Gelles, Michael - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Good afternoon.

0:05

We are very grateful to you

0:07

for participating in the witness to Guantanamo project.

0:08

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:12

and involvement with detainees

0:15

who were held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:16

The only to provide you

0:19

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

0:20

We are creating an archive of stories

0:24

so that people in America

0:27

and around the world will have a better understanding

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of what you and others have experienced and observed.

0:31

Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo

0:36

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

0:39

We appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us.

0:42

If at any time during the interview

0:46

you want to take a break, just let us know,

0:48

and if anything you say

0:50

you'd like to retract or review,

0:51

just tell us and they can review that to me?

0:53

And I'd like to begin with some personal information

0:57

as to your name,

0:59

your date of birth and age and marital status.

1:01

-

So Michael Gelles, 5/18/59.

1:05

I guess that makes me 51,

1:09

divorced.

1:12

Interviewer

Where do you live?

1:14

I live in North Potomac, Maryland.

1:15

-

- [Interviewer] And where are you from originally,

1:16

or born originally?

1:18

-

Teaneck New Jersey.

1:19

Interviewer

And do you have children?

1:20

-

I have two.

1:23

Interviewer

And what's your education?

1:24

-

I have a doctoral degree in psychology.

1:25

Interviewer

Okay. I'd like to just begin in

1:28

some background as to how you got involved

1:32

in the role that you did working for the military?

1:36

Was it working for the military?

1:39

-

I was working for

1:40

the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,

1:41

so I was a civilian.

1:43

Interviewer

Could you explain how your background

1:44

and how that,

1:46

how you ended up with working with them?

1:47

-

Sure. So I,

1:49

I went to graduate school at Yeshiva University

1:51

at Einstein Medical Center in New York.

1:54

And I went to the Ferkauf Graduate School for psychology.

1:57

When I finished my psychology training

2:00

I went to do a clinical psychology internship

2:02

which was part requirement for the training.

2:05

I went into the United States Navy

2:07

and completed my clinical internship

2:09

at what's now the National Naval Medical Center

2:11

back then it was Bethesda Naval Hospital.

2:13

So I spent about a year there

2:16

and then was assigned to continue duty

2:19

at camp Pendleton, California

2:22

where I spent several years as a staff psychologist.

2:24

Then I came back to Bethesda

2:28

and was on staff at the psychology training program

2:31

and led a couple of the different programs.

2:35

While I, I completed an advanced training

2:38

at the Washington school of psychiatry.

2:40

I finished their advanced program in 92,

2:42

during that,

2:46

between 1990 and 91 sort of post Gulf war.

2:47

I had done a number of sort of forensic like trainings.

2:51

I was supervised by Mel Gravitz,

2:54

who was a very well known forensic psychologist

2:56

who was at Bethesda

2:59

and what I had an opportunity to work as the psychologist

3:01

of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

3:04

Actually it was the Naval Investigative Service then,

3:06

NIS pre-Tailhook after Tailhook

3:09

it became the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

3:11

And so I went there on 1991

3:14

and around 93 the Navy had asked me to,

3:18

Tailhook occurred so there's some significance to that.

3:21

Navy had asked me to leave and take a position in Okinawa.

3:24

I did not want to go to Okinawa.

3:29

I liked what I was doing.

3:30

So I actually had then put in my papers to leave the Navy.

3:32

I had finished my obligation

3:35

from 1986 to 1993

3:37

and essentially Tailhook occurred

3:41

and civilian leadership came into NCIS

3:44

and a fellow by the name of Roy Nedrow

3:47

who is a retired assistant director

3:50

for the secret service became director of NCIS.

3:51

And when I met him, he said, you know

3:54

I heard a lot of great things about what you're doing

3:56

with psychology and glad you're here.

3:58

I said, well, that's great

4:00

'cause I'm leaving in a couple of weeks,

4:01

I just was going to take a position

4:02

in the United States Marshall Services

4:03

as their psychologist.

4:05

And he said, Whoa.

4:06

He said, how about, how about

4:07

if I make the same offer to you will you stay here?

4:09

And I said, well, you know

4:11

always stay with the devil, you know?

4:12

And so I stayed.

4:14

And then of course later on Dave Brant became director

4:15

and I had worked with Dave from 1991 on.

4:19

And so I stayed at NCIS until 2006.

4:22

So through the early stages

4:26

mid stages of Guantanamo Bay and Iraq and Afghanistan.

4:28

And then when Dave left to go to Deloitte, I left with him.

4:33

Interviewer

And were you training other psychologists,

4:37

or what were you doing?

4:41

-

Yeah, so I, when I was at NCIS?

4:42

Interviewer

Yeah, before 9/11 just briefly.

4:44

-

Oh, well before 9/11.

4:46

Yeah. There was a psychology department there.

4:47

So we had, you know, three, four psychologists.

4:50

We had a fellowship program.

4:53

So sure, yeah. I was training as a psychologist.

4:56

I was very involved in what was termed then

4:58

operational psychology within the government.

5:00

So consulting on criminal cases, counter-intelligence cases

5:03

in counter terrorism.

5:07

So 9/11 for us was while it was a very significant

5:08

point in history as it related to terrorism.

5:11

And Al-Qaeda, it wasn't all that significant.

5:15

We already had dealt with, you know

5:17

the embassy bombings and for NCIS,

5:19

we had dealt with the coal

5:21

and the coal was Al-Qaeda.

5:22

So when, and that was in 2000,

5:25

so in 2001 when the towers were hit

5:27

and the Pentagon was hit.

5:30

I mean, it made sense to us.

5:33

We knew immediately what was going on.

5:34

Interviewer

Where were you at that time?

5:36

-

When the planes went into the towers, I was sitting

5:38

in a cold case homicide conference because it,

5:40

at headquarters at NCIS

5:44

so we had watched what was going on on television.

5:46

And I remember Lou Heliopolis

5:49

who was one of the forensic science investigators said,

5:51

"Hey there's a plane that just went into the towers."

5:54

And we just looked up and said

5:58

it's gotta be Al-Qaeda, it's gotta be terrorists.

5:59

And then subsequently within moments later

6:02

the Pentagon was hit.

6:06

We were very close to the Pentagon.

6:07

Investigator

And what did your role change

6:09

at that moment?

6:11

-

Well, my role,

6:15

my role was,

6:16

I was pretty involved

6:20

with terrorist related things at that point in time.

6:21

So I did things

6:24

like consult on interrogations and operations anyway.

6:25

I had been doing it for years related to homicides

6:30

and any type of criminal activity counter-terrorism issues.

6:35

You know, people who were being run as sources

6:39

counter-intelligence activities, espionage investigations

6:41

all of that double agents, all that.

6:47

So supporting it psychologically.

6:49

So it was quite natural

6:52

that when we were confronted with this, you know

6:53

huge challenge of this type of investigation

6:56

and then later, you know,

6:59

how were we going to investigate?

7:01

And you know, 9/11

7:03

It was consistent.

7:09

And then of course, when we had all these people captured

7:10

how were you going to do interviews

7:13

and interrogations to make criminal cases?

7:15

That that was a shift because

7:17

at that point in time, right around February of 2002

7:19

they stood up the criminal investigations task force

7:22

which Dave Brant sort of assigned Mark Fallon

7:26

who was a very good friend of mine, still is

7:28

who had done the cold case

7:31

and some other cases.

7:32

And he then joined the army to stand

7:33

up the criminal investigative task, CITF.

7:36

And so CICF was responsible for putting together

7:40

a, you know,

7:44

a cadre,

7:46

that the army CID, NCIS, Air Force, OSI

7:47

putting everyone together to do those interrogations.

7:51

Well, the challenge was, it was also

7:54

that these were individuals

7:57

that they were going to have to make cases

7:58

to present in court.

8:00

Obviously we're still waiting for that.

8:01

Appreciate that as a lawyer.

8:03

But nonetheless, what we had to do was we had to

8:04

train hundreds and thousands, figure

8:07

out a way to get hundreds and hundreds

8:10

of agents smart on how to do interviews and interrogations

8:11

of middle Easterners and Southwest Asians.

8:14

So we put teams together to quickly understand that

8:17

since many of us had done some

8:19

of that kind of consulting and understood that mindset.

8:21

We put a team together quickly, Ali Soufan of the FBI.

8:23

You probably know that name

8:27

and Bob McFadden of NCIS, myself.

8:28

And we went,

8:31

we started developing this training model

8:33

and then looking and helping consult

8:35

on some of those interrogations.

8:37

So I went to Guantanamo Bay very

8:38

very early on, since Afghanistan, very early on.

8:40

Interviewer

You went to Afghanistan

8:43

before you went to Guantanamo?

8:44

-

No, I probably

8:46

no, I was in Afghanistan somewhere in early,

8:46

I don't remember.

8:51

It's hard now.

8:52

I think I was in Afghanistan.

8:52

I may have been to Guantanamo Bay once

8:55

but I was in Bagram and then later in Kandahar.

8:57

And so I had been there a few times,

8:59

couple times.

9:02

Interviewer

Were you in, well,

9:03

when the men were picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan

9:04

and brought to Afghanistan to Bagram and Kandahar

9:08

were you there at that time and those are

9:12

-

No, no, no.

9:14

Early, I was over there in early 2002, but probably

9:16

not when they were first brought in.

9:21

We were more early involved in Guantanamo Bay.

9:23

Investigator

Well, did you see

9:28

or were you involved at all in the interrogations

9:29

in Afghanistan before even going to Guantanamo?

9:32

-

No. No.

9:35

I went over there later to try

9:37

and help train some of the folks over there and

9:39

Interviewer

Had you heard what happened

9:42

in Afghanistan when you went over there that some

9:43

of the interrogators were brutal or so

9:45

-

Oh, this is like way before

9:48

you're talking about what happened somewhere in

9:51

this is when they came out with the

9:54

coercive tactics and the aggressive techniques

9:57

and the levels.

9:59

Early on there was, yeah, I guess there was

10:01

we had heard a little bit about it, but not, it, it

10:03

it fleshed out much later than

10:06

if you're talking about like very early 2002.

10:08

Interviewer

Yeah.

10:12

-

Yeah, it flushed out a little bit for us later.

10:13

We didn't know about it that early.

10:15

Interviewer

So how long did you go?

