Clemente, Jim - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer 1

Due to start,

0:05

I'm just gonna say some opening statements

0:06

that we always say just to kind of,

0:08

set the tone and then,

0:11

you know, kinda feel like I wanna have ask

0:13

too many questions.

0:15

-

Well, I don't know, it depends.

0:16

I might get staged fright or something.

0:18

-

Okay.

0:20

-

Go on.

-

Okay.

0:21

Good morning.

0:22

-

Good morning.

Interviewer 1

We are very grateful to you

0:24

for participating in the "Witness To Guantanamo" Project.

0:25

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:29

and involvement with detainees and others

0:32

who were in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:35

We are hoping to provide you with an opportunity

0:38

to tell you a story in your own words.

0:40

-

Thank you.

0:43

Interviewer 1

We are creating an archive of stories

0:44

that people in America and around the world

0:46

will have a better understanding of what you

0:49

and others have contributed and observed.

0:51

-

Okay.

0:56

Interviewer 1

Future generations must know

0:56

what happened at Guantanamo.

0:58

And by telling you a story, you are contributing to history.

1:00

We appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us.

1:03

-

Okay.

1:07

Interviewer 1

If at any time

1:08

during the interview, you'd like to take a break,

1:09

let us know and we will take a break.

1:10

And if there's anything that you said

1:12

you'd like to retract,

1:15

just let us know and we can remove it.

1:16

I like to begin by just asking you

1:23

to please tell us your name, and your hometown,

1:24

and birth date, and age,

1:28

and education, a little bit background in a few words.

1:31

-

Okay. My name is James Clemente.

1:36

I was born in San Mateo, California,

1:39

October 30th, 1959, I'm 50 years old.

1:42

I was raised in New York,

1:46

and went to Fordham University,

1:49

got a BS in chemistry and a minor in philosophy.

1:51

And then I went to law school at Fordham Law School,

1:55

and prosecuted for the New York city Law Department

1:58

in the Bronx for a few years,

2:00

and then was recruited into the FBI.

2:02

I worked there for 22 years until October 30th, 2009,

2:04

my 50th birthday.

2:11

And at which time I retired,

2:12

and I worked everything from bank robberies,

2:16

and violent crimes in New York city,

2:21

to white collar, to public corruption.

2:23

And in the last 12 years, I worked as a profiler

2:26

in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

2:28

That's in the critical incident response group, CIRG.

2:31

And that is a group of all the FBI's entities

2:35

that respond to critical incidents across the country

2:38

and around the world

2:42

with the hostage rescue team, the hostage negotiators,

2:43

violent criminal apprehension program,

2:46

the Behavioral Analysis Unit,

2:48

and other entities that help,

2:50

sort of deal with any kind of major incidents.

2:52

Interviewer 1

What exactly would you do in that unit?

2:56

-

Well, that unit, the Behavioral Analysis Unit

2:59

is a way to analyze and advise on criminal behavior.

3:03

We look at violent criminal behavior,

3:08

sexual criminal behavior.

3:11

We study it so that we can educate police officers

3:13

at the local state and federal level

3:17

with respect to those particular crimes

3:20

that they're investigating.

3:22

We become experts in those fields

3:23

so that they don't have to.

3:25

They're spending most of their time

3:28

dealing with, you know, sort of street level issues.

3:30

And we have the ability to study those cases every day,

3:33

and put together a body of empirical data

3:39

that backs up our analysis of cases,

3:43

so that we can help them focus their investigations.

3:46

Profiling is basically reverse engineering of a crime.

3:50

It's nothing like this,

3:53

well, you know, what the media calls racial profiling,

3:55

it's the exact opposite actually.

3:57

Because we look at a crime that's already been committed.

3:59

We look at the behavior evidence at that crime scene,

4:02

and then we work backwards towards

4:04

the kind of person who committed this particular crime.

4:06

And what it does, is it narrows down the field of suspects

4:09

and helps police officers focus their investigation

4:12

so they can resolve crimes a lot faster.

4:15

We can also, we also advise them on interview strategies

4:18

and interrogation strategies.

4:23

Like myself, I taught interviewing interrogation

4:26

at the FBI Academy at the FBI National Academy.

4:28

And it's the way we do it is based on,

4:33

you know, a 100 years of performing those tasks,

4:37

that's the foundation of what we do in the FBI.

4:41

And basically, it's all rapport based, in other words.

4:45

No matter how bad this criminal is that you're talking to,

4:49

when we talk to the worst of the worst,

4:52

serial killers, people who abduct children

4:53

and rape them and kill them,

4:56

and yet we're still able to build rapport with them.

4:58

Why is that?

5:00

Because we know what our job is.

5:01

We know what the constitution says we can do,

5:02

and we work within that, to get them to talk to us.

5:04

We build a human bridge between us.

5:07

And like I said,

5:10

no matter how bad they are, they're still human beings.

5:11

And you can find a way using their particular circumstances,

5:14

their personality, to draw them out.

5:18

And the more they talk to you,

5:19

the more you're gonna learn about them.

5:20

And in turn, you can turn that around

5:23

and draw more out of them,

5:24

and that's basically it in a nutshell.

5:25

It's effective, and it's what we went down

5:29

to Guantanamo to do,

5:32

to advise them on interview and interrogation strategies,

5:33

because they weren't getting

5:37

the information they thought was available.

5:39

Interviewer 1

Could you explain who we are,

5:41

and how you, and then who invited you

5:44

to go to Guantanamo,

5:46

and what year that was?

5:47

-

Yeah.

In 2002, our unit chiefs from the Behavioral Analysis Unit

5:51

went down to...

5:56

Let me see.

6:00

All right. In 2002, the unit chief

6:03

from Behavioral Analysis Unit were invited by the military

6:06

to come down and analyze their interview

6:08

and interrogation program,

6:11

because they felt they were not getting

6:13

sufficient information from the detainees.

6:15

They went down, they decided

6:19

that they were gonna send teams

6:21

of two FBI behavioral analysts at a time for 45 day stints,

6:23

to advise on the CITF teams,

6:29

the task force-

6:33

Interviewer 1

CITF?

-

Criminal Investigative Task Force, I believe.

6:34

Made up of different federal agencies,

6:37

made up of investigators from different federal agencies.

6:41

And we would advise them in the military

6:44

in their interrogation strategies.

6:48

I went down there in October of 2002

6:52

until the beginning of December, 2002.

6:57

My job was to sort of evaluate their interview plans

7:03

their interrogation plans,

7:08

and advise on the best way to maximize

7:12

the accuracy and completeness of the information-

7:18

Interviewer 1

Were you observing interrogation,

7:21

or they would just give you a sheet

7:23

of how they plan to interrogate?

7:24

-

It started off with sheets

7:28

but then we would actually observe.

7:29

And they had every...

7:32

The interrogation rooms are set up

7:34

such that there was an observation room in the middle

7:35

with two video monitors,

7:39

and then one way mirrors on either side,

7:41

two different interrogation rooms.

7:43

So, you could observe with your eyes

7:46

and you could also look through the video camera

7:50

if you wanted it to do that.

7:52

So, yeah, we were doing that,

7:54

and we were doing sort of on the fly advising.

7:56

So, we'd watch what they were doing,

8:01

we'd watch the detainee,

8:03

we'd see what his body language was.

8:04

We'd see what he was saying and how you're saying it,

8:06

and we'd advise them on,

8:09

you know, whether or not we thought he was hiding something

8:10

or whether he was being truthful.

8:15

Or we thought whether we could gain

8:16

more cooperation from him by using a diff different tact.

8:19

Well, those are the things that we do.

8:23

But it's no different than anything we've done for decades

8:25

in criminal cases.

8:28

Interviewer 1

I heard that FBI agents

8:30

sometimes in the room, along with the DOD

8:32

at the time of the interrogation,

8:35

is that, you actually in the room,

8:37

or were you in an adjoining room watching?

8:39

-

All the above?

8:41

I mean, there were certain cases where they asked us

8:42

they were having trouble doing it,

8:44

they weren't getting what they thought was,

8:47

you know, comprehensive information from somebody.

8:51

And they asked us to do the interrogations

8:55

or we volunteer to do interrogations

8:57

to show them how it's done.

