:28:38

that when we don't follow the conventions

1:28:39

that we ourselves have signed up to,

1:28:42

that we encourage others who have signed up

1:28:46

to it to disregard them as well.

1:28:50

We also encourage those who have not signed up to them

1:28:53

to avoid signing up to them, because why would they?

1:28:56

It's, you know, every, there's no incentive

1:29:01

for a person under control who's being treated

1:29:06

without any, just without any distinction,

1:29:11

without any regard to Geneva convention

1:29:14

or any other standard of justice,

1:29:17

there's no regard for that person to respect

1:29:20

any standard of justice.

1:29:21

Honigsberg

Were you thinking this back

1:29:23

in your early years, were you aware of this?

1:29:24

That we weren't following the Geneva convention,

1:29:27

and this could have an effect around the world?

1:29:30

-

Yes.

1:29:34

Honigsberg

Did you ever have conversations

1:29:35

about other people about that?

1:29:36

-

You know, I don't recall.

1:29:39

Honigsberg

Did you ever hear about suicides

1:29:42

in Guantanamo?

1:29:44

-

Yes.

1:29:46

Honigsberg

For the detainees.

1:29:47

-

Yes.

1:29:48

Honigsberg

Were you ever involved in looking into those?

1:29:49

-

No, I was not.

1:29:50

Honigsberg

And force-feeding and hunger strikes

1:29:52

were you involved in looking into that at all?

1:29:57

-

I was not, no, I had heard about that, but--

1:30:00

Honigsberg

So now that was part of your,

1:30:02

mission in terms of the investigation that you were doing

1:30:06

you know for--

1:30:09

-

Well, clearly we did, if we had found,

1:30:10

every, I mean, now the, when specifically I know,

1:30:13

because I know and respect General Fay,

1:30:18

one of the things that he found, what,

1:30:21

I mean, one of the things that he did was,

1:30:24

he had played a very stringent,

1:30:25

very stringent criteria to the term abuse.

1:30:29

You know, he was, you know

1:30:31

they looked into everything,

1:30:33

and just knowing General Fay, I mean, he's a very,

1:30:34

very careful guy and he did great work,

1:30:38

The Fay Jones report,

1:30:43

in my mind was an excellent report, and he did great work.

1:30:44

And one of the things, one of the hallmarks of it,

1:30:47

was that they looked at specific allegations

1:30:48

or, suspected incidents of abuse,

1:30:51

and it, I mean, it really had a low bar.

1:30:54

So if it was something that could be anybody think

1:30:59

of it as abuse, they would document it.

1:31:01

That same bar doesn't seem to have applied

1:31:05

at all at Guantanamo.

1:31:09

You know, our objective was again to get back to effective

1:31:12

and ethical treatment of detainees.

1:31:15

And as far as the military goes,

1:31:18

I think we reached that objective, our guys, our military,

1:31:21

the army interrogators that I met in 2009

1:31:25

were charged and proud of the fact

1:31:28

that they were gonna uphold the highest standards of ethics

1:31:31

and effectiveness as interrogators.

1:31:34

They weren't interested in doing anything.

1:31:36

They, you brought up Abu Ghraib

1:31:38

and they'd be the first people to just go,

1:31:41

"We don't do that,"

1:31:45

absolutely and I think that's probably applies

1:31:46

to most 99% of the people in the army in 2002 as well,

1:31:49

or 2003.

1:31:54

But I don't, know that the environment at Guantanamo

1:31:55

was the same as it wasn't in Abu Ghraib.

1:31:59

Or that we, that the army, the military

1:32:01

doesn't have the same level of controls it does.

1:32:03

Honigsberg

Why wouldn't it be at the same level?

1:32:06

Why, you don't know, why wouldn't it be the same,

1:32:10

what's the difference?

1:32:13

Why do you see a difference?

1:32:14

-

Well, for one thing, it's the issue of Guantanamo

1:32:16

is neither in the United States

1:32:20

nor under authority of another government.

1:32:22

So, I mean, it's deliberately vague.

1:32:27

Honigsberg

So do you think if there were another war

1:32:31

in the future, that same event could occur

1:32:35

a place like Guantanamo, again,

1:32:39

being in limbo, neither here, the way you see it

1:32:41

neither here nor there, you think the same problem,

1:32:44

or do you think your protocols would protect the detainees

1:32:47

the next time around?

1:32:51

-

I would like to see as an American citizen,

1:32:53

the same concern for effectiveness and ethics

1:32:57

and taking care of detainees that the military has adopted

1:33:02

by the United States government.

1:33:06

I would like to see our leaders,

1:33:10

at all levels dedicate themselves to that.

1:33:13

I would have liked to see our detention facility

1:33:19

in Guantanamo closed within days

1:33:23

after the election of president Obama.

1:33:27

I would like to have seen opposition from media

1:33:32

and political opponents approached with the same dedication

1:33:37

as we've approached other national priorities,

1:33:43

and that we would, we could have closed that facility.