10:18

Were you there in Guantanamo when the first

10:19

group of men arrived, think first?

10:21

-

Probably shortly, yeah shortly thereafter.

10:23

'Cause I remember, you know, the initial camps

10:25

with the cages and the fenced in areas.

10:27

And I remember a case too, where

10:29

I remember going over there

10:32

and they had said, well, you're going to have to see this

10:34

'cause these are the worst of the worst.

10:37

These are the

10:39

these are the highly trained Al-Qaeda who,

10:39

who fought and defeated the Russians, Soviets.

10:42

I was like, Oh, okay.

10:46

You know, and so when we got there, I mean I looked around

10:47

and I remember making a comment to someone.

10:50

I said, well, I have to tell you something.

10:52

If these are the folks who

10:53

defeated the Soviets then we have some very,

10:56

very serious concerns.

10:59

And he says, why do you think we were so concerned to say

11:01

cause they did it when they were babies

11:03

and they had to have done it in their diapers.

11:05

'Cause most of these folks were too young

11:07

to be able to do it.

11:09

And then they, you know

11:10

that you could see that, you know, already, you know

11:11

a lot of folks were

11:13

it was very difficult to begin to discern,

11:15

you know, people were telling stories about being there,

11:17

you know, selling wares

11:19

you know, it's like, well, why would you be selling leather

11:20

and wares with, you know, bombs dropping out of the sky.

11:23

And then there was one guy that had said to me

11:27

I was there one trip very early on with a psychiatrist too.

11:29

And they said, Oh, well you have to go see wild bill.

11:32

And I remember this, I said, wild bill.

11:35

Why is that?

11:36

Well, while bill eats his mat,

11:37

I just looked at the psychiatrist

11:39

and he looked at me and said, oh boy

11:41

and what else does he do?

11:43

Well, he just dedicates all over his cell

11:44

and sure enough, we were there.

11:47

He was just, just floridly, psychotic.

11:48

And interestingly enough, they sent him home right away.

11:50

So whenever there was a recognition

11:53

of some significant illness early on, they went, they left

11:54

they got rid of them, sent them back.

11:57

Interviewer

When you came to Guantanamo

11:59

what was your role exactly when you were there?

12:01

-

So when I first came to Guantanamo, it was to come in.

12:03

So CITF was there.

12:07

They had agents and there were a lot of agents.

12:09

So the idea was to conduct some training

12:11

and consultation models on how would you

12:13

how do you understand the mindset of these folks?

12:16

How is it different from somebody from the West?

12:19

Because here you had lots and lots of age.

12:22

I'm not taught in the military interrogators, CIA.

12:24

That was a whole different camp.

12:26

Interviewer

You didn't work with them?

12:28

-

My response,

12:28

well I worked with them did some training with them,

12:29

but no I didn't work with them because my responsibility was

12:31

I was in federal law enforcement, federal agents.

12:34

And these were the agents that were either military agents

12:37

and federal agents that were civilian NCIS agents.

12:40

How could I get help, get them smart

12:43

be able to, you know, do an interrogation

12:45

that's going to stand up in court.

12:48

See that was the whole issue.

12:49

That's why we, the I'm sure we'll come to it.

12:50

But the great divide was you can't have agents

12:52

doing interrogations that you wouldn't do in

12:55

in a U S court.

12:58

So, you know, if you were going to do a

12:59

a homicide interrogation, you do it the same way

13:01

but you'd probably try to understand the perpetrator.

13:05

And so if you're going to understand

13:08

who you're going to interview,

13:09

you know, cause everybody, you know

13:10

is innocent until proven guilty.

13:11

You surely should understand.

13:13

Well, how do they think differently?

13:15

How do they behave differently?

13:17

What's different in terms of deception?

13:18

How is it that you can develop a rapport

13:20

based approach with them?

13:22

That was obviously something we talked quite a bit about

13:23

and wrote about.

13:26

And how did you do this?

13:27

And how could you, what's the difference

13:28

between their mindset and those hundreds

13:29

of interrogations as a, as a federal agent

13:32

or a reserve police officer you did with Westerners.

13:34

So that was the big, that was a big piece of it.

13:37

And then of course did that in Afghanistan

13:39

at some point.

13:43

And, but that was really the key role.

13:45

Of course there were, you know, cases

13:48

that you would consult on and that occurred, you know

13:51

I would consult on cases all the time.

13:54

So I would, I would never conduct an interrogation

13:55

because I was a psychologist.

13:58

I didn't do interrogations

14:00

but I could do what we called indirect assessments.

14:01

Or I could watch on a video screen

14:03

or through a two-way mirror and make,

14:06

offer commentary to help them better understand, you know

14:08

what they were seeing.

14:10

Interviewer

Did you watch military interrogations

14:13

as you know?

14:15

-

No, I never really watched

14:17

too many military interrogations.

14:18

I can't remember.

14:20

We early on, we just separated.

14:22

Well, first of all, the answer is yes, because early on

14:26

before they got into the coercive tactics

14:29

they were tiger teams.

14:32

So you had military interrogators with

14:33

with federal

14:37

Interviewer

Civilians?

14:38

-

Right, with the federal, with the law enforcement folks.

14:39

But then when they started

14:42

to dial up their tactics we split

14:43

and said we're not going to participate

14:46

in anything like that.

14:47

You follow me?

14:50

Interviewer

Is that

14:51

-

Brant should have told you about that, yeah.

14:53

Interviewer

That was clearly stated

14:54

as you understood it, that all of a sudden, the civilian

14:56

-

Well, there was a very clear demarcation that around

15:00

you know, the June, July, August timeframe

15:03

they were intending to ramp up the techniques.

15:06

I mean, during, now we're in 2002,

15:09

there's still, you know

15:11

people are frightened, they're still angry.

15:13

They're, you know, you had the, a ticking time bomb

15:15

Dershowitz sort of theory out there.

15:20

Interviewer

And so you knew that they

15:24

might be rougher in one segment that

15:26

-

Well we knew that they had no experience.

15:29

I mean, you're talking about some of these

15:31

were 18 19 year old kids

15:32

who had never done an interrogation before.

15:34

You know, who had learned,

15:36

Interviewer

And no one trained them.

15:37

-

Well they got training,

15:38

you know, in a six week course somewhere.

15:40

And then there were some that were a little bit older and

15:44

and, but really we hadn't been in a war since Vietnam.

15:46

Nobody had been doing military interrogations.

15:50

So what kind of experience would they have had?

15:54

Interviewer

Well, so you were not involved

15:57

in training those that

16:00

-

Oh, I offered them some training that,

16:01

I offered our perspective.

16:03

Okay. So everything was sort of fused a bit until

16:05

they the time where department of defense came out

16:10

with the ramped up techniques.

16:14

You know, where they were going to go level one,

16:15

level two level three, level four and you know,

16:17

Rumsfeld said, "I can stand for so many hours, so can they,"

16:22

that sort of thing

16:25

but that's where we objected.

16:26

But once we had heard that they were beginning to

16:28

get more aggressive, we immediately stopped.

16:30

We picked up on that, Mark Fallon did, I did,

16:32

we talked to Dave Brant,

16:35

Dave Brant said, "I don't want any of my agents.

16:36

CITF said no agents in with these folks.

16:39

And they would do,

16:42

which complicated things.

16:43

So you had a law enforcement interrogation

16:44

and you had the military interrogation.

16:47

So it was a mess.

16:49

Interviewer

Well, where were you

16:50

and what were you thinking

16:52

if you saw the military was going somewhat

16:53

outside the way you understood interrogation

16:55

should be?

16:57

-

Well, I spoke up, that's where we, you know

16:58

basically talked to Dave and I

17:01

Dave and I went and talked to Alberto Mora

17:02

and Mora was in numerous meetings where we

17:05

spoke out about the approach

17:09

how it wouldn't be effective, how it wouldn't work

17:10

but there was a camp that said it didn't matter.

17:13

We were going to get information no matter what

17:14

see the difference was we were trying

17:16

to prove a case in court.

17:18

They were trying to get information

17:20

two different metrics, right?

17:21

Two different performance metrics.

17:22

So it doesn't matter if I get information I'm successful.

17:24

Versus if I get information that's accurate

17:27

and reliable on successful.

17:29

Interviewer

How do you talk to someone

17:32

from the Islam Muslim culture differently from American?

17:35

Just generally, could you say

17:39

since that's what you're training?

17:40

-

Well sure. So there were some very key principles.

17:41

You know, one was to understand the difference

17:44

between someone from the West who is a very individualistic

17:46

in their thinking versus someone from the mid middle East

17:49

Southwest Asia, who is much more of a collectivist.

17:53

So to understand how they viewed themselves with others,

17:56

to understand the difference

18:00

between Westerners who are linear thinkers

18:01

and middle Easterners

18:04

and Southwest Asians who were associate thinkers

18:05

which was a very significant piece because in many cases

18:07

anyone who sort of jumps

18:12

from topic to topic like an associated thinker

18:13

who's more emotionally driven

18:16

in terms of how they think

18:18

they're a more emotional processors, if you will.

18:21

It looks like deception if you were looking at it.

18:25

So that was a very important distinction.

18:27

To understand how important relationships were.

18:29

To understand the difference between guilt and shame.

18:31

To understand the difference between an individual's

18:34

sort of sense of accomplishment versus somebody who

18:37

measures their accomplishment by the network,

18:39

that they have their wasta, the value that they see.

18:42

So those were, those were, you know

18:46

off the top of my head, very, and we wrote

18:47

about these there's been papers written

18:50

and these were very, you know, key issues.

18:52

Then there were tactics and techniques.

18:56

I mean, if you have an associative thinker

18:58

you can't necessarily ask them a question

19:01

and think that they'll give you a linear answer.

19:04

So it takes 10 questions to ask them one

19:06

emotional processors do much better with pictures.

19:09

They don't do well with maps or anything like that.

19:12

The other thing we knew was

19:15

because they were associative thinkers.

19:16

That's why they had so many manuals

19:18

and a lot of the material was all like

19:19

laid out in very key steps

19:22

and they couldn't operate without it.

19:24

Well, of course not because they're not organized that way.

19:26

Interviewer

Did you say

19:30

you participated in interrogations?

19:31

Or you were present, actually in there?

19:34

-

So, I did not participate in interrogations.

19:36

Was I present in the room?