9:01

For example, when, I mean, I don't know

9:04

if you want me to go into details here,

9:08

-

Yeah.

9:09

-

For example,

at one point when, after I found out how,

9:12

what their interrogations met...

9:14

Excuse me, at one point when I found out

9:16

what their interrogation methods were,

9:19

you know, there's fear up and anxiety up,

9:21

and all that kind of crap,

9:23

they, you know, and worse,

9:25

I said, well, there's no wonder

9:29

you're not getting any information,

9:30

you're hardening them against you and our claws.

9:32

And the whole point of an interrogation

9:36

is to try to win them over,

9:39

to try to get them to understand your side

9:41

as you understand them,

9:44

and then get them to work for you rather than against you.

9:46

They've been trained not only by a hard life,

9:50

but by training camps in order to resist

9:54

this kind of harsh treatment.

9:58

And so, when you treat them harshly

10:00

you reinforce that belief

10:02

that we're the devil that we're evil.

10:04

And so, you help them do what they're doing, resisting you.

10:06

So, it's really counterproductive.

10:10

So, I told them to let me have access to a detainee

10:12

that wasn't cooperating at all,

10:17

they brought in detainee 682,

10:20

and he was doing nothing but sitting mute

10:24

during interrogations, or reciting the Quran from memory.

10:29

I realized that, you know this was gonna be a tough task,

10:36

so I set out to do this.

10:40

I met with him, I think maybe a dozen times

10:41

over the next 21 days.

10:44

I gave him, you know, as much dignity and respect as I could

10:45

under the circumstances.

10:51

He had to be shackled in the room and so forth.

10:51

But still within that, the first thing I did

10:54

was tell him that I was a behavioral analyst,

10:57

and I don't care anything about what he did.

11:00

What I wanna do is learn about his culture and his religion.

11:03

And because he's an educated man,

11:06

he's smarter than anybody else in this camp.

11:08

He has a degree in engineering

11:11

from the university of physics.

11:12

He speaks incredibly articulately in English,

11:14

and he can share with me the nuances

11:17

of his people and his culture.

11:19

And I would love to learn from him if he wouldn't mind.

11:21

And, of course, being a good Muslim

11:24

he wants to teach others, and about his religion.

11:27

So, that's fine, he could do that

11:30

without sort of violating his cord.

11:32

And it took him a while to warm up

11:35

to where he would actually talk to me.

11:37

But then he started teaching me about his religion,

11:39

and we had discussions about the many overlaps

11:41

between Christianity and Islam,

11:45

and we related on a human level.

11:48

And after 21 days,

11:51

he was my friend.

11:55

I mean, I would walk in the room and he spread his arms

11:57

and say, "Jim, my friend, what can I do for you?"

12:00

And I turned it back over to the interrogators

12:02

and he was extremely cooperative.

12:04

And I use that as a test case

12:06

to show them how this can be done successfully,

12:08

even with the most hardened person,

12:12

the guy who would not say a thing,

12:15

who knew exactly how to resist, because he's a human being.

12:16

And again, building that human bond and giving them some...

12:20

An opportunity to sort of feel like

12:25

they are actually accomplishing something

12:29

that's good for them, you know?

12:31

you hand them that, and they're gonna...

12:34

There's a debt of gratitude that is built there,

12:36

so, you know, that's what we rely on.

12:39

You know, I mean, human beings are human beings.

12:41

Interviewer 1

Did they learn for you?

12:45

-

Well, I think eventually.

12:46

Certainly the CITF people did.

12:48

The military people were very resistant to it,

12:50

they thought we were...

12:53

In fact, the call from the judges,

12:55

"You're in there making friends and I'm fighting a war."

12:58

And I explained to him that he's not fighting a war,

13:02

that he is running a prison,

13:04

and these are people in his custody,

13:07

and they have every right to be treated like everybody else

13:10

who's in the custody of the United States.

13:15

And it's a definitely different situation

13:17

in the battlefield.

13:20

There's no...

13:22

You know, these guys who have been here

13:23

for two-three years now,

13:24

you know, there's I realized at that time,

13:28

it was probably a year some of them.

13:30

But even so, you know,

13:34

they don't have immediate intelligence

13:35

that's gonna help you on the battlefield.

13:37

But what you wanna do is,

13:39

I mean, because there has to be an end game here.

13:41

There was no...

13:43

That was one of the biggest flaws of that whole system.

13:44

And I know that President Obama now

13:46

is dealing with that fact,

13:50

it's just that there was no end game.

13:51

There's no plan, and all they did was hardening

13:54

most of these people against us.

13:57

And then, well, are they gonna let 'em go

13:58

or they're not gonna let them go?

14:01

Are they too dangerous?

14:02

Can we prove they're dangerous?

14:03

We have no idea.

14:05

And so, we're stuck with a bunch of people that we've,

14:06

if they weren't against the United States before,

14:09

they certainly are now.

14:13

And so, anyway, we're in a situation

14:14

where we have an opportunity to learn from these people

14:17

and we should use it.

14:21

And there's a way to do that properly, and humanly,

14:22

and within the constitution of the United States.

14:26

And, you know, so that's what we advocated.

14:29

And since then, you know,

14:32

it didn't come out till probably,

14:34

two-three years after I was there.

14:38

But I mean, they changed their tactics,

14:43

at least somewhat,

14:47

you know, as a result of me being there.

14:51

But then eventually, I think when everything came out

14:52

about Abu Ghraib, they completely changed their tactics.

14:56

Interviewer 1

Did they think that the FBI

14:59

was interfering with them?

15:01

-

Yes.

Absolutely, no question.

15:03

I mean, let me just tell you the story.

15:05

I mean, I got down there,

15:06

and Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer

15:08

who was General Miller's right-hand man

15:10

handed me an interrogation plan to sign off on.

15:13

And I noticed in, there's a certain format

15:16

for their interrogation plans,

15:19

and they have to have the game plan for today,

15:21

and then if that fails, have another phase,

15:23

and if that fails, a final phase, and so,

15:25

you know, they have to have an end game in that plan.

15:30

And so, he handed me this,

15:33

and right in the beginning of the plan,

15:34

I noticed that said, "Behavioral Analysis."

15:35

"FBI Behavioral Analysis:

15:37

This plan was developed with the cooperation

15:38

and approved by the FBI's Behavioral Analysis team."

15:41

And I said, that's pretty interesting because,

15:45

you know, I'm the guy and I haven't read it,

15:46

but I guess maybe he's just anticipating

15:49

that I'm gonna approve it.

15:51

So, I read on, and I read the first phase,

15:53

and it was fear up, anxiety up,

15:55

you know, stripping the guy naked

15:57

and shaving his body hair and having,

15:59

you know, 20-hour interrogation sessions

16:03

with loud music, and lights, and all this stuff.

16:05

And I said, "You know, not only no but absolutely no,

16:09

this is ridiculous."

16:12

And I said, "Who?"

16:14

And well, that was phase one,

16:15

phase two was even worse dogs,

16:17

you know, attack dogs,

16:19

you know, all sorts of,

16:22

you know, harsh treatment including,

16:23

they didn't call it waterboarding,

16:26

they call it wet toweling at the time.

16:27

You know, I said, this is outrageous,

16:31

there's just no way that I will sign off on this plan,

16:33

nor did anybody else from my unit sign off on this plan.

16:36

And he said, "Why are you making trouble?"

16:39

Lieutenant Cornell Pfeiffer?

16:40

He said, "You know, the guys before you

16:42

absolutely approve this."

16:45

And I said, "Really?"

16:47

And I picked up the phone and I called one of the guys

16:48

who had just been there before me,

16:50

and I asked him if he had approved this plan.

16:52

And he said, I told him, that Pfeiffer,

16:54

Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer,

16:57

it said that he approved this plan.

16:58

And he said, that's an out-and-out absolute lie.

17:00

There's no way, we told them emphatically

17:02

that we would not be involved

17:05

in any kind of behavior like that,

17:06

and that we were advocating

17:08

a rapport-based interrogation plan.

17:09

And so, I said this back to Pfeiffer,

17:12

and he got really upset.

17:14

And I said, you know, blatantly, "You just cannot do this.