1:33:48

And I don't think we should ever have another one

1:33:52

like that again.

1:33:53

Now that's just me, but I was very happy

1:33:55

at the pledge to close Guantanamo,

1:34:01

and very dismayed that we did not.

1:34:04

And I think I just, it really bothers me

1:34:06

that we did not do that.

1:34:11

Honigsberg

You think Obama would be able to,

1:34:12

or would even try after the election, if he were elected?

1:34:15

-

You know, I don't know that there's enough

1:34:19

of a constituency, and unfortunately we have to speak

1:34:20

about it in those terms, if the constituency that,

1:34:23

you know, and you know it is, our American politics

1:34:28

is what it is.

1:34:33

If there's not a political constituency

1:34:34

that's strong enough to advocate for a policy change,

1:34:36

then it's unlikely to happen.

1:34:41

And I think, unfortunately I'm skeptical

1:34:44

that that constituency is strong enough to do it.

1:34:47

You know, I really think that we had a chance to do that

1:34:50

in 2009.

1:34:53

You know, I happen to know the person

1:34:55

who was put in charge of detainee affairs

1:35:01

in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,

1:35:06

after president Obama became the president.

1:35:09

And he spent six months there,

1:35:14

he was an attorney really, really good guy.

1:35:17

Very dedicated to doing everything he could

1:35:22

to close Guantanamo.

1:35:25

And he left six months later

1:35:28

because he just couldn't get anywhere.

1:35:29

Honigsberg

Did he tell you that?

1:35:32

-

No, I know it, I was, I do, I know him, he's a great guy.

1:35:33

And I know he was completely sincere

1:35:37

about what he wanted to do,

1:35:40

and he had, he had charge make it happen.

1:35:43

He didn't make it happen.

1:35:47

Honigsberg

Can you tell us his name?

1:35:48

-

I'd rather not.

1:35:49

Honigsberg

Okay.

1:35:50

And so he was disappointed and that's why he left.

1:35:51

-

Well, it was big part of it, yeah.

1:35:54

He just didn't, he couldn't do what he came there to do.

1:35:56

And he believed very strongly

1:35:59

that that was the right thing to do,

1:36:02

and it wasn't possible for him.

1:36:04

There was a lot of opposition.

1:36:06

It's hard, closing Guantanamo is hard,

1:36:09

but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it.

1:36:15

It's important for us to, for all good reasons,

1:36:17

not just for our relationship with other countries

1:36:20

and all that it's important,

1:36:22

but because of who we are.

1:36:24

Guantanamo was a stain of America,

1:36:26

and the fact that we play this game,

1:36:29

Oh it's not really in America, that makes me ill.

1:36:32

That's, childish, that doesn't to me justify anything,

1:36:37

except it means that the people who would make that argument

1:36:43

are really, they take us all for fools.

1:36:46

We know what the truth is.

1:36:51

The truth is that it's convenient to do that,

1:36:52

because we can do whatever we want.

1:36:55

And it's not because it's dangerous to move prisoners

1:36:56

to try them in the United States.

1:37:00

You know, it's a false dichotomy to train,

1:37:02

okay, so if we don't put,

1:37:06

if they're not in Guantanamo then we have to try them,

1:37:07

you know, within blocks of the World Trade Center,

1:37:10

we don't, that's ridiculous.

1:37:12

But that's the false dichotomy that they throw out.

1:37:15

"Oh, we don't wanna try them

1:37:17

in the World Trade Center area."

1:37:18

Okay, try them in Nebraska.

1:37:20

And, the notion that we can't take a dangerous person,

1:37:22

and bring them to the United States

1:37:28

and put them on trial for crimes,

1:37:30

and give them the opportunity to, for justice is ridiculous.

1:37:32

Of course we can, we do it all the time,

1:37:39

with all kinds of crazy bad people.

1:37:42

And, we do it well.

1:37:45

Honigsberg

Were you involved,

1:37:47

just a couple of questions,

1:37:49

in the military break in South Carolina?

1:37:50

Was that year within your domain at all?

1:37:53

When we held a few people in the military breaks

1:37:56

in South Carolina?

1:37:58

-

I don't know about that.

1:37:59

Honigsberg

You don't know about that.

1:38:00

Do you, are you disappointed in president Obama?

1:38:02

In terms of not closing Guantanamo?

1:38:05

-

Yes, I am.

1:38:07

Honigsberg

And...

1:38:11

-

I mean, it's not just him.

1:38:15

I'm disappointed that we, all of us and many many people

1:38:16

that I know who frankly worked hard to get him elected,

1:38:21

who believed that this was something we could do.

1:38:27

I'm disappointed that we couldn't do it.

1:38:30

So it's not just one man, it's all of us.

1:38:33

And we didn't do it.

1:38:39

All of us share responsibility for that.

1:38:41

It's not just him.