19:38

No, I've never been in the room.

19:39

I may see a video feed or I, and I didn't have to be there.

19:41

I could just talk

19:45

with the interrogators

19:46

about what it was that they were doing

19:49

but these were agents.

19:50

So I knew they weren't engaged

19:51

in aggressive tactics that wasn't allowed.

19:53

I didn't deal with, I wouldn't deal with any of the military

19:57

or Intel in interviews because they were engaged

20:01

in tactics that I didn't agree with.

20:04

And they didn't agree with me.

20:06

So we said, okay.

20:08

Interviewer

But initially you described

20:09

that you were on of the people

20:11

who actually

20:13

were at the forefront

20:14

in terms of training others for interrogations, right?

20:17

So with that initially, you must have

20:19

-

So initially, yeah, they weren't blended.

20:20

Like I said, you know, they had teams there.

20:23

And so there were military folks trying to get intelligence.

20:25

There were law enforcement folks trying

20:28

to develop cases for prosecution.

20:30

They worked together when everybody was focused

20:33

on just getting information early on

20:36

when that was insufficient for the Intel side of the house

20:38

they ramped up the tactics and techniques

20:42

to get information that's where the split occurred.

20:45

Interviewer

And how did you find out

20:48

that the Intel side might have been crossing the line?

20:49

-

We, there were meetings and there were specific that the

20:55

probably the best case example was Al-Kahtani,

20:58

you know, where Kahtani we had heard,

21:02

and it was going to be the experiment,

21:04

if you will, with these new techniques

21:06

and they were developing an interrogation plan for Kahtani

21:08

we saw it, we, we countered with an interrogation plan

21:11

myself and the FBI,

21:15

NCIS, me, a couple of other people

21:17

you know, I helped understand the behavior.

21:20

They wrote the plan.

21:22

Interviewer

Could you tell us what you had,

21:25

even though I know it's been written,

21:28

but just what you had observed

21:29

in terms of how the military thought of

21:30

interrogating Kahtani

21:34

-

Well, the whole notion

21:35

of increasing the aggressiveness

21:37

from, you know, from the standing to the slapping

21:40

to the humiliating

21:44

types of circumstances.

21:46

Because back to what I had said earlier, I mean, one

21:48

of the differences was the middle Eastern

21:50

or Southwest Asians were much more sensitive to shame

21:53

and humiliation than we are in the West.

21:55

So, I mean, well, if you really want it to get information

21:57

or develop some type of relationship, why would you do that?

22:00

It's like ridiculous.

22:03

You know, it's a reflection

22:04

without sounding too psychological, of your own issues,

22:07

your own countertransference.

22:09

Interviewer

So what do people say to you, when you say

22:11

this is not going to work?

22:13

-

Some people agreed with me, some people didn't.

22:17

When we went to Alberto Mora, you know,

22:20

there was sort of a moral ethical thing here

22:23

that you just, as Americans

22:25

we just didn't do this to people.

22:26

We didn't engage in these types of practices

22:27

needless to say, we didn't want that being done

22:30

to our troops and our people who were captured but,

22:32

there was,

22:37

there was a clear division

22:38

of thinking quite a disagreement.

22:40

And so whenever we disagreed, we'd write counter material

22:43

counter plans, and then you, you know

22:46

you had leadership that endorsed it or didn't endorse it.

22:49

You know, Jeffrey Miller, General Miller was, you know

22:52

supportive of what was going on there.

22:55

We talked with him and I remember him telling me, yeah

22:56

you know, if you, if you want to be on the team

23:00

you gotta wear the jersey.

23:02

Mark Fallon and I were like,

23:04

well we're not joining in this team,

23:05

but that sort of thing

23:07

Interviewer

Did you get to meet Diane Beaver?

23:10

-

Sure, sat in meetings with her.

23:12

Interviewer

Did she ever ask you for advice on or

23:13

-

No, she didn't like me.

23:17

Interviewer

Why not?

23:18

-

I had a very different opinion.

23:19

I was very vocal and I was offering a perspective

23:22

that said don't do this.

23:26

Don't engage in these tactics.

23:28

They're wrong.

23:30

They're not going to work.

23:31

Okay. Forget the moral, ethical thing for a second.

23:33

They're not going to work.

23:35

People will just give you information for the sake

23:37

of just making circumstances less uncomfortable.

23:40

And the goal here was and reliable information.

23:43

And here's why

23:46

just suspend the moral, ethical thing for a second,

23:47

garbage in garbage out,

23:50

you get information that's garbage,

23:53

it gets spun around and analyzed, and resources are set

23:54

in all sorts of directions.

23:58

Remember after 9/11, there was lots of resources

24:00

being allocated and almost a knee jerk reaction.

24:04

There was a certain level of resiliency when needed to try

24:07

and help sustain in law enforcement, in the military.

24:10

And every time you got crap, it sent people,

24:13

you could probably remember, you know

24:16

different incidents where, you know, they changed the

24:18

the threat level for, you know, Homeland security at,

24:20

in ways that were based on information that was false.

24:25

And there was a lot of bad information that came out.

24:28

Now, I'm sure people tell you, gee,

24:31

we got really good information from KSM

24:33

after waterboarded him 65 times

24:35

but I don't know how good that information was.

24:37

I never had access to that or was involved in that, so

24:41

Interviewer

What were you thinking?

24:45

Were you frustrated that when you saw a number

24:45

of these military people, including General Miller,

24:48

were saying look we're going to go forward this way.

24:50

-

Yeah, we were frustrated, but we understood, you know

24:52

that this was something we were going to stick by

24:55

and stand by.

24:58

I went to many meetings.

24:59

I was in meetings with Rumsfeld's attorneys and generals

25:00

and just always, we were voicing our perspective.

25:04

And I think there were a number of folks who, who agreed.

25:07

And then there were folks who were just, this was

25:12

this was coming from Rumsfeld.

25:14

So it was, he was the secretary of defense.

25:16

This was coming from the administration.

25:20

This is what they were going to do.

25:21

We weren't going to participate.

25:24

We continue to do interrogations

25:26

of individuals who would be prosecuted

25:28

and did them in a way that was consistent

25:31

with anything you would see in a us court of law.

25:33

Interviewer

Did you meet Jim Haynes?

25:36

-

Yeah. I met Mr. Haynes once, yeah.

25:38

Interviewer

Did you get any sense from him?

25:40

What his beliefs were?

25:42

-

Oh yeah, pretty clearly.

25:45

Yeah. Marshall Billings lea as well.

25:46

Marshall's at Deloitte,

25:47

Marshall Billings works at the Deloitte.

25:49

-

[Female Interviewer] How did they justify it?

25:52

-

[Male Interviewer] Yeah

25:54

-

The, the fact of the matter was that

25:55

there was information that we needed to

25:56

get much more expeditiously

25:59

than we were getting in a rapport based approach.

26:01

So information would come

26:04

but it would come a little more slowly.

26:05

You'd have to really work at it.

26:07

But that was generally information you were

26:09

looking to substantiate with evidence

26:11

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you?

26:15

-

So they, their position was

26:20

we need to get information more quickly

26:21

and this is what's going to get

26:25

because that information could essentially

26:26

interrupt forward motion

26:28

of a potential attack in the United States.

26:30

-

[Female Interviewer] And if you responded

26:34

by saying that was likely to be unreliable

26:34

what was their response?

26:37

We don't care?

26:38

-

They wanted the information, they wanted the information

26:41

then they'd vet the information.

26:44

So, I mean, I think that,

26:48

again, back to,

26:52

you have to go back in time and understand

26:54

that this was a period where people were scared.

26:56

You know, we were still enraged over 9/11,

26:59

that there was a sense of a need for retaliation.

27:03

There was a sense of need to make sure

27:06

this wasn't going to happen again.

27:08

I mean, we were quote unquote, you know

27:10

caught with our pants down with this type of an attack

27:12

given the fact that we weren't sharing information.

27:15

So,

27:17

-

[Female Interviewer] And was the CIA included

27:19

in those military interrogations?

27:21

Would there be CIA members involved?

27:23

-

I don't know, I wasn't involved with CIA.

27:25

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you ever observe the treatment

27:30

of Al-Kahtani?

27:33

Did you ever see?

27:34

I know you had the logs, but did you ever see

27:35

where he was treated?

27:37

-

No

27:38

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you, do you ever hear about doctors

27:39

abusing any of the detainees while you were there?

27:43

-

No.

27:45

No, there was a pretty good division between

27:46

all right, so there were

27:50

early on around Kahtani there was a psychiatrist

27:52

and psychologist that were with a,

27:55

I have to lay something out for you.

27:58

So you can understand this.

27:59

So let's go back a little bit.

28:00

This is an important piece of the story.

28:03

We'll talk about the biscuit teams

28:06

and where that came from.

28:08

So,

28:10

CITF gets stood up February, 2002.

28:11

Mark Fallon is the deputy Brett Malo's the commander.

28:14

Mark calls me says, "Hey, listen".

28:19

He said, "I need a behavioral team.

28:22

Can you put together a team of behavioral folks for me?"

28:24

Sure. So I put together about 10 folks who have

28:27

that kind of experience, psychologists, psychiatrists

28:30

and a couple of folks, you know

28:33

who had investigative, but behavioral background.

28:34

So we,

28:38

get together,

28:40

say here's, we're gonna put together a training.

28:40

We're going to put together sort of what we need to do to

28:42

to be sure that people are informed quickly when they go

28:45

into these situations, we'll consult on high level cases.

28:48

So Mark and I are very good friends,

28:53

goes back and says, "Well, what do you want to call it?

28:55

You gonna to call it psychological support team?"

28:57

I said, well, I really can't do that

28:59

because it's not all psychologist.

29:00

I said, why don't we call it

29:02

a behavioral science consultation team?

29:03

He say's "Great, let's do that."

29:05

Now. This is before the military stuff kicks up.

29:07

And um,

29:11

so one,

29:13

one afternoon he says to me, "You're coming,

29:14

let's go have our meeting."

29:16

He says, "I need to get your biscuit together."

29:17

I was like, thanks, Mark.

29:19

Great. So calls it a biscuit.

29:20

We're down in Guantanamo Bay with General,

29:24

before General Miller, it was General

29:27

Dunleavy, yeah, we're with Dunleavy.

29:30

And it was down there doing some training.