17:15

And, you know, I don't appreciate you lying to me

17:19

about, you know, this having been approved by others."

17:23

And he took the plan out of my hand,

17:26

and he snatched it out of my hand,

17:28

he leaned in close to my face and said,

17:30

"Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of my way."

17:31

And he, you know, spitting mad, red face.

17:34

And I just leaned back,

17:38

and I I kinda crossed my arms,

17:39

and I smiled at him, I said,

17:41

"Oh, I guess you're the schoolyard bully."

17:42

And that got him incensed.

17:44

Because, you know, he's used to being able

17:47

to order people out of his way or whatever,

17:48

you know, intimidate people, but like that.

17:50

And, you know, wasn't gonna work on me,

17:53

and he just stormed out of the meeting,

17:55

and taking the plan with him.

17:56

But the most important and revealing thing about that plan,

17:58

was the phase three, which was,

18:03

and I'll do the best I can to quote it.

18:05

"But if phases one and two don't work,

18:07

the third phase of this plan would be

18:10

to send this detainee to Egypt or another third country,

18:12

where they would employ torture

18:17

to get the requisite information from him."

18:19

And I specifically said to him,

18:22

"You realize that's against the U.S Torture Statute?

18:24

I mean, have you read the statute?"

18:26

And I think that's what went on right before,

18:28

you know, he got in my face and then left the meeting.

18:30

But the next, he handed me or somebody handed me,

18:34

'cause I don't think he wanted to talk to me

18:37

much after that.

18:38

He had to me at the second,

18:40

a second iteration of that plan.

18:41

And at that point, he had just taken the word torture out

18:44

and said, "Other means," instead of torture.

18:47

And, you know, I said,

18:50

"You can't cure this,

18:51

doing the same thing but just calling it something else."

18:53

I said, "This is illegal, you cannot do it."

18:55

And so,

18:58

you know, then the next iteration

19:00

was something like, to the effect of,

19:03

that there'll be sent off Island,

19:06

and South comm will determine what will happen to them.

19:08

You know, just because,

19:12

you know, he didn't wanna say it on paper,

19:15

but they didn't...

19:17

(chuckles) they didn't change their plan at all,

19:18

they just changed how it was documented

19:20

because I was making an issue out of it.

19:22

And I said, "Look, anybody who signs onto this plan

19:24

is joining into a conspiracy

19:29

to commit a violation of the U.S Torture Statute."

19:32

And that became an issue, you know?

19:36

And I realized, you know, at that point

19:38

that I don't know if...

19:41

I didn't know at that point,

19:43

whether my superiors at the FBI, or people at DOJ,

19:45

or people at the Pentagon, or people at the White House

19:49

knew what was going on down here.

19:52

So, I realized that, you know the people here,

19:54

there in Guantanamo

19:59

were all charged up post 9/11.

20:03

You know, they're,

20:04

you know, they saw it as their mission

20:05

to, you know, get these terrorists and save the world,

20:07

which, you know, there's a laudatory mission.

20:10

But they felt that,

20:14

you know, there were no rules associated with that.

20:15

You know, I mean, you know, it's the most basic part

20:19

of being an FBI agent, that you swear an oath

20:22

to uphold the constitution, you know?

20:24

And that didn't change just because I was on Guantanamo Bay.

20:26

I mean, it's not a us military base.

20:30

I didn't have my gun or my handcuffs.

20:32

I mean, we had no arrest powers there,

20:35

I couldn't do anything.

20:37

I'm surrounded by...

20:38

You know, if you listen to Jack Nicholson,

20:39

"5,000 Armed Marines," right?

20:42

But the fact is that I knew what was right.

20:44

And it was not for political reasons,

20:48

it was not for anything other than the fact

20:49

that, you know, humanly,

20:51

you had to treat these people,

20:55

they were in your custody, they were helpless.

20:59

You have to be...

21:00

You have to be a sadist

21:02

to be able to hurt somebody who completely helpless.

21:03

And not only that,

21:06

but it's totally counterproductive to our mission.

21:08

Our mission is to get these people

21:10

to give us the information that they have,

21:12

in order to protect our country,

21:16

you know, and help prosecute people that are,

21:19

you know, committed crimes against the country.

21:21

Interviewer 1

Could you say you didn't really know

21:23

at that time where the interrogation plans come from?

21:25

So, were you saying you didn't know

21:31

where these interrogation planes were coming from,

21:34

or who had written them at the time you were down there?

21:36

-

No, I know they were coming

21:38

from Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer, and the signature point

21:40

on the bottom was General Miller, General Jeffery Miller.

21:43

Interviewer 1

But does this mean General Miller,

21:46

you think created these plans?

21:47

-

No, I think he relied on the people that worked for him,

21:49

but he certainly encouraged them,

21:52

and was absolutely aware of what was in them.

21:53

There's just no question about it.

21:56

Interviewer 1

Do you think other agencies at that point,

21:57

were involved in drafting these plans?

22:01

Could you know that?

22:03

-

I think it was wholly within the U.S military.

22:05

They also had a behavioral analysis component down there,

22:10

Major Lacey and Major Bernie were psychologist,

22:13

and they, their job, they were brought down.

22:18

They were a reserve military,

22:20

and they were brought down to counsel the Marine guards

22:23

who were guarding these guys, the detainees,

22:28

that was what they were told their job was.

22:31

And the next thing they found out,

22:34

they were being asked to provide behavioral guidance

22:35

on how to get these guys to talk,

22:38

totally outside their area of expertise.

22:40

And when I came down there,

22:43

and I was joined a couple of weeks later by Tom Near,

22:45

another supervisory special agent.

22:48

By the way, I never said that,

22:50

but I was a supervisory special agent in the FBI,

22:51

and in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

22:55

Interviewer 1

And Tom Near was also in the same unit?

22:57

-

Yes, he was in the same unit.

22:59

And came down a couple of weeks later,

23:00

and I got them up to speed on what was going on,

23:02

and he totally, totally agreed with my analysis of it.

23:06

And from that point forward,

23:10

what we did was we sort of bifurcated our efforts.

23:12

And then, I was going to try to,

23:14

you know, sort of work...

23:16

Well, we were both doing this,

23:17

we were working with trying to change the militaries,

23:19

you know, plans and,

23:24

you know, make them understand

23:26

how you can do it effectively

23:28

without violating the constitution,

23:29

and also give them a template

23:31

for a rapport-based interrogation plan for detainees.

23:34

So, we were building both of those things at the same time.

23:39

Interviewer 1

Was the military interested

23:42

in hearing your?

23:44

-

Well, they were interested in hearing it,

23:45

but that's it, that's as far as it went.

23:46

You know, when it turned out to be in contradiction

23:48

to what they want to do, which was,

23:51

you know, cause as much mayhem, and pain, and suffering

23:53

as they possibly could,

23:55

they flat out rejected it.

23:58

But remind me, and I'll get back to that,

24:00

you know, sort of when we met with the general at the end.

24:03

But when we...

24:07

Early on, we sat down with the two,

24:09

with Major Lacey and Major Bernie,

24:11

and discuss with them what we believed

24:15

the military should be doing in their interrogation plans.

24:19

And it was like, they were so happy to hear

24:23

that we were advocating exactly what they were advocating.

24:27

And so, we wrote up our first communication about this,

24:30

and included them in it.

24:35

And because they absolutely agreed

24:36

that that's what should be done was rapport-based,

24:39

non, you know, aggressive tactics.

24:42

And we had a meeting with General Miller

24:46

and with Lieutenant Cornel Pfeiffer,

24:48

and the whole group in which we presented that.

24:50

And after the meeting,

24:54

I can't remember if it was Lacey or Bernie,

24:57

but one of them knocked on our door

25:00

where we were in the CITF Building,

25:03

and when I opened the door, and the guy was in tears,

25:09

and he said, "You have to just take our names off that,

25:11

and don't ever mention again

25:14

that we sided with you on this."

25:17

Because Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer just threatened him

25:19

with a court martial for insubordination

25:21

for going against him in public.

25:24

And he said if he ever opens his mouth

25:26

to contradict him again, that he will be court-martialed.