1:38:43

So, yeah, I'm disappointed,

1:38:45

I'm also disappointed in me.

1:38:46

I couldn't do it.

1:38:48

We couldn't do it, and it's wrong and we should have.

1:38:50

But, and there's a lot of people who complete disagree

1:38:54

and say, "Oh, we, why are we, it's working fine."

1:38:57

Yeah, it's working fine

1:39:00

unless you look at the constitution of the United States,

1:39:01

and you take it seriously, then it's not working fine.

1:39:04

And I like to live under the rule of law,

1:39:08

and I happen to like our set of laws.

1:39:11

I prefer that.

1:39:14

Honigsberg

Well, General two more questions,

1:39:15

one is, did you like change the way you're talking,

1:39:17

your life change after 9/11

1:39:19

in terms of how you see the world,

1:39:22

and how you see the military or politics, any of those,

1:39:23

all the above?

1:39:28

-

Yes, I think it really did.

1:39:30

And I'll just give you a couple examples.

1:39:33

One of them is real positive.

1:39:37

The things I saw on the lawn and the Pentagon

1:39:39

and the behavior I saw, people like Lisa Bronson,

1:39:43

and that Lieutenant general that showed up,

1:39:46

and friends that I'd known for years

1:39:50

who were with me on the line, made me proud.

1:39:51

And I'll never forget that feeling.

1:39:55

That was important for me.

1:39:57

That was good, and again, I'll never forget that,

1:39:59

and I'll come back to that again.

1:40:03

I don't wanna have a good experience like that again,

1:40:06

but that is not something that makes me proud.

1:40:08

But I also have been disappointed by,

1:40:12

policies and actions of my country

1:40:17

that don't live up to our own standards.

1:40:22

And I've seen numerous examples of that.

1:40:26

It bothers me when leaders who are intelligent adult,

1:40:28

competent people, do things which they know very well

1:40:36

are against our constitution, and against our way of life

1:40:42

and our rule of law.

1:40:45

It bothers me, and I, that's hard for me to forget too.

1:40:47

Is I see that as an American, as a breach of trust.

1:40:52

I'd like to think that I'm wrong, but I don't think

1:41:00

that I am having seen it now for about 11 years.

1:41:04

And that doesn't mean that I've given up hope,

1:41:10

but it does mean that I am skept, more, much more skeptical

1:41:12

and maybe even cynical than I was before.

1:41:16

And I'd like to, I really, really would like to think

1:41:20

that I don't need to be, and I'm not just saying this,

1:41:23

and you probably take this off the tape,

1:41:28

but it's exactly people like you

1:41:30

that give me the hope that we can get through this.

1:41:34

And what you're doing with this project

1:41:36

is very very helpful to our country.

1:41:39

We need, more truth tellers,

1:41:43

and we need a lot of people that can participate

1:41:47

in events like this, in efforts like this,

1:41:50

to document what happened, I mean, I don't know

1:41:53

if I've said what you wanted me to say,

1:41:57

I've just told you what I think.

1:41:58

But I think that we will identify, you know,

1:42:01

you know my little strand

1:42:03

and all the other strands that you've heard

1:42:05

that I don't have access to,

1:42:06

although I liked your website,

1:42:08

I wanna do, I wanna listen more,

1:42:12

but I think when we put this all together

1:42:14

we'll have something we can all be proud of.

1:42:16

America doesn't always get it right,

1:42:20

But what you can depend upon I think is that

1:42:23

most of us know right when we see it,

1:42:28

and we try to go there.

1:42:32

And we stumble and we fall down, but we always get up.

1:42:34

And that gives me hope.

1:42:38

Honigsberg

That was wonderful.

1:42:41

I usually ask people who's anything else you wanna add,

1:42:42

but I think you just added it,

1:42:45

but I will ask you that anyway,

1:42:46

and before we close it, if there's something else

1:42:48

that you I'd like to.

1:42:52

-

I can't really think of anything.

1:43:01

Honigsberg

I think you ended on a beautiful note

1:43:02

I wouldn't see any nails, but.

1:43:04

-

I wanna do honor to you and justice to your work,

1:43:08

and so if there's something you want me to speak to

1:43:13

I'm happy to do it.

1:43:15

I don't, can't think of anything off the top of my head.

1:43:17

Honigsberg

You said very,

1:43:18

you were very kind in your words

1:43:19

and I'm very grateful for that.

1:43:21

-

I mean it.

1:43:24

Honigsberg

Appreciated it.

1:43:25

-

I mean it.

1:43:26

Honigsberg

Well, Johnny needs 20 seconds of room tone

1:43:28

where the room is quiet before

1:43:32

he can turn off the tape, so--

1:43:34

-

Okay.

1:43:36

Honigsberg

He's gonna, okay.

1:43:37

-

Sure.

1:43:38

Johnny

Begin room tone

1:43:39

End room tone.

1:43:55

Adams, John - Interview master file

Transcript

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