29:32

I was talking with him and, you know, I was involved

29:34

with the general, the Marine general, before that,

29:37

back and forth Dunleavy's there.

29:39

Dunleavy says to me, sits across.

29:41

He says, "You need to be here full time with your team."

29:43

And I looked at him and I went general.

29:47

That's not going to happen.

29:49

I said, I have 10 people who are responsible to agencies

29:50

you know, doing more than just this.

29:53

I mean, that was the whole thing.

29:56

We did other things besides just Guantanamo Bay.

29:57

There were other cases to do.

29:59

He said, "Well, then I'll get my own team.

30:01

Thanks. No problem."

30:04

I said, go ahead.

30:05

And he did.

30:06

So instead of looking at like, what we had done was put

30:07

together people who were trained

30:10

in forensic psychology, psychiatry, operational psychology.

30:11

So who did cases, interviews

30:15

interrogation kinds of work different than sear.

30:17

Talk about that later, he went and said

30:20

just give me some psychologists and psychiatrists

30:24

so that he formed a behavioral science team

30:27

pulling the Intel, the military side

30:29

pulling these doctors out of hospitals and out of clinics

30:32

with no background and, and said, just go ahead and consult.

30:36

And so that's early on where you saw

30:40

that starting to happen.

30:43

And that's where SERE started to play a role.

30:47

So SERE,

30:51

SERE and I've,

30:52

there've been some

30:54

I don't know if you've read any of the interviews of me.

30:55

I've made some candid comments about SERE.

30:57

So why not for history?

30:59

Yeah. SERE school is a very important function.

31:01

It trains, you know, special operators, pilots

31:06

in how to resist and evade,

31:10

and quite frankly built around

31:13

the whole concept of stress inoculation.

31:15

You know, what creates anxiety

31:19

those things that you were unfamiliar with.

31:20

So the idea, if you could get subjected

31:22

to some mock interrogations as understood by what we knew

31:24

how other countries do interrogations

31:28

then you would have it a little bit of an edge

31:30

in terms of being able to tolerate it for a little while.

31:33

Phenomenal.

31:35

And it's probably been one of the best.

31:36

So SERE school, right, is a very stressful training.

31:38

Back in, you know, the, probably back in the eighties

31:44

they decided that because of that stress

31:48

they should put psychologists in there

31:50

to keep an eye on the stress and to teach some

31:51

of the stress inoculation stress sort of.

31:53

So SERE's

31:56

SERE, had psychological billets Air Force and Navy.

31:57

I remember the Navy at least.

32:03

And, and so SERE school know Army then was involved

32:04

in so SERE school was placed where psychologists

32:08

would work as support of this type of training.

32:11

They weren't doing operational types of consultations,

32:15

like the folks in my world were

32:18

where you'd literally be, you know,

32:21

sitting down with agents around somebody

32:23

who was a potential killer

32:25

or just killed their family

32:27

or killed a child or raped someone

32:28

or committed espionage or any of that sort of thing.

32:31

And so this then began to become, you know, a big issue.

32:35

And that's, I don't know who I said,

32:40

I said but you know, basically

32:41

they're like school counselors.

32:43

They weren't really operational psychologists.

32:45

Now they've continued to evolve a bit.

32:47

And I would say that was probably a little bit more of a

32:49

off the cuff remark on my part,

32:52

so I wouldn't say their school counselors anymore

32:54

but they had a very important role in what they were doing.

32:56

But remember what it was going on

32:58

with Jessen and Mitchell was they were re-engineering SERE.

33:00

Well, we use the SERE tactics and we can re-engineer it.

33:04

Well, that was like ridiculous

33:08

because these were used as stress, inoculation and training.

33:10

They weren't used on individuals

33:13

to elicit information and there you had it.

33:15

So Dunleavy brings his people in

33:18

and he decides to call it

33:21

his behavioral science consultation team

33:23

Diane Beaver, and the like, you know

33:25

gets involved with that and it's a biscuit.

33:27

So there were two.

33:29

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, is this coming from Dunleavy

33:31

or is this coming from higher up on the food chain?

33:32

-

No, I think Dunleavy actually liked what we were doing.

33:35

He just wanted it there for himself.

33:37

Dunleavy's an interesting guy, did you to talk him?

33:39

-

[Male Interviewer] No.

33:41

-

He wouldn't talk to you?

33:42

-

[Male Interviewer] No. Well, I haven't been able to

33:43

-

Maybe he'll talk with you.

33:44

-

[Male Interviewer] Can you help?

33:45

No, he doesn't like me.

33:46

(laughing)

33:48

-

What's his name?

33:49

And whose book is it?

33:50

The lawyer,

33:51

from, for you, Philippe

33:53

-

[Male Interviewer] Sands

33:55

-

Sands yeah, I think in that book, there's a couple

33:56

of really juicy comments that general offers about me.

33:58

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, do you think Dunleavy

34:01

was directed by Rumsfeld or by Haynes or even by Cheney?

34:04

-

Well, I do.

34:09

I do think when, I do think when it came

34:10

down to elevating the, the coercive tactics

34:12

it wasn't just coming from Dunleavy though.

34:16

You know, Dunleavy, you know, wanted information.

34:19

I mean, here's the other thing that was

34:21

a fascinating dynamic down there was, you know

34:23

basically you had a war going on in Afghanistan, right?

34:26

Troops were engaged in the enemy searching for Al-Qaeda.

34:30

You know, that was, that was

34:34

pretty significant.

34:37

Then you had Guantanamo Bay.

34:38

So if you've been in Afghanistan,

34:40

I don't know have you been to Afghanistan?

34:42

-

[Male Interviewer] No.

34:43

It kind of looks like when we bombed it

34:44

we bombed it into the stone age out of whatever it was.

34:46

You go to Guantanamo Bay, ever been to Guantanamo Bay?

34:49

Yeah, It's kind of a nice Island.

34:52

Huh? Take your wife, It's pretty.

34:53

Did you go?

34:55

That's nice.

34:56

So, yeah, it's a great spot.

34:57

Get some sun jerk chicken.

34:58

The water's beautiful.

34:59

I mean, you can't go too far because it's Cuba

35:01

but some beautiful, it's beautiful right.

35:03

Coming, but that's where, you know, you'd have to think.

35:05

Well, have I have all these folks that I'm basically in,

35:09

at this war on terror who were like potentially

35:13

in pretty significant action in Afghanistan

35:16

and here I am on this Island,

35:19

so how do I make this meaningful?

35:20

So there was a little bit of an over zealous need for

35:24

and then there were things like, you know, this was going to

35:29

be the experiment, the battle battlefield experiment

35:30

you know, in terms of interrogation all of that

35:35

been a number of years now.

35:40

So to answer your question.

35:46

Dunleavy probably had his own zeal

35:48

to sort of get information

35:50

be a good general, preserve national security

35:51

and ensure public safety.

35:54

Don't fault him for that

35:56

really, he's interesting guy thought he was

35:58

great for what he was doing.

36:01

I mean, I thought he was at times a little overzealous

36:03

but he probably thought I was too.

36:05

However, was he getting direction from somewhere?

36:08

Absolutely. I mean, had to be, I mean

36:10

he wasn't running Guantanamo Bay.

36:12

Like it was his place nor did Jeffrey Miller

36:15

General Miller didn't.

36:18

General Miller is a good guy, too.

36:19

Artillery guy,

36:21

comes in to run a interrogation and Intel camp.

36:23

-

[Male Interviewer] And was Diane Beaver

36:27

Do you think she was directed as well?

36:29

Or do you think she was independent?

36:30

-

You know, Diane, you know, Diane is kind of got really

36:34

I thought, I kind of think Diane's I think beat up.

36:36

you know, around all this.

36:39

I think she was trying to do the right thing

36:40

and circumstances got, you know

36:41

caught between a rock and hard place.

36:44

Have you talked to her?

36:45

-

[Male Interviewer] No, I'd like to.

36:46

-

Yeah, yeah you should.

36:47

So, no, I think Diane was just doing her job, but you know

36:50

she was working with the attorneys

36:53

back up at the Pentagon

36:55

who were looking at this stuff and working and supporting,

36:56

you know, what was legal, what was illegal?

36:59

What could you do?

37:01

What couldn't you do?

37:01

I mean, she was a lawyer.

37:02

She was providing counsel.

37:03

I mean, she wasn't doing interrogations.

37:04

She wasn't writing, you know, I mean

37:06

she was interpreting what was, I mean, her

37:07

she was supporting her general.

37:10

I mean, she was doing what she was supposed

37:12

I mean, I, there are other lawyers, you know

37:14

who stood up and said, "Whoa, you can't do this."

37:17

You saw that.

37:20

-

[Male Interviewer] Had you seen the torture memos

37:22

while you were down in Guantanamo?

37:23

How'd you hear about them, John Hughes, torture memo.

37:25

Had you heard of that?

37:28

-

Yeah, I guess I had, I mean, I saw the manuals.

37:30

I saw the coercive tactics

37:32

that they were going to use

37:34

the different levels.

37:36

We reviewed those.

37:37

I saw, you know, the plan they were putting together to use

37:39

with Kahtani and someone else down there.

37:42

And, you know, I don't remember it was a number.

37:45

I forget what it was.

37:48

-

[Female Interviewer] Could you describe those

37:49

various tactics and the various levels?

37:50

-

Probably not.

37:52

Well, I mean, from, you know, it was from

37:55

standing hooded to

37:58

you know, pushing certain levels of slapping.

38:02

They never got to that.

38:07

I then, then there was level four

38:08

which was more aggressive.

38:09

They did some pretty dangerous stuff, I guess

38:10

with Kahtani around the dehydration and things like that

38:14

but it all just, it was all out of control.

38:17

And then of course it got

38:21

out of control in Iraq and Abu Ghraib.

38:21

Now that was always interesting back to sort of looking

38:24

at behavior in context, I'm Abu Gharib was in a war zone.

38:27

I mean, they were hearing the bombs falling

38:30

and the shooting and the enemy around them.

38:32

Guantanamo Bay was, well you've been there.

38:34

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you ever see any force feeding

38:38

while you were in Guantanamo?

38:40

-

No, I didn't see force feeding.

38:42

The only force feeding I've seen is in us prisons.

38:44

-

[Male Interviewer] Hmm

38:46

Did you see, did you have anything to do

38:47

with the isolation of the prisoners in Guantanamo?