25:28

And that's why they were not able

25:31

to sort of join in our plan

25:34

or, you know, fight what they were doing,

25:36

because Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer was bullying them,

25:39

and I mean, commanding them not to do that.

25:42

Interviewer 1

Was there any of the agencies,

25:45

federal agencies that were along with the FBI

25:46

in terms of trying to get what you call

25:49

a rapport-based interrogation?

25:52

-

Yeah. Well, there was Mark Macquarie, was a JAG attorney.

25:53

I think he was from

25:57

Naval Criminal Investigative Service,

26:02

I'm pretty sure.

26:03

And as soon as I opened my mouth,

26:05

and kinda went toe to toe with Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer

26:07

after that meeting, he came up to me and said,

26:10

"I've been trying to do that since I got down here.

26:11

Thank God you're here."

26:15

You know, so, we all joined forces-

26:16

Interviewer 1

The CIA?

26:18

Where was there?

26:20

-

No.

The CIA was not interested at all

26:21

in what we were talking about.

26:23

They were...

26:25

They ran their own interrogations.

26:27

They would not in general,

26:29

allow us to view those interrogations,

26:30

and they did not want any input from them.

26:32

Interviewer 1

Do you know

26:35

what kinda interrogations they ran?

26:36

-

Well, I know that the guys 682 that I talked to,

26:37

he told me eventually, when he opened up,

26:41

that the reason he had stopped talking,

26:43

was because he was,

26:45

he said he was tortured by two FBI agents in Afghanistan.

26:48

And that clearly upset me very much.

26:52

I didn't understand it until,

26:56

you know, later on in the game,

27:00

when a couple of CIA agents who identified themselves

27:01

to me as Bob and Bob,

27:04

claimed in a meeting with the General

27:07

that I was preventing them from getting access to 682.

27:08

I said, you know, it's ridiculous

27:12

because I've never met you before,

27:14

nor have you ever communicated with me,

27:16

so I don't believe it's possible

27:18

for me to prevented you from getting access.

27:19

You can have access to him anytime you want,

27:22

I don't control the man.

27:24

And I said, "Let's go right now."

27:25

And they said, "Well, we'll do it on our own time."

27:27

And so, that night I waited in the observation room

27:29

but they typically used.

27:31

And sure enough, around 10:30 or 11 o'clock at night,

27:33

they brought in 682.

27:35

And when those two guys came in,

27:38

there's also a female that came in with them.

27:39

But when they walked in, he sat up straight and said,

27:41

"I know you guys, you're failing Joe.

27:44

You're the guy...

27:46

You're the FBI agents who tortured me in Afghanistan."

27:47

So, now, it became clear that those two CIA agents

27:50

had fraudulently portrayed themselves as FBI agents,

27:53

and then tortured this guy

27:56

and he stopped talking after that.

27:58

So, somebody who was originally cooperative

28:00

became uncooperative because of how he was treated.

28:03

And then, when I spent over the course of 21 days,

28:05

you know, about 12 days with this guy,

28:09

I got him back to the cooperation mode,

28:12

because I treated him like a human being.

28:15

I gave them dignity and respect,

28:17

and I let him control some things,

28:18

little things that, you know, helped him feel like

28:20

I was making his life better,

28:22

and in return, he started talking to us.

28:24

Interviewer 1

Do you know

28:27

the detainee ever tell you what,

28:30

how he was treated by the two men in Afghanistan?

28:32

-

He said things like standing on a box

28:38

and stress positions, bent over at the waist

28:40

with his arms out for hours at a time, and things like this.

28:43

You know, off the top of my head,

28:46

I don't recall whether he got,

28:49

you know, wet toweled,

28:51

you know, what they're calling waterboarding now.

28:52

I just don't remember all the details of that.

28:56

But, you know, he didn't...

29:00

He wasn't that forthcoming because remember,

29:02

when he was telling me about it, I was the enemy,

29:04

you know, I was an FBI agent, and in his mind,

29:07

it's FBI that did this to him.

29:10

I think probably still to today,

29:11

because I, you know,

29:13

I didn't add to his knowledge base at all.

29:14

It wasn't, you know, certainly not my job to tell him,

29:16

"Oh, those were CIA agents."

29:19

You know, that kinda thing,

29:21

so I didn't do that.

29:22

Interviewer 1

You ever heard about the stories

29:24

where CIA agents pretended they were FBI?

29:25

-

I've heard about that, yeah, sure.

29:28

Interviewer 1

Well, did you hear about

29:30

that in Guantanamo too, or just?

29:31

-

No, that's the only time I heard,

29:33

you know, off Island I heard about it.

29:37

I don't know if it occurred in...

29:38

And certainly, if these guys didn't tell him,

29:40

"No, we're not FBI, we're CIA."

29:44

And they didn't do that when I watched him.

29:46

So, I think they were continuing to perpetuate that fraud.

29:48

Interviewer 1

When you saw the interrogation practices

29:54

in Guantanamo, who did you go to,

29:56

to report besides your immediate supervisors

29:58

that the best source to try to see

30:01

if you can make the change or?

30:04

-

Well, we tried and tried to get

30:06

a one-on-one with General Miller,

30:08

and until Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer

30:10

was actually off Island,

30:13

we didn't get that opportunity.

30:14

And it was the day before, I believe,

30:16

I left the Island, sometime in early December.

30:18

And myself and Tom Near,

30:20

and our immediate supervisor, Ron van Rankin,

30:22

and Billy Spencer who's another FBI agent,

30:25

brilliant guy who really was a subject matter expert.

30:28

We all went and sat down for about two hours

30:31

with General Miller,

30:33

and we each took a segment of time

30:34

explaining different aspects of it.

30:37

So, I read my legal analysis

30:39

of the interrogation techniques, memo to him,

30:41

and then I went through my interrogation plan,

30:44

and the results with 682.

30:47

Tom Near talked about the report-based interrogation plan

30:49

that we had built for their detainees.

30:54

And Billy Spencer kind of filled in

30:57

sort of the historical places where that fit in

30:59

between the different cases

31:02

that were going on in the U.S and abroad.

31:04

And after two hours, the General said to us,

31:08

"Well, gentlemen, thank you for your time,

31:10

but my boys know what they're doing.

31:12

Have a nice day."

31:14

And dismissed us, and that's it,

31:15

they did nothing at that time.

31:17

And I saw, I remember seeing an interview of him,

31:19

you know, after the whole Abu Ghraib thing broke.

31:23

And he went from GITMO to Abu Ghraib to get more wise,

31:26

Abu Ghraib, and he did a great job of it.

31:29

And he said in this interview, after all that broke,

31:32

that he was a staunch advocate

31:36

of rapport-based interrogation techniques,

31:39

and he never advocated anything aggressive

31:41

or violent with the detainees.

31:44

And again, that's an absolute lie,

31:46

there's just no way that that's the truth.

31:48

Not only did I see him say,

31:53

"I want better, faster, cheaper."

31:54

I want this, I want results, I want all that,

31:56

Pfeiffer and Becker, Mr. Becker,

31:59

he was the guy they hired as their interrogation expert.

32:02

I asked him what his expertise was

32:06

or his experience in that area,

32:08

he had done debriefing interviews of Boeing employees

32:11

when they came back from Hong Kong or something like that.

32:16

That's his entire experience level, he was not...

32:19

He's a fraud, he is absolutely not interrogation expert.

32:22

And I believe the military is touting him as their,

32:25

you know, sort of expert,

32:28

and he's been on reports and stuff as an expert.

32:29

Tom Near and I went to one of the sort of prep sessions

32:33

before they took detainee 63 from our jurisdiction,

32:37

from the FBI's jurisdiction.

32:42

They basically snatched them out in the middle of the night,

32:43

put a hood on him and,

32:45

you know, did all sorts of stuff to him,

32:46

which ended up in the hospital the next day.

32:48

Interviewer 1

Did you observe other abuses?

32:53

-

Yeah, I will, but let me get to this

32:54

because I'll forget it.

32:56

Becker said, you know, they're gonna hold a...

33:01

We got, we became aware that they were gonna hold

33:04

a prep session for this, their first,

33:06

you know, session with 63.

33:09

Interviewer 1

And could be present there?

33:14

-

Well, we showed up.

33:15

I don't know that he wanted us there, but we showed up

33:17

and they didn't prevent us from being there.

33:20

And we thought we'd be sitting down at a table

33:22

and discuss in the interrogation plan.

33:24

And he was standing at the end of the room,

33:27

Tom and I were standing at the far side,

33:29

and maybe a dozen Sergeant level,

33:32

military members were there.

33:37

Sergeant Lacey was one of them,

33:43

and I'll have to get back to her too,

33:44

L-A-C-E-Y, I think or L-A-C-Y.

33:48

And he got up in front of the room,

33:54

and he ran it like a pep rally.

33:55

"General says our boot can't across

33:59

the Torture Statute line, but our shadow certainly can."

34:01

"Yeah," everybody's cheering.

34:04

"General says that the Torture Statute says,

34:06

you can't have music over 80 decibels,

34:09

so I wanted it at 79 decibels at all time."

34:12

And somebody yells out, "79.9."

34:15

He's like, "Yeah, that's what the general wants to hear."

34:17

And that's how it was run,

34:19

and we were just shocked,

34:21

like, oh, my God, these people!

34:24

And these are young people, 21, 23-year-olds,

34:26

they don't have any experience in this.

34:31

They don't have no idea what they're doing,

34:33

they don't know what the big picture is,

34:34

but they're being encouraged by Becker,

34:36

by Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer,

34:39

by Lieutenant Colonel Beaver to do this,

34:41

because they believe that this is what

34:45

the General wants them to do.

34:47

And I believe this is what the general wants them to do,

34:48

and when I tried to convince him otherwise,

34:51

he blatantly threw us out, basically, totally dismissed us.

34:53

And by the tone of his voice and by his actions,

34:58

we knew that it was a complete waste of time.

35:02

And so, it was, you know,

35:04

it was quite an enlightening experience.

35:07

But after my first meetings with Pfeiffer and so forth,

35:08

I decided I better document the things that were going on

35:14

because I didn't know how high up people knew

35:17

of what was going on down here.

35:20

And I knew that every single day

35:21

leads were coming in from cases from the United States.

35:24

And they were being put into a binder

35:28

in every interrogation room.

35:30

And every interrogator was supposed to,

35:31

if they got somebody who was cooperative,

35:33

who was supposed to go through

35:34

the photographs and the documents

35:35

and get the detainee to tell them about that.

35:37

And I tried to teach them about the doctrine

35:40

of the fruit the poisonous tree,

35:43

you're gonna ruin every single investigation

35:45

and case in the United States

35:48

if you continue to do this stuff.

35:49

Do you just use simply coercion

35:51

and you've just blown it all.

35:54

And is that what you're trying to do here?

35:55

So, that why I wrote my memo to show them,

35:57

the different levels of interrogation tactics.

36:00

And what I did, was I went right from their documents.

36:03

These are the tactics that are approved,

36:06

and these are the ones we're using.

36:08

So, I went right from their document

36:09

and broke them out into things that I thought were coercive,

36:11

things that I thought were, you know, unconstitutional,

36:13

and things that I thought were actually,

36:17

directly against the Torture Statute.

36:18

And it's based on, you know, not just the fact

36:20

that I was a lawyer and a former prosecutor,

36:24

but the fact that at that point,

36:25

you know, I had had, you know,

36:27

I don't know, 15-18 years in the FBI

36:29

defending the constitution,

36:32

doing investigations well within the constitution,

36:33

so I knew it pretty well.

36:36

So, anyway, I had a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Beaver

36:37

because I was asked to sit down

36:41

and sort of come up with some sort of compromise

36:43

that we could both agree on, the FBI and the Military.

36:46

Interviewer 1

Could you tell us

36:49

who Lieutenant Beaver is?

36:50

-

She was the legal advisor

36:51

for general Miller at Guantanamo.

36:54

And she wrote a...

36:56

I was handed by her, a legal opinion

36:57

that went through the interrogation tactics.

37:00

And I was aghast, I could not believe what I had read there.

37:03

She's sitting across the table from me

37:08

and I looked, and I said, "You're not serious."

37:09

Because what she had written, was she went through,

37:12

you know, the case histories

37:15

and military case histories and so forth,

37:16

and talked about,

37:19

you know, different interrogation techniques and so forth,

37:20

and the Torture Statute,

37:23

and she said, "Caution should be exercised

37:24

in utilizing the following tactics."

37:27

And, you know, things like pushing,

37:28

and shoving could be an assault, and so on and so forth.

37:30

And then, you know, coming down to sort of waterboarding

37:33

or wet toweling at the time.

37:37

And she said that the tortures...

37:40

"Caution should be exercising in utilizing these methods

37:43

because the Torture Statute

37:46

specifically addresses and prohibit these behaviors."

37:48

And so, she then goes on to say, "However, since our intent

37:54

is not to cause serious physical injury,

38:01

or mental injury, or death,

38:04

but to get information, the Torture Statute does not apply."

38:06

And I just...

38:10

I just said, "This is not based on any legal standard.

38:12

Where did you go to law school?

38:15

How could you possibly write this?"

38:17

And she goes, "It's a, you know,

38:19

it's a solid legal opinion or something."

38:22

And I said, "That's absolutely not true,

38:24

it's completely false.

38:26

You're doing a terrible disservice.

38:30

You know who you're doing it to?

38:31

The people who are on the front lines,

38:33

who are gonna follow your opinion,

38:34

they're gonna do what you tell them to do,

38:36

and they're gonna be subject to arrest, prosecution."

38:38

You know, I said, "Arrest, indictment,

38:42

prosecution, and most likely conviction,

38:44

because you are telling them to do this,

38:47

and they believe you."

38:50

And she said, "Well, the General believes me and not you."

38:51

And I was like, "What?

38:55

Why I keep getting thrown back to the school yard here?

38:56

Who are these immature people?"

38:59

I mean, it's unbelievable,

39:01

but these are the people that are doing the job

39:03

of trying to get this incredibly vital information

39:06

from these guys.

39:08

And then she says, she at some point during the...

39:10

We spent hours and hours trying to hammer out

39:14

sort of a compromise plan.

39:16

And during that time, she said

39:20

that when they ran out of ideas,

39:24

they were actually watching the show "24,"

39:27

to get ideas on what to do with the detainees.

39:30

Interviewer 1

She told you this?

39:33

-

She told me that.

39:34

And I was, I couldn't believe it.

39:35

It just, it was so wrong.

39:37

And it, you know, it just went downhill from there.

39:39

So, what ended up happening,

39:42

was I said, "Look, there is no compromise plan.

39:43

I will do a hybrid plan,

39:45

where I will do rapport-building as my phase one,

39:47

and we will not sign off on any of the rest of your plan

39:50

unless you remove all this from the rest of the plan,

39:52

we will not sign off on it.

39:55

And so, it's hybrid in that I'm only agreeing to phase one.

39:56

And I wrote into the actual plan,

40:00

"The FBI does not agree to this,

40:02

and unless this is removed,

40:04

we will not sign off on this plan."

40:05

And I did it for all the other phases,

40:06

because they continued to do the same kind of crap,

40:08

you know, aggressive,

40:10

you know, demeaning, horrendously bad things to these people

40:12

in somewhat of...

40:17

In their, you know, ridiculous attempt

40:18

to try to get information from them.

40:20

And then, they added this thing called the Upland Syndrome.

40:21

And this is something that Tom and I had never heard before.

40:24

And they basically said that,

40:27

you know, they found that,

40:28

the CIA found that when they had agents undercover

40:29

in foreign lands, and nobody spoke English

40:32

and they weren't allowed to talk to anybody

40:34

that they would come back to the United States

40:35

and get into a taxi and some,

40:37

a taxi driver would be, speak English to them,

40:39

and they'd immediately blurred out secret stuff,

40:41

because they just had this need to talk

40:43

about what they've been doing.

40:46

-

And so, if this was blended into the interrogation plan,

40:48

and what they said was,

40:54

"We're gonna duct tape this guy's mouth shut,

40:55

and we're gonna ask them questions

40:58

and bombard them with stuff,

41:00

and do all this mean nasty stuff to him

41:02

for four hours straight.

41:04

And then we're gonna tear off the tape,

41:05

and he's gonna just wanna talk to us."