38:49

-

So that's a, that's kind of an interesting question

38:52

because no, but

38:55

isolation in terms of what?

38:56

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, we've interviewed

39:00

a number of detainees

39:02

and many of them said they were in isolation.

39:03

One said he was in isolation for two years.

39:05

One said he was in isolation for one year

39:07

and then he broke.

39:09

So some of the men were held

39:10

as they described isolation for really long periods of time.

39:12

-

Yeah, not to that extent.

39:16

No,

39:19

but I don't think isolation's a bad thing.

39:22

Okay. So let's go back then.

39:24

Not for a year.

39:26

Okay. And it's used quite effectively punitively

39:27

in us prisons and there's never been challenged.

39:30

So there are people who have issues about it.

39:32

Right?

39:34

So let's go back

39:35

to talking about rapport based approach

39:37

of a collectivist

39:39

an individual who needs to be with people, right.

39:41

Relationship based.

39:43

Right?

39:45

So the idea is that you need to form

39:46

a relationship with him.

39:47

Let's face it.

39:49

This is not, he's there and at this point in time,

39:49

you don't believe

39:52

that he may have done something very serious

39:53

and we need to find out about it.

39:56

Okay. Still innocent until proven guilty.

39:57

But we're going to do an investigation

40:02

especially if I've got evidence like pocket materials

40:03

and manuals and all these other things

40:06

we're going to find out what you've been doing.

40:08

I mean, let's not get lost, you know,

40:10

into, oh, all these poor people at Guantanamo Bay.

40:13

Granted, there were plenty of people that

40:15

probably shouldn't have been there

40:17

that got swept up with those of them.

40:18

But there were plenty of bad folks there too.

40:19

Plenty of them.

40:21

And you had to sort it out.

40:22

Okay. So that being said,

40:24

if I need to develop a relationship with you

40:27

and you're going to talk with me,

40:30

then one, why do I want to have you have access

40:31

to lots of other people

40:35

who could support you being resistant

40:36

in your collective.

40:38

I don't want to do that.

40:39

And second, if you're going to talk

40:40

and you need to have a relationship

40:42

I want you to have it with me.

40:42

And I want you to talk to me.

40:45

So you're in the process of being

40:47

your belief to have done something pretty significant.

40:50

You're going to talk to me

40:53

and that's what you're going to talk to for awhile.

40:54

Now that might be somewhere around several weeks

40:55

but I don't know about a year or two years.

40:59

And there've been some people who were just housed

41:02

in places where they were housed by themselves.

41:05

-

[Male Interviewer] And after several weeks

41:09

if they don't break what happens under your theories?

41:10

-

Well, I mean

41:14

The question is break.

41:15

Maybe they don't break

41:17

'cause there's nothing they have to say.

41:18

I mean, that's a big piece of it, but, you know, could you

41:20

you know, could you develop a relationship and a rapport?

41:24

And I was of the belief that, you know

41:26

there was probably a good five to 10% of those folks

41:27

no matter what you did, they weren't going to talk.

41:32

They weren't going to talk.

41:36

They just weren't gonna, you know

41:37

and people didn't like hearing that

41:39

but you just had to accept the fact that they weren't.

41:42

I mean, there are many U.S., you know

41:44

prisoners of war never talked.

41:46

Some did some didn't

41:48

and there was a good percentage that didn't

41:50

and there were many who had stories that led you to believe.

41:52

And that's why the lot of them were released.

41:57

We got very involved later on

41:59

in a risk release assessment program.

42:00

I was involved in that with CITF

42:02

where we evaluated people and said, is this person a risk?

42:04

You know, what's the deal, let them go.

42:08

-

[Male Interviewer] What standards do you use to decide?

42:10

-

We developed our own model.

42:12

-

[Male Interviewer] Can you tell us a little bit about it?

42:13

-

Yeah, we did.

42:16

We were, we used based on risk models used in violence.

42:17

I mean, I've written books

42:21

a book on workplace violence and articles.

42:22

And my team had people who are well studied

42:25

in assassination and other types of risks.

42:28

And so what was their potential for violence?

42:30

And, you know, if you're released them

42:33

what was the chance that they'd be, you know, a recidivist.

42:35

And so we would look at the individuals

42:38

based on the materials that we had.

42:40

And often there were many holes in the case files

42:42

and categorize them one, two, three, four.

42:45

And if they were really considered a serious risk

42:48

and that they had been

42:51

we used a number of factors, that level of commitment.

42:53

So how committed were they to the radical Islam?

42:56

What was their capability?

43:01

So were they trained in, in an organized training camp

43:02

or did they just sort of get some training and safe house?

43:05

What were their associations?

43:10

So were they affiliated with,

43:12

were their affiliations

43:14

with those people who are known

43:15

to have done really bad things

43:17

and what were their articulated intentions?

43:18

So there would be people who were very radical

43:20

who had been trained in the camps,

43:23

who had known other and affiliated

43:25

with other significant Al-Qaeda members who engaged

43:28

in violent acts against the United States who sat there

43:31

and said to you, as soon as you let me go

43:33

I'm going to become a suicide bomber.

43:35

Well, thanks very much.

43:37

I think we'll just keep you here for awhile

43:38

or individuals who said, you know,

43:40

this doesn't make any sense.

43:43

There's no real commitment

43:43

and you could look at their behavior.

43:45

And then of course you knew over years

43:46

it became a sort of a culture in there

43:48

where people were self,

43:49

were being radicalized by the group, had no capabilities.

43:50

They were affiliations and who they knew were really limited

43:54

to people who really, if anything were pretty low level

43:58

and they were remorseful and like didn't need to be there.

44:01

And it was a mistake

44:05

and you'd rate them as pretty low level.

44:08

And I think there was based on the,

44:11

I don't have the stats in my head,

44:13

but the recidivism was probably no different

44:14

than the recidivism coming out of U.S. prisons.

44:17

There were people that went back and fought.

44:19

The question was, was it because we missed it?

44:21

Or they were so pissed from having been in Guantanamo

44:24

and around people who were radicalized

44:27

that they joined the cause.

44:29

Nobody knew nobody's done any follow up.

44:30

-

[Male Interviewer] So I just want to reaffirm

44:32

you say you were on the team

44:34

or with people who review each of these men

44:36

before they were released?

44:36

-

Right, well, there was, well,

44:38

there was a review of actually all the Guantanamo prisoners

44:40

at one point, and that was done

44:44

by a team that was multidisciplinary.

44:46

You had individuals who were investigators, lawyers

44:48

security people, psychologist, or behavioral people.

44:53

And then the, you know,

44:57

the commanders of CITF

44:58

and stuff would make a recommendation.

45:01

And then they started doing that

45:03

on the Intel side, they did their own.

45:04

So

45:08

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you personally interview

45:08

a detainee in this process?

45:10

-

No, it was all case file review.

45:12

You couldn't interview because they didn't speak English.

45:15

-

[Male Interviewer] Some did.

45:17

-

Some, but very few

45:18

-

[Male Interviewer] But you never spoke

45:20

to a detainee personally?

45:21

-

No, I went for a risk assessment?

45:28

No, we wouldn't.

45:30

-

[Male Interviewer] For another reason?

45:31

-

I mean, I remember chatting with a few

45:34

you know who were going to be run as sources?

45:37

-

[Male Interviewer] What does that mean?

45:40

Meaning they were going to go back against Al-Qaeda.

45:41

-

- [Male Interviewer] You mean you released,

45:44

the U.S. government released some people knowing

45:45

that they would then work for us?

45:47

-

Well, we didn't release some, there it's a long story

45:50

and I probably shouldn't go that on there

45:53

but there were people who agreed to work for us.

45:55

Yeah. Who were they?

45:58

Not necessarily in Guantanamo Bay, but we had captured them

45:59

much like you would, so then no, they weren't Guantanamo Bay

46:04

but in terms of Guantanamo Bay, it was,

46:08

you had an investigator who was doing the interviews

46:10

talking to the person, and then we use,

46:13

we would use case file material to make a determination.

46:16

But yeah, cause for me to go and interview them

46:21

what were they going to tell me that they hadn't already

46:23

told seven investigators?

46:24

And why would you meet, why would a psychologist meet with

46:27

-

[Male Interviewer] Well psychologists

46:28

might have a better insight than a

46:30

-

That's a slippery slope with APA?

46:32

No, it was, it was better.

46:36

It was much better and more ethical

46:37

for a psychologist to talk with an interviewer who was there

46:39

for a law enforcement function

46:43

than for a psychologist to go in

46:45

and interview a detainees for the purposes

46:47

of what could lead to their prosecution or impact, you know

46:49

whether they could be released or not.

46:53

So I used to sit on a,

46:54

well, that's not a good example

46:57

parole and clemency boards

46:58

in the United States, psychologists do interviews,

46:59

but it was sort of set up like that

47:02

only with material.

47:03

-

[Male Interviewer] Some of the detainees

47:06

we interviewed were very smart.

47:07

Some were not, some were very smart.

47:09

-

Some were very well educated.

47:11

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, I don't know,

47:13

not just, well educated, smart!

47:14

Did that have effect in the way you review a file?

47:16

-

Well, you'd have to, you'd have to know.

47:20

You know?

47:23

Yeah, I mean, it depends if we knew they were educated

47:26

but the people who were educated were, you know

47:29

look at Muhammad Atta, I mean, he was really smart too.

47:31

So being really smart could make you more of a risk

47:36

than if you were really dumb as a rock

47:39

-

[Male Interviewer] That's what I was asking you.

47:40

If that was a factor.

47:41

-

Yeah. I mean, I think we looked at that.

47:42

I think we looked at education level.

47:43

We looked at what, if we knew it or they told us

47:45

see sometimes you would know it

47:48

probably what people told you.

47:50

They may never have told their interrogators.

47:51

It's a very different context.

47:54

So I relied on information that was derived

47:56

from an interview or interrogation.

47:59

-

[Male Interviewer] Do you have any bias

48:02

for or against people who spoke English?

48:04

-

A bias, no.

48:06

-

No. Well, English would be easier because the agents

48:08

could communicate more effectively.

48:11

You know, the translators were a real challenge

48:13

because of course you had issues with translators

48:15

in terms of were they really telling

48:17

you what they were saying.