41:07

And it, again, what are you talking about?

41:09

And it was George Alloquest.

41:12

Interviewer 1

Who's that?

-

He was an interpreter

41:17

who said he worked for the agency before,

41:19

and was aware of several missions

41:23

where they use this technique,

41:26

this is where they're getting this information from.

41:28

And so, Tom and I met Lacey and Bernie and we said,

41:31

"You know, look, we've been doing this stuff between us

41:35

for, you know, 50 years, we've never heard of this.

41:38

What is it?"

41:43

And they are the ones that told us about Alloquest

41:44

and how they got this.

41:46

And they said, "Look, we were just on the internet

41:47

trying to find it,

41:48

because we have never heard of it either."

41:49

And so, it was just outrageous.

41:51

-

All the upland?

41:53

-

Upland Syndrome.

And it's sort of a,

41:55

you know, maybe a variation of

41:58

the Stockholm Syndrome or something like that, you know?

42:02

Interviewer 1

Did you see anybody with duct tape?

42:05

-

I didn't, but my predecessor there,

42:08

one time he was doing, observing an interrogation

42:10

in another room and Mr. Becker comes running in all excited,

42:13

"Yo, you gotta come and see this!

42:16

You gotta come see this!"

42:17

He led them into another room

42:18

where they had completely duct tape the entire face and head

42:20

of one of the detainees,

42:24

because he had been just reciting the Quran from memory

42:26

when they were trying to interrogate him.

42:30

All over his hair, and his beard, and his face.

42:32

And it was Bob Morton,

42:35

and Bob turned to Becker and said,

42:37

"You know, what do you think you're doing?

42:40

And how are you gonna get it off?"

42:42

And he was just totally like,

42:45

"Well, wait a minute,

42:46

you're supposed to be all excited about this,

42:47

'cause we did this really cool thing."

42:49

It's just, that's the kind of sophomore crap

42:50

that they were doing down there.

42:53

They were completely, you know, misguided,

42:54

and, you know, unsupervised by anybody

42:58

who had any kinda moral.

43:01

Interviewer 1

And you had all these frustrations

43:03

with General Miller and then with Colonel Beaver,

43:04

was there anyone else to go to?

43:07

-

Well, yeah, I wrote,

43:09

I sent it off Island to...

43:10

I sent my memo to my supervisors and to FBI headquarters

43:13

to have them address these issues.

43:18

And they eventually, they sent somebody down

43:20

to deal with General directly.

43:24

And they, as a result of Tom and I also said,

43:28

that we need to have a more permanent presence down here,

43:32

not just rotating agents through.

43:35

And they eventually put a permanent unit chief down there

43:37

and agents for,

43:42

you know, six or nine months stints

43:44

instead of 45 days stints.

43:45

Interviewer 1

But it doesn't seem

43:47

like the military heard?

43:48

-

Well, they didn't eventually...

43:50

They didn't initially, but they did eventually.

43:51

What we did, what basically happened,

43:54

was it became a real bifurcated process

43:57

where the federal agents that were down there

43:59

were using one methodology,

44:01

and the military were using another,

44:03

and they were basically, there was a wall in between them

44:05

because we couldn't convince them.

44:07

Interviewer 1

So, the FBI would do

44:11

their own interrogation independently from Military?

44:12

-

Yes, there's a number of...

44:15

We would have 10 high value detainees that we focused on.

44:16

And then as new people came in,

44:20

we sort of evaluated whether they were in,

44:21

sort of our group or their group,

44:24

and sometimes we had tug of Wars over them.

44:25

I mean, 63 was a good example.

44:28

We wanted to interrogate him,

44:29

and military wanted to interrogate him,

44:32

but, you know, more like they want to...

44:35

We wanted him to interrogate 'em,

44:38

and they want it to torture 'em,

44:39

and it was just outrageous.

44:40

Interviewer 1

Did you observe any abuse of 63 or any?

44:42

-

No, not of 63, because they would take him...

44:45

They took 'em out of the camp in the middle of the night

44:48

and brought them to Camp X-Ray from Camp Delta.

44:50

You know, flew 'em around,

44:53

you know, a helicopter to disorient them,

44:55

you know, hooded 'em and did all that stuff,

44:59

and lights and all that.

45:01

And all I knew was that I heard the next day,

45:02

after they did this, without telling us in advance.

45:05

But I heard the next day that he was in the hospital.

45:08

I had, I did actually spend some time

45:11

interviewing him with agent Jim Fitzgerald from New York.

45:16

And when I did, we spent, he was in isolation in the brig,

45:21

had been for quite a while.

45:26

He had been, ever since I was there,

45:28

and he was there for a long time before I got there

45:29

in the brig in isolation.

45:32

And he kept talking about genie and spirits,

45:35

like he was talking to other people that weren't there.

45:39

He was not aware of the date or the time,

45:45

or the time of year.

45:49

He was speaking...

45:51

He wanted to get back to the Island where his brothers were.

45:55

He didn't think he was on Guantanamo anymore.

46:00

And I said, I wrote out that he needed to be

46:04

evaluated mentally before any interrogation continued

46:08

because, you know, for his own mental wellbeing,

46:11

but also, because you can't trust anything

46:15

that somebody says if he's elucidating.

46:17

And so, you know, that was one of the things I said,

46:19

but they totally disregarded it,

46:23

and just continued their ridiculous efforts.

46:24

I think eventually, you know,

46:28

I know eventually they started implementing things

46:30

that we had suggested and some of that is still classified,

46:35

and so, I can't talk about it.

46:39

But, you know, it was certainly,

46:41

it was things that we've done traditionally,

46:42

that actually resulted in him cooperating.

46:47

You know, but it wasn't until they did their,

46:50

you know, nasty stuff to him for a while,

46:53

and that didn't work.

46:55

Interviewer 1

You said you did observe some abuses?

46:56

-

Yeah. Well, you know...

46:59

Yes, I did.

47:00

For example, Sergeant Lacey, I was in a inter...

47:01

Excuse me, observation room and working with the team

47:08

that was in this interrogation room through the glass,

47:10

and I was sitting in front of this monitor.

47:14

There's another monitor here,

47:16

and another glass there to that room.

47:17

She came in at some point,

47:19

they apparently had a detainee in there, in that room.

47:21

And she came in and said, you know, "Just,"

47:25

you know, loud and obnoxiously,

47:29

"Who's messing with this curtain here,

47:32

you're distracting my detainee."

47:35

And I had headphones on, I'm watching this

47:37

and listening to that.

47:39

And I said, "What are you talking about?"

47:41

"Somebody is doing this."

47:43

So, she made a big flourish about ordering the Marine

47:44

to duct tape the curtain closed on that window.

47:48

And so, I'm not stupid,

47:52

you know, obviously she's doing this for a reason.

47:53

So, her partner then came in

47:56

and sat really close to the monitor like this

47:57

to try to block my view of it,

48:00

so I made sure I watched it very closely.

48:01

And she walked around him, she's whispering in his ear.

48:05

She's putting lotion on her hands

48:07

and rubbing it on his arms.

48:08

It's Ramadan, and if, you know,

48:10

and if they're unclean, if they've been touched

48:14

by a woman they're not married to, they can't pray,

48:16

and so, it's clear that this is what she's doing.

48:19

And there's a Marine because her partner was here,

48:23

there's always has to be somebody else in the room.

48:25

So, the Marine would go in and stand by

48:27

and watch when this happened,

48:30

he's standing by the detainee,

48:31

and she's kinda walking around the back.

48:34

And then she sits in front of him,

48:35

sort of to cut off, block the view from the camera

48:37

that's behind her, that she kind of sits.

48:41

He's sitting there like this shackled with his hands

48:42

and then two bolt, you know, through the chain belt,

48:45

arm cuffed and then through bolts in the floor.

48:48

And she sits here with one knee on either side of his knee,

48:50

close to him.

48:54

I could see her bringing her hands down, his arms,

48:55

his bare arms and elbows going towards his hands.

48:59

And when they got to the area of his crotch, I couldn't see,

49:04

because of the angle of the camera,

49:07

but I could see him turning his head and grimacing in pain.