48:18

And were they identifying with the brother,

48:20

if you will from their home country

48:23

or did they have their own sort of anger and frustration?

48:25

So you always had to

48:28

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you suspect that was a problem?

48:29

-

There were problems with translators, yeah.

48:30

I think there's some documented cases

48:33

-

[Female Interviewer] Details.

48:37

Could you, can you go into any details about that?

48:38

-

About what?

48:41

-

[Female Interviewer] Problems with translators?

48:43

Any specific?

48:46

-

I think there was a case.

48:47

Yeah. There was some cases around the Uyghurs.

48:48

I think if you go back and look at that,

48:49

there was some problems with the translators there

48:52

because you know, the Uyghurs, you know,

48:53

if you released them to China, they'd execute them.

48:54

So, in trying to sort of understand what they're doing

48:57

the translators could be a little bit biased

49:00

-

[Female Interviewer] And you're thinking

49:06

withhold information?

49:07

-

[Male Interviewer] Would you answer?

49:09

-

Yeah. I'm sorry.

49:10

Withhold information or just distort information

49:11

not pervasively, but there were tons of translators.

49:15

There were problems with translators.

49:19

You could see there were,

49:20

you can go back and do some research

49:21

and find out there were some cases

49:23

where information was released.

49:24

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you know James Yee the chaplain?

49:28

He was a Muslim chaplain.

49:32

-

No, I didn't know him.

49:33

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you have any interactions

49:35

with chaplains at all?

49:36

-

No, not that I can remember.

49:38

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you walk through the cells

49:42

and see the men in the prison cells?

49:43

-

MM-hmm

49:45

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you have a stop

49:46

to talk to them along the way?

49:47

-

No.

49:52

-

[Male Interviewer] What was your sense seeing them?

49:53

Was it just, did you have any sense on, you know,

49:55

what you were observing?

50:00

-

[Female Interviewer] You mean the whole setup

50:02

of Guantanamo?

50:02

-

[Male Interviewer] Yeah.

50:03

-

At what point?

50:04

Like the very first, very first with the cages.

50:05

[Male Interviewer] Yeah.

50:08

Yeah, it was, that was very disturbing

50:09

to see that you know,

50:11

how people, and at the same time

50:13

another example of why are we doing this?

50:15

Why are we keeping sort of a potentially radicalized group

50:17

of people not knowing what we had early on

50:21

together you know, where we,

50:25

who could actually help

50:27

and support each other in resistance, you know?

50:28

So that was ridiculous.

50:32

The, yeah, I mean, it was ridiculous.

50:34

I mean, they were, I mean, cages, they weren't

50:36

you saw what they look like, but they were, you know

50:38

cells right next to each other that were all, you know

50:40

nothing separated them.

50:43

And so,

50:44

then when they went to the more makeshift

50:46

cone boxes, you still had, you know

50:49

they could interact across.

50:53

And then, then it got more sophisticated

50:55

after I pretty much dropped back after 2004

50:57

2005 wasn't as involved anymore.

51:01

-

[Female Interviewer] Were all interviews videotaped.

51:05

-

No.

51:09

-

[Female Interviewer] So you could not have

51:10

looked at a videotaped interrogation.

51:11

-

No.

51:14

-

[Male Interviewer] Somewhere, you said

51:15

you saw the reviews, you did see some,

51:16

some were videotaped, you said.

51:18

-

Saw them when I was there, they were there filmed.

51:19

They may have been videotaped

51:23

but I didn't watch video tapes.

51:24

-

[Male Interviewer] Oh you're watching that in real time.

51:27

-

Yeah.

51:29

-

[Male Interviewer] Okay.

51:30

-

Yeah. A number of them when I was there

51:31

with especially NCIS agents and FBI agents

51:32

they'd, on some of the high level cases I would watch

51:35

and some that have been prosecuted, I was involved in.

51:38

-

[Male Interviewer] In the interrogations room,

51:40

there were always,

51:41

I'm told there was two cone, one was in military

51:42

and one was a civilian.

51:44

Is that true?

51:45

-

No

51:46

-

[Male Interviewer] That's not right?

51:47

-

No, remember what I said

51:48

that basically it's separated

51:49

after around 2000

51:50

and the fall of 2002.

51:52

-

[Male Interviewer] So only very early on

51:54

were there two in the same room after

51:55

but you would observe both kinds?

51:58

-

No.

52:01

-

[Male Interviewer] Or you only observed,

52:02

I just want to be confirmed.

52:03

-

Yeah, once, once

52:04

-

[Male Interviewer] Once they separated out

52:05

you no longer observed the military

52:07

-

Heard about them.

52:09

but didn't have any to do with them.

52:11

-

[Male Interviewer] Right. Okay.

52:13

So no one came to you anymore for advice anymore?

52:14

-

No, no

52:17

(laughing)

52:18

-

No. They didn't.

52:18

-

[Female Interviewer] Did you work with any

52:20

of the staff who were

52:21

like the guards, did you?

52:25

-

Yes, yes, actually we did.

52:27

We actually did some similar training early on

52:28

with a lot of the guards

52:32

to help them better understand what the

52:35

differences were.

52:39

in a lot of,

52:40

-

[Male Interviewer] How early did you start

52:41

working with them?

52:42

-

Right away,

52:43

right away, how they could better understand, you know

52:44

who these people were and what was different

52:46

about them and how they would respond to instructions.

52:49

And of course the guards had, you know

52:52

their own specific guidance

52:54

from their folks, but yeah, we work yeah.

52:56

Early. Right, right when that,

52:58

especially when it went from the cages

52:59

if you will, to the Connex boxes

53:02

Yeah, we did a lot of training there

53:04

and we actually Bureau of Prisons helped us a bit.

53:06

They provided some good guidance.

53:10

-

[Male Interviewer] What things would you

53:13

tell the guards exactly?

53:13

-

Well, we, we would

53:15

we would train them on understanding the,

53:16

you know, the way they communicated

53:18

the different types of behaviors

53:19

like we did with the agents, but much more superficially

53:22

'cause they would interact and talk with them,

53:24

you know, and to understand,

53:26

you know, what the differences were

53:28

how to manage some of their frustration with them.

53:29

We did a little bit of that.

53:31

-

[Male Interviewer] I hate to ask for specifics again,

53:34

but can you just tell me generally

53:36

-

I just, so we would do a training

53:37

with the guards around, you know, the way they,

53:39

how to establish a little bit of rapport, how to, you know

53:43

to understand the cultural differences

53:47

some of the cultural idiosyncrasies, you know

53:49

there's a big thing there about respecting the Qur'an and

53:53

you know, that was a big thing.

53:56

You know, they didn't search the Qur'an,

53:57

you know, actually you should,

54:00

you can do some of your own research

54:02

you know, the way the DOD allegedly treated these folks

54:03

and how people objected to that.

54:07

You aught to see the way the United States Marshall Service

54:09

treats U.S. prisoners for security and safety

54:11

they search Qur'ans, they strip search all their,

54:15

all the people they move.

54:18

And of course the military couldn't do that.

54:20

And when, you know,

54:23

the Marshals would come in and take,

54:24

starting to take people for trials, you know they're talking

54:26

oh, you know, they'll object all they want.

54:28

Good, go tell that to a judge.

54:31

Judge is going to say, sorry

54:33

that's what we do in the United States of America.

54:34

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you, did you talk to the guards

54:37

in terms of whether it was appropriate

54:39

or acceptable for them to talk to the detainees?

54:40

-

Well, to some extent, you know

54:43

back then you wanted them to pay attention that wasn't

54:44

that they needed to talk to them

54:47

but they need to pay attention to their behavior.

54:48

That could be helpful to an interrogation.

54:51

-

[Male Interviewer] And it was supposed to report

54:56

what they observed?

54:57

-

They would, they would report to their

54:58

they would log a lot of their observations.

55:00

In each of the times they were doing their rotations

55:03

with their people.

55:06

And then the interviewers and interrogators would

55:07

could go look at those logs.

55:09

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you supervisor have anything to do

55:11

with the medics, the young, the non-sector.

55:13

-

No, no.

55:15

I wouldn't do anything

55:17

that had anything to do with treatment,

55:18

no treatment.

55:22

That was very important.

55:23

If you did operational work

55:24

you stayed on the operational side

55:25

let the other psychologists, psychiatrists

55:27

physicians do the treatment and don't interact with them.

55:29

Don't even talk to them

55:32

because you didn't want to contaminate that.

55:36

That was, that's a whole different process.

55:39

-

[Female Interviewer] And what is your overall

55:44

impression of the effect of Guantanamo on

55:46

the Americans working there?

55:50

Because they, weren't a very confined area.

55:52

We've talked to guards

55:54

and others who found it a very difficult placement,

55:56

away from family,

56:00

nothing to do in this very awkward position.

56:01

Did they get any kind of support

56:05

as far as you know, or did you,

56:07

do you feel that it was a particularly challenging?

56:09

I know you said it's a pretty, yeah

56:11

-

It was, it was particularly challenging for them.

56:12

You know, you had a lot of these young,

56:14

well, young, well a lot of them were reservists rotating in

56:17

and they would take on this duty

56:21

they would stay in the, and it was hot.

56:22

Yeah. It's a pretty Island, but it's a pretty Island

56:24

if you get to drive around on it a bit, but you know

56:27

they lived in these barracks and I know that early on

56:30

there was a lot of struggle around their morale.

56:33

Which obviously probably had an effect

56:35

on the situation there for sure.

56:38

But I think overall,

56:40

they started to do some improvements with it

56:42

over the years, but early on, it was very frustrating.

56:45

-

[Male Interviewer] Have you heard about any homicides

56:48

at Guantanamo?

56:50

-

No.

56:51

-

[Male Interviewer] Really?

56:52

And have you heard of Camp No?

56:53

Have you ever heard that?

56:56

-

No.

56:57

-

[Male Interviewer] The General's cottage,

56:57

you've never heard of that?

56:59

-

No.

57:00

-

[Male Interviewer] So essentially the whole military

57:01

and CIA angle just was outside your

57:03

-

Yes.

57:06

-

[Female Interviewer] And socially would groups like NCIS,

57:10

hang out at the bar

57:13

with CIA folks

57:15

and chat

57:17

outside the scope of work?

57:19

And when you chat, work, things come up or

57:21

-

Would you, so would you socialize?

57:24

But there was some socializing I recall,

57:26

going on between everyone

57:28

-

[Female Interviewer] Okay.

57:29

-

but I don't know how much

57:30

I mean, there was just clear,

57:31

blatant disagreement on things.

57:33

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you ever do any work

57:35

with John Walker Lindh, you know?

57:36

-

Yes.

57:39

-

[Male Interviewer] Can you tell us a little about that?

57:40

-

So I was brought in with John Walker Lindh

57:41

by his attorneys when he was debriefed

57:44

in we get, they offered a debrief.

57:48

And as a result of that,

57:52

we talked to the attorneys about whether I could

57:54

be present when we debriefed him.

57:56

And they said, yes.

57:58

And they even asked me to chat with him a little bit.

57:59

That was a very different circumstance.

58:01

-

[Male Interviewer] Why do you say that?

58:03

Well, he wasn't in Guantanamo Bay.

58:06

And my contact with him was orchestrated like,

58:08

through his attorneys, like

58:12

we'd be orchestrated for any other kind

58:13

of contact that would have with a prisoner.

58:15

But yeah, but he was, John was

58:19

the debrief was very helpful.

58:21

He was very engaged.

58:23

And I think it was a very, very helpful experience.

58:26

And when I go back and think about that

58:29

the kinds of things that John shared

58:31

was very useful for us in terms of understanding what,

58:35

not just somebody from the West would go through

58:38

who went over there

58:40

cause John really went through some training

58:41

but he really never really got engaged

58:42

in a whole lot of stuff.

58:44

At least from our opinion from other people

58:47

he was pretty much on the back lines,

58:49

but nonetheless, you know,

58:52

what he shared was very helpful.

58:53

So, yeah, I, and I chatted with him and his attorneys

58:55

at one point he bright kid,

58:58

kind of a little misguided,

59:00

a little lost.

59:01

I guess he must be getting close to getting

59:03

out of prison soon, isn't he?

59:04

Oh, does he have another eight years?

59:06

Really, what they give him 20?

59:08

Oh.

59:10

-

[Male Interviewer] And was, did the attorneys

59:11

want you there?

59:13

You were working for the government.

59:15

-

Yeah, yeah Oh yeah.

59:16

I was, I think to understand the behavior, the mindset

59:17

and to be able to interpret what he was sharing

59:20

from that perspective for our own insights.

59:23

So, yeah.

59:26

-

[Male Interviewer] And you wrote up a report that

59:27

his attorneys could see?

59:29

-

I don't know if I wrote up a report.

59:32

-

Yeah. Well, whatever we wrote

59:38

we shared with the attorneys, the attorneys were great.

59:39

Yeah. I mean, we have prosecutor

59:42

and defense attorneys there.

59:43

It was, it was not a

59:44

it was a very open and he, this was part of the agreement.

59:47

-

[Male Interviewer] And did it lead to this,

59:53

to the plea bargain?

59:54

Were you involved?

59:56

-

Oh no, I wasn't involved in that.

59:57

-

[Male Interviewer] So you were just there to?

59:58

-

I was just interested in, okay,

59:59

here, we had a guy, you know, who had been

1:00:01

through a camp who had been, you know, involved

1:00:03

what could he tell us?

1:00:06

What could we understand?

1:00:07

I want to understand about

1:00:07

you know, the way they did training, the way they, you know

1:00:09

did radicalization that sort of thing.

1:00:11

-

[Male Interviewer] And was it helpful for you?

1:00:13

-

Yeah, it was very helpful.

1:00:15

Yeah.

1:00:16

-

[Male Interviewer] Can you share any of that with us or?

1:00:17

-

I don't know what I remember,

1:00:19

we just talked about, you know

1:00:20

the way he talked about the specific trainings,

1:00:23

the exercising, the drills

1:00:25

the day to day activities, the study, you know

1:00:27

what they said to them.

1:00:31

-

[Female Interviewer] Could you talk about the concept

1:00:37

of learned helplessness

1:00:39

and whether you think it had any role

1:00:41

in fighting terrorism

1:00:43

or whether it had an influence on the

1:00:45

Intel side of interrogations?

1:00:50

-

Well, I mean, the notion of learned helplessness is

1:00:55

that you just essentially have lost all control.

1:00:58

There's no self efficacy.

1:01:01

And so to me, I mean

1:01:03

I don't know what kind of law you practice, but I mean

1:01:05

any kind of learned helplessness

1:01:09

and we were always careful about this

1:01:10

and in any type of Western interrogation would lead

1:01:12

to a coercive or false confession.

1:01:15

I mean, so that,

1:01:17

and that was, that just,

1:01:19

we really hadn't touched on that

1:01:21

but that was a big piece of where we came from is, you know

1:01:22

because all the interrogations, I remember consulting

1:01:25

on lots of non Guantanamo interrogations, you know, where

1:01:29

you know, you specifically were very concerned

1:01:31

about agents entering into,

1:01:35

you know, a set of questions that would lead

1:01:38

to a coerced false confession.

1:01:40

I mean, if a psychologist who consults

1:01:42

on an interrogation has any real key priorities,

1:01:44

that's one of them, second of course,

1:01:46

is to recognize where in fact

1:01:48

somebody may in fact be mentally ill and,

1:01:50

you know, to be able to recognize that pretty quickly

1:01:52

and, or potentially suicidal,

1:01:57

but so learned helplessness.

1:02:01

Yeah. I think the notion was, again, this was

1:02:02

this whole aggressive coercive tactics to get information.

1:02:04

So if you established sort of

1:02:08

a situation where someone experiences learned helplessness

1:02:10

you're going to get information.

1:02:13

I mean, and to say that

1:02:15

by waterboarding and using some of these coercive tactics

1:02:17

they probably got lots of information.

1:02:20

Yes, so if that was the metric very successful.

1:02:23

-

Now,

1:02:27

show me if you vetted that information,

1:02:28

how much of that was really accurate,

1:02:30

reliable, or just wasn't made up,

1:02:31

'cause we knew people, we know people who

1:02:32

were tortured will tell you anything.

1:02:34

And as a result of that, I mean, there's the biggest risk

1:02:37

you want to get engaged in any type of aggressive

1:02:39

or coercive tactic,

1:02:42

creating an in a situation where

1:02:43

the person feels a total loss of control and a total sense

1:02:46

of, of learned helplessness.

1:02:49

You're going to get information.

1:02:51

The question is what kind of information

1:02:53

you're going to get.

1:02:54

That's why this rapport based approach was very important

1:02:55

because you established a relationship and, and really

1:02:58

what you were doing was you,

1:03:01

to some extent violating the expectation of the detainee.

1:03:03

They really expected you to be, and then you weren't.

1:03:07

And by having a relationship and being able to

1:03:10

have conversations and talk about themes

1:03:12

that were important to them,

1:03:14

they developed a relationship with you.

1:03:15

Now, once I have a relationship with you

1:03:17

-

With that culture, very important

1:03:19

that I don't disappoint you

1:03:21

or bring shame upon myself.

1:03:23

So I would give information

1:03:25

if the questions were asked, right.

1:03:26

I remember once this was an Iraqi example.

1:03:30

I remember there,

1:03:32

and this was more of somebody who we were using

1:03:33

as a source against some of the insurgence.

1:03:36

And he was with the military.

1:03:38

And I remember the agents were infuriated

1:03:40

because he went out with a couple

1:03:44

of the military guys and they got very aggressive with them.

1:03:45

They actually slapped him around a bit

1:03:48

because they gave him a map, you know

1:03:50

and I remember I was there

1:03:53

and they came back and they said, well, you know

1:03:54

he didn't give us any information

1:03:56

he gave because he got the wrong safe house on the map.

1:03:58

And I just remember looking

1:04:02

at a couple of these guys going,

1:04:03

who's the idiot who gave him a map?

1:04:04

Go get a satellite picture

1:04:06

and they went and got a satellite picture.

1:04:08

And sure enough, what do you think?

1:04:10

Pointed out the exact right spot?

1:04:12

So that was the whole, that's just an example of, you know

1:04:13

where if you have an emotional processor, who's very visual.

1:04:17

Oh, an example would be, you know

1:04:20

can you tell me about where the safe house is?

1:04:23

You know, and you're not looking for them to tell you

1:04:25

that it's on the corner of main and seventh.

1:04:27

And you know, this town, it's, you know

1:04:30

by a brook that sits by a very green valley

1:04:33

where there were a lot of fig trees,

1:04:36

well how thick are the fig trees and what's the slope

1:04:37

of the valley and that, you know,

1:04:41

would yield very reliable types of information.

1:04:43

But yeah, I remember that with the map,

1:04:47

that was just a one-time incident in Iraq.

1:04:49

And I, and I'll tell you what, I mean

1:04:50

the guys who actually got into it

1:04:53

with them felt horrible later,

1:04:54

and they took good care of him

1:04:56

but that was the kind of frustration.

1:04:58

But admittedly, there you are in a war zone going

1:05:00

into a neighborhood filled with insurgents, you know

1:05:03

you're going after something you're targeting

1:05:05

you get pretty off if in fact you almost got killed going

1:05:06

after the wrong rabbit.

1:05:09

-

[Male Interviewer] Did ever hear the term frequent flyer.

1:05:12

-

Yeah.

1:05:15

I don't know what it's associated with.

1:05:18

-

[Male Interviewer] Where the detainees are moved

1:05:19

from cell to cell every three hours or so.

1:05:20

This says one detainee, a young kid was moved 114 times

1:05:22

in 12 days from cell to cell.

1:05:26

-

Yeah. I think I had heard about that, vaguely.

1:05:29

-

[Male Interviewer] Would you (indistinct)

1:05:31

-

No, we wouldn't endorse that.

1:05:32

-

[Male Interviewer] (indistinct) I know you wouldn't

1:05:33

endorse that but I wondered if you knew that was happening.

1:05:34

-

Yeah. I mean, there were all kinds

1:05:38

of crazy things happening.

1:05:39

I mean, it was like

1:05:40

who can get more creative with doing something ridiculous

1:05:41

and crazy that was tormenting.

1:05:44

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, did you have any input

1:05:46

on dealing with the young men?

1:05:48

My understanding was there were any number of young men

1:05:50

under 18, and some, even as young as 15 or 14 there

1:05:54

did you have any say, teen detainees, how to deal with them?