49:09

And this goes on for a while,

49:13

and she keeps doing this back and forth.

49:15

And I documented the time, and her name,

49:20

and I got that Marine afterwards, and I said,

49:22

what was she doing, when he...

49:24

That was causing him to turn his head

49:26

to the side and grimace in pain?

49:28

He said, "She was bending his thumbs back,

49:29

and she was grabbing his shit."

49:31

I mean, his genitals?

49:34

And he goes, "If you think that's bad,

49:35

I've seen her having guys on the floor,

49:37

in a fetal position, crying for hours

49:40

after she got done with them."

49:42

And, you know, it seemed very sadistic to me,

49:44

and it was consistent with what I saw of her behavior.

49:49

And she was one of the ones in the room

49:52

that was cheering when they were planning

49:54

this 63 interrogation.

49:56

You know, the one that I told you about with Becker,

49:59

that Tom Near and I had observed.

50:01

And so, that was one of the things that I documented,

50:05

it was an accepted practice down there.

50:11

It wet towel that was standard operating procedure,

50:13

because they felt that this was all fine

50:15

based on Beaver's legal memo,

50:19

and the General's encouragement.

50:21

Interviewer 1

Did Beaver say to you

50:27

that she got that memo from John, you, or Jake Bobby,

50:28

that they wrote it and she just adopted,

50:32

but they had instructed her to do?

50:34

-

Absolutely not.

50:36

She said she wrote it

50:37

and the General beliefs her and not me.

50:38

Interviewer 1

for that memo?

50:42

-

absolutely. And if she said now

50:43

that somebody else wrote that,

50:45

you know, she's a liar either to me

50:47

or to whoever she told that to.

50:50

it was written, it was signed by her.

50:53

And I've also heard that that Pfeiffer

50:59

said that Becker did all this stuff

51:04

and he had nothing to do with it,

51:07

and that's also an absolute lie.

51:08

Interviewer 1

Could you tell us again,

51:10

what roll Becker had with his title?

51:11

-

He was the head of HUMINT.

51:14

So, he was DHS,

51:20

Department of Human Services,

51:24

so human intelligence.

51:25

So, he was the one that was running the interrogation plans.

51:27

But Pfeiffer is the one that handed me the plan.

51:31

So, and then if we approved it,

51:35

then he would give it to Becker to carry it out.

51:37

But Becker and Pfeiffer were coming up with the ideas,

51:39

and apparently, Beaver as well,

51:42

although, you know, the only session I ever had with Beaver,

51:44

was that night when they tried to get it...

51:46

They wanted me to come up with a compromise plan,

51:48

and instead I did this hybrid because I wouldn't agree

51:51

to the whole plan.

51:55

You know, I just, and I wanted to make sure it was clear.

51:56

And I think I wrote an email the next day,

51:58

because my bosses were like, "Yeah, this plan is crap."

52:00

And I said, "Yeah, but you know what?

52:04

If we don't agree to this hybrid plan,

52:06

they're gonna start torturing him today.

52:07

At least this gives us two weeks to do the rapport-building

52:10

when we could get them to stop the rest from it.

52:13

It protects this detainee for the next two weeks.

52:16

And so, I was trying to advocate them doing that,

52:19

not that I liked the plan, but it was...

52:23

I was trying to do, to find a legal way to separate myself

52:27

from the backend of the plan to get him protected now,

52:31

because I know that any day now,

52:35

they're gonna snatch him and do their stuff to him.

52:37

Interviewer 1

When you came to Guantanamo,

52:39

what did you expect to see?

52:40

-

Oh, my God.

I thought we were gonna be sitting down

52:43

with reasonable people

52:45

who actually wanted to get the most,

52:47

you know, unbiased and accurate information

52:50

from these people.

52:54

Interviewer 1

You had no idea?

52:55

-

I had no idea.

52:56

I mean, there was some...

52:57

I will say this, there were some emails

52:58

from one of my predecessors down there, Charlie,

53:01

where he said, you know, these guys are doing crazy stuff.

53:04

But, you know, email, it's not cloud...

53:07

It's, you know, it's not classified communication.

53:09

And, you know, he said, we're having real problems

53:11

with that and our boss has said,

53:14

you know, basically said,

53:15

do not participate in anything that you believe is wrong.

53:17

You know, this bright line,

53:20

and that's what they did.

53:22

But none of the guys that went before me were attorneys,

53:25

and former prosecutors.

53:29

And I think I had a more,

53:30

you know, legal perspective on it,

53:33

and I don't know that either of them

53:36

had ever read the Torture Statute.

53:39

Because certainly we didn't go down there thinking,

53:41

you know, I need to read the Torture Statute,

53:43

'cause we had no idea what to expect.

53:45

But when I was down there talking to

53:47

Mark MacQuarrie, the JAG lawyer who's down there,

53:52

we pulled up the statute and I went through it line by line,

53:56

and that's how I wrote my legal memo based on that.

53:59

And, of course my, you know, my training and education

54:01

before that.

54:04

But, you know, it was a...

54:07

It was a shock and surprise

54:11

to see that they were doing that.

54:13

I have in my career,

54:15

I worked in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

54:17

I've interviewed serial killers,

54:18

I've interviewed child abductors

54:20

who rape and kill their victims.

54:22

Some really nasty people, psychopaths.

54:26

I have not been,

54:31

you know, exposed to anybody

54:35

that I can't find a way to build rapport with.

54:39

I don't care who they are, nobody is absolutely evil.

54:42

And I know that from my own experience in Guantanamo,

54:46

they can be done, and it's an effective way to do it.

54:51

But what I've never been exposed to before,

54:54

was sadistic people who took advantage of a situation.

54:57

I don't necessarily believe...

55:02

I mean, from my interaction with Sergeant Lacey,

55:03

I believe that she had some pretty sadistic

55:08

behavioral characteristics.

55:11

I think a lot of them at that level

55:14

were just gung hoe, U.S Military

55:17

wanting to save their country.

55:19

And the leaders were telling them what to do.

55:21

What I was concerned about, was that the military

55:23

would blame it on them,

55:27

you know, push it downhill.

55:28

And I saw that happening in Abu Ghraib.

55:29

I mean, as a result of what happened there,

55:32

who got prosecuted,

55:34

you know, these lowly "rogue" military personnel.

55:35

Well, I think that's, I think that's a bunch of crap,

55:40

I don't believe that at all.

55:43

And to think that they did that without

55:44

any supervision or encouragement,

55:47

I don't believe that's the case.

55:49

And I, of course, when I did what I did,

55:51

it was years before that all came out.

55:54

So, I had no way of knowing that,

55:56

but I certainly got that feeling,

55:58

that, that was what was gonna happen.

55:59

So, I saved, except for that first interrogation plan

56:01

that Pfeiffer pulled out of my hands,

56:05

I saved all the other iterations,

56:07

and I put them there in a classified,

56:09

safe in my office, in the FBI.

56:11

You know, I preserve those because I did not believe

56:13

that the military was gonna stand up

56:16

and take credit for what they were doing.

56:18

Interviewer 1

When you went back home in three months?

56:21

You were there for three months?

56:23

-

I was there for about 45 days, maybe a little more.

56:24

But I think it was mid-October

56:27

through the first week of December, something like that.

56:30

Interviewer 1

So, what were you thinking

56:32

when you went back home?

56:33

What did you expect?

56:34

Did you think Guantanamo was gonna be lawless like that?

56:36

-

No. I'm thinking...

56:38

Well, in that process,

56:39

we had a couple of video teleconferences

56:41

with, you know, sort of all the entities that are involved,

56:43

Military, you know, the Pentagon,

56:45

DOJ, FBI, our unit, and GITMO.

56:47

And one of 'em, Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer,

56:52

you know, report it to everybody

56:57

that the FBI had signed off on his plan,

56:58

which was an absolute lie.

57:00

So, we at that point, Tom and I, and Ron van Rankin.

57:03

Ron was the sort of the supervisor down there,

57:07

so he got to make the call that we would not interrupt

57:10

the VTC and challenged them on video teleconference.

57:14

And so, we sat down and wrote a letter to the General,

57:20

and that culminated in us,

57:22

eventually getting to see him the day

57:24

before I left the Island,

57:25

in which we were completely dismissed.

57:28

But at the next VTC,

57:31

we had actually told another psychologist, Mike,

57:36

and I can't remember his last name right now, sorry.

57:40

But that was sort of a military contractor.

57:43

We had told him that, you know, if they say that this is,

57:48

that we've signed off on it, it's absolutely not true.

57:51

And so, he was at...

57:54

I don't know if it was the...

57:57

He was probably at the Pentagon conference room

57:58

that was on this VTC.

58:01

When he, when Pfeiffer made that claim,

58:05

again, he leaned over to the woman who was running it

58:08

and whispered in her ear, and she said,

58:10

"Wait a minute, the FBI does not agree with this plan.

58:13

You guys are having conflict about this.

58:17

We need to do an immediate dispute resolution

58:20

or we're calling off this VTC."

58:23

And then they came down.

58:24

So, it was right at the end of my time there,

58:26

and then a whole bunch of people came down,

58:28

including, you know, higher officials from FBI headquarters

58:29

and they started working on it.

58:33

And I think, like I said, there was a real bifurcation

58:34

after that point,

58:37

and we made it clear

58:40

that not only did we, were not gonna participate in this,

58:41

but you should not be doing this stuff.

58:44

We didn't have...

58:46

I don't think we had jurisdiction

58:47

to tell them what they could do in a military setting,

58:49

but we told them it was the wrong thing to do

58:51

because it's not going to produce the kind of information,

58:54

reliable information that you want.

58:57

Interviewer 1

At that point, that you heard of John,

58:58

you, and Jay Bobby's memo,

59:01

that defined torture the way you described,

59:03

the memo also did?

59:07

-

I don't know.

what's the date of that memo?

59:09

No.

59:10

Interviewer 1

August, 1st of 2002.

59:12

-

Yeah. I did not hear of that.

59:13

I did get at some point, and I believe...

59:17

Well, I believe it was while I was down there,

59:20

but I got the Rumsfeld memo,

59:22

where he wrote on the side about,

59:28

you know, "I stand for 12 to 16 hours a day,"

59:29

or something like that.

59:32

Why what's the big deal about eight hours or something?

59:33

Why only eight hours, something like that.

59:36

Clearly somebody who doesn't understand,

59:38

you know, what a stress position is,

59:41

and, you know, and also, you know, it's if he knows,

59:45

that they're asking these people questions about U.S cases,

59:50

he should have the intelligence to understand

59:55

that, that is gonna taint all these investigations.

59:59

And I think that's exactly what happened,

1:00:03

because when they did try to try,

1:00:04

tried to prosecute terrorists in the United States,

1:00:07

they found out that the defense

1:00:11

were actually gonna ask for what happened down here,

1:00:14

where they got this information.

1:00:16

And they immediately withdrew those prosecutions.

1:00:17

So, you know, it was not a good plan,

1:00:19

and it just couldn't hold up.

1:00:23

And I was trying to protect and preserve the process

1:00:25

as well as protect these helpless human beings.

1:00:27

And by the way, when I did talk to 682,

1:00:32

when I did start engaging him

1:00:36

and he started telling me about family and so forth,

1:00:38

I mean, it was amazing.

1:00:41

I mean, here's a guy who went to engineering school

1:00:41

in the United States,

1:00:44

with the express purpose of learning

1:00:46

how to build bombs and blowing us up.

1:00:49

Interviewer 1

Can you tell us what country his from?

1:00:51

-

I can't.

1:00:53

I mean, I just don't wanna.

1:00:54

You know, I'm still telling numbers

1:00:55

I know they've published names and stuff,

1:00:57

but I don't wanna violate,

1:00:59

you know what I'm...

1:01:00

You know, it doesn't do me any good to say,

1:01:02

they're doing something wrong by violating the rules,

1:01:06

and then I do the same thing,

1:01:08

so I'm trying not to do that.

1:01:09

Interviewer 1

He was in the U.S too?

1:01:15

-

Yeah, well, he came to U.S to learn,

1:01:16

and he went back to actually, you know, do it.

1:01:18

And so, he's, you know,

1:01:20

he's firmly resolve that they're going to...

1:01:25

Islam is gonna take over the world.

1:01:32

I mean, it's an extreme view,

1:01:34

but he admitted to me he goes,

1:01:36

"You don't see me or Osama strapping on a suicide bomb.

1:01:41

It's very easy to manipulate 18 to 21-year-olds.

1:01:47

And you have to use them for what they're good for."

1:01:50

I mean, the lieutenants and the colonels have to lead,

1:01:54

and so, they don't do it themselves.

1:02:00

And, you know, I mean, he's was very open

1:02:02

about that eventually.

1:02:04

But, you know, so it's a problem, it's a real issue.

1:02:05

But by the same token, he's human being, and you know,

1:02:09

and again, it's just you have to be sadistic

1:02:14

to be able to hurt somebody when they're helpless,

1:02:17

so I just don't understand how they could do that.

1:02:18

And on the other hand,

1:02:22

there was a 15-year-old who was a detainee.

1:02:23

And I can't remember his number, but he was from Canada,

1:02:25

but he was badly scarred,

1:02:31

and I'm trying to think of what side.

1:02:36

I think this side of his face and across his chest.

1:02:37

He had been injured in firefight

1:02:40

and the U.S medic came to help him, and he was so proud

1:02:42

because he waited until the medic came right next to him

1:02:45

before he pulled the pin on his grenade,

1:02:47

and held it up against the guy's chest

1:02:49

and threw it at the guy's chest and killed the medic.

1:02:51

And so, he said his father would be really proud of him,

1:02:54

that he was able to kill the guy

1:02:57

but he thought he was gonna kill himself at the same time,

1:02:58

but he didn't die.

1:03:00

Interviewer 1

Did he tell you this?

1:03:02

-

Yeah.

1:03:03

-

That 15-year-old?

Interviewer 1

He told you what you just told me?

1:03:07

-

Yeah, he did.

1:03:08

He was very proud of it, he was beaming.

1:03:09

He said his father taught him how to make bombs,

1:03:12

and he taught him how to fight,

1:03:15

and he would be very proud of him.

1:03:15

That's one of the interviews

1:03:19

that they asked me to do personally.

1:03:20

And Tom and I were in the room with him when he said that.

1:03:22

Interviewer 1

Apparently, he was tortured in Afghanistan

1:03:28

before he came to Guantanamo.

1:03:30

Did he tell you that or have you heard that?

1:03:32

-

I hadn't heard that.

1:03:34

If we're talking about the same guy, I don't know-

1:03:36

-

There's only one from Canada?

1:03:37

Yeah. Okay. All right.

1:03:39

Interviewer 1

I can tell you his name,

1:03:43

if you want me to reveal it?

1:03:44

-

You know, I literally made...

1:03:45

-

I rather not?

1:03:47

-

No.

I made, you know, an effort to learn their numbers,

1:03:48

you know, not their names,

1:03:53

because I didn't want to reveal something that,

1:03:54

you know, I shouldn't, so I don't remember.

1:03:57

But I mean, if you tell me his name, I'll see

1:04:01

Interviewer 1

Omar Khadir was the 14-year-old

1:04:05

who was captured and who was in a family of Al-Qaeda.

1:04:07

His father's Lieutenant to Bin Laden,

1:04:11

and he was involved in a firefight in Afghanistan.

1:04:14

-

So, when I talked to this guy, he was 15.

1:04:17

And I don't know if you've spoken to him,

1:04:22

but he had, you know, major scars

1:04:23

across his chest and his face.

1:04:25

-

He lost an eye?

1:04:27

-

Yeah, it could be.

I just remember, yeah.

1:04:31

Yeah, he was pretty bad off.

1:04:33

But yeah, I mean, he was...

1:04:35

We can just build rapport

1:04:40

and we talked to him about his family for a while.

1:04:42

You know, and he talks about his father,

1:04:45

and then, you know, and then he talked about

1:04:47

how his father taught him how to build bombs,

1:04:49

and how, you know, his father would have been very proud.

1:04:51

I mean, he was bragging at that point.

1:04:54

I mean, that's exactly how you get information from him,

1:04:56

I mean, he was a 15-year-old kid, it's not that difficult.