1:05:57

-

We, I remember some, a couple

1:06:03

of cases when I was in Afghanistan

1:06:05

at one point in time where it was very important

1:06:07

to make sure they were well taken care of,

1:06:09

you know, that they're sure they were fed right

1:06:12

and, you know, they're a couple of them were,

1:06:15

I mean, one was just convicted who was

1:06:18

who would kill the special forces officer

1:06:20

which was also interesting

1:06:25

'cause he was in a battle,

1:06:26

but yeah, not so much the young ones

1:06:28

they came much later when my involvement

1:06:31

-

[Male Interviewer] You didn't really interact

1:06:35

with the young inmates.

1:06:36

-

No, no.

1:06:37

-

[Male Interviewer] Did you ever do any work

1:06:38

with the Naval Brig in South Carolina

1:06:39

with Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi and Ali al-Marri.

1:06:42

-

No.

1:06:47

-

[Male Interviewer] Nothing?

1:06:47

-

Not going to talk about

1:06:49

-

[Male Interviewer] Oh, not going to talk about that, okay.

1:06:51

Do you, is this something that I didn't ask you that

1:06:57

maybe you want to just tell us?

1:07:00

-

No. I mean, I think

1:07:08

I think the key to all that happened

1:07:11

was come the,

1:07:15

was around the Thanksgiving timeframe in 2002.

1:07:17

So there was lots going on.

1:07:22

And, and you're hearing bits and pieces

1:07:24

of people who had little lenses in different places.

1:07:26

And psychologically, sometimes, you know

1:07:30

every memory is distorted

1:07:32

and things get a little bit more, many times.

1:07:34

There's lots of exaggeration going on down there.

1:07:37

That's that I would tell you, I really, and I listened

1:07:39

to some of the stories that come out of there

1:07:42

that I think are just quite frankly, very exaggerated

1:07:44

for a lot of their own self promoting reasons, you know

1:07:48

to the extent that people describe, you know

1:07:52

certain types of treatments that I think are way

1:07:55

beyond what was going on there let's face it.

1:07:57

Yeah. There was some pretty,

1:07:59

you know horrendous stuff that occurred on some level

1:08:02

but we're still talking about it,

1:08:05

even in their worst,

1:08:06

worst behavior, the U S,

1:08:08

you know, and there was incidents where people were killed.

1:08:10

I understand that in certain places

1:08:12

but overall let's not, you know

1:08:14

there were a few incidents that didn't really

1:08:16

weren't pervasive, but the Kahtani case in its own right.

1:08:19

Is a seminal case because it really drew down to,

1:08:24

you know, the debate between the law enforcement

1:08:28

or the rapport based approach

1:08:32

and those who wanted to use more coercive tactics.

1:08:33

And that's where Alberto Mora got involved.

1:08:36

And in all fairness,

1:08:38

based on some of our opposition

1:08:41

they turned it back down

1:08:44

they were going up to level four, level five.

1:08:46

They were going to go way up and based

1:08:48

on what Alberto was able to do and orchestrate

1:08:50

and what we put together

1:08:52

to counter it, they dialed it down.

1:08:54

-

[Male Interviewer] How do you know that?

1:08:55

-

We know that they never went to level four and level five,

1:08:57

they were never authorized.

1:09:00

-

[Male Interviewer] And you think it's because

1:09:01

Alberto spoke to Jim Hayne?

1:09:03

-

Oh there's no two ways about it,

1:09:04

there was a lot of, a lot of what Alberto did

1:09:05

that actually interfered and interrupted

1:09:08

their forward motion with that.

1:09:11

-

[Male Interviewer] Why?

1:09:14

-

Why?

1:09:15

-

[Male Interviewer] Yeah, why would they listen

1:09:16

to Alberta more than

1:09:17

-

Well, I mean, I think, I, I think after a while, I mean

1:09:18

he was, he was speaking, you know, he was speaking publicly

1:09:20

and he, it was, he was making sense.

1:09:24

I mean, actually I'm not quite sure

1:09:25

how publicly he was speaking.

1:09:27

I mean, it was all very much contained in the system.

1:09:30

We went to meetings, we developed memos, wrote things.

1:09:33

He talked publicly after he left.

1:09:36

But,

1:09:39

-

[Male Interviewer] The Jim Haynes apparently ignored him

1:09:40

when he first went Jim Haynes.

1:09:41

-

Yeah he did but he kept.

1:09:43

He's persistent and there were other

1:09:44

I have to remember there were other lawyers, I mean

1:09:46

the Navy JAGs in the Army JAGs

1:09:49

they didn't support it either.

1:09:51

I mean, there weren't any lawyers,

1:09:53

there weren't a lot of lawyers supporting this stuff.

1:09:54

I mean, because like anything else, I mean

1:09:57

how are you ever going to try these folks?

1:10:00

I mean, what were you going to ever do with them?

1:10:03

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, I'm not sure that

1:10:05

Cheney or you

1:10:06

-

Don't care about that.

1:10:07

They didn't care about that.

1:10:08

They wanted the information in the moment

1:10:09

because they believed that they needed to protect America.

1:10:11

I understand that.

1:10:14

Totally understand that.

1:10:15

In fact, I would say too

1:10:16

I don't really care whether you ever prosecute these guys,

1:10:17

but please take an approach that, you know

1:10:19

is moral and ethical on some level

1:10:22

but also get accurate and reliable information.

1:10:25

But I'm quick to say that

1:10:28

I've said that before

1:10:29

the moral and the ethical thing.

1:10:30

Sure. There's an element of that

1:10:31

but the accurate and reliable information, quite frankly

1:10:32

more important, much more important, you know,

1:10:35

and this whole ticking time bomb thing.

1:10:39

I remember being up at Harvard

1:10:41

and talking to Dershowitz about it.

1:10:43

I mean, I understood his position, but

1:10:44

I mean talk about just

1:10:46

what that drove in terms of,

1:10:48

you know, people's thinking, and you know, sometimes

1:10:51

you just need metaphors to validate your experience.

1:10:53

That's what a psychoanalytic interpretation is.

1:10:56

And so there were people sort of interpreting things

1:11:00

and validating what people were feeling

1:11:02

and sort of driving this, but

1:11:04

-

[Male Interviewer] Should Obama close Guantanamo today?

1:11:06

-

I don't know about today.

1:11:11

Probably have closed years ago.

1:11:12

I mean, I just don't get it.

1:11:15

I mean, I think part of it is that,

1:11:17

I mean, it's been 10 years.

1:11:20

I mean, at this point in time, either know what you've got

1:11:24

or you don't, and I think they know

1:11:27

what they've got there now.

1:11:29

They know who the bad guys are.

1:11:30

Now it's a very small percentage.

1:11:31

I know I I'm giving you my opinion.

1:11:36

-

[Male Interviewer] Right.

1:11:38

-

I mean, United States Marshall Service

1:11:39

and the Bureau of Prisons in the United States

1:11:41

seems to have been a very

1:11:44

is a very well-established and effective system.

1:11:45

Okay. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen to,

1:11:48

you know these terrorists,

1:11:52

if you brought in Super max in Colorado

1:11:53

there's a bunch of them there now, as you well know

1:11:55

and they don't seem to be running around the neighborhoods.

1:11:57

I mean, I don't mean to be so, you know,

1:12:00

off the cuff with this,

1:12:02

or just a sarcastic, but I mean, yeah,

1:12:03

I don't know what purpose it's serving.

1:12:05

I mean, now maybe they're going to do these now, maybe.

1:12:07

And I say that because I've watched this for 10 years is

1:12:11

with the view as a lawyer,

1:12:13

maybe they're going to do these trials,

1:12:15

but I still think you know,

1:12:18

if you were interrogated in such a way

1:12:20

what do you, what kind of, what are you gonna do with it?

1:12:22

I'd say, it's just, you know, what are you gonna do it?

1:12:25

So we'll see.

1:12:27

I mean, hopefully there's enough

1:12:28

evidence aside from whatever KSM

1:12:31

and the other said to be able to try them, you know

1:12:33

a confession didn't matter.

1:12:36

There's lots of cases where a confession doesn't matter.

1:12:38

I'm sure there's some of that, but yeah,

1:12:42

you can just watch.

1:12:46

I mean, I feel badly for him.

1:12:47

He probably shouldn't have spoke up so quick

1:12:49

and really realized what a mess he had down there

1:12:51

but he has plenty of messes these days.

1:12:53

So

1:12:56

-

[Male Interviewer] You mentioned case twice.

1:12:58

I just wanted to ask, you never had

1:13:00

-

No, no, I never dealt.

1:13:02

I never dealt with those cases.

1:13:03

Cause those, those high value targets were obviously

1:13:05

as we now know at CIA and,

1:13:08

you know, under the auspices of doctors, Mitchell and Jessen

1:13:11

who gave psychology a great name.

1:13:15

Right?

1:13:17

Right

1:13:19

-

[Male Interviewer] And the rendition,

1:13:20

you were never involved in it.

1:13:21

-

No, no, I'm much more.

1:13:22

I was much more involved in

1:13:24

the basic CITF law enforcement stuff.

1:13:27

My role was just, I was just pretty outspoken without

1:13:30

with Alberto Mora and Dave Brant and Mark Fallon

1:13:33

and all the others that supported us and,

1:13:37

and basically wrote some things

1:13:39

that I thought were a counter position.

1:13:41

It's like you're writing it in an alternative opinion

1:13:43

and that's what it was.

1:13:46

That's all it was.

1:13:47

So,

1:13:50

-

[Male Interviewer] Well, unless you want

1:13:51

to add one more thing.

1:13:53

I think we're

1:13:53

-

No, I don't know.

1:13:54

I probably didn't give you as much

1:13:55

as you thought you were going to get.

1:13:56

-

[Male Interviewer] No, that was great.

1:13:58

-

Okay, it's been told many times

1:13:59

-

[Male Interviewer] But you gave us a perspective

1:14:03

that I don't think we've had before.

1:14:05

I can say that off camera, but Johnny needs 20 seconds.

1:14:07

Just room tone before we close up.

1:14:11

-

Sure.

1:14:13

Begin room tone

1:14:16

End room tone.

1:14:27

So, you know what would be a great thing.

1:14:29

Gelles, Michael - Interview master file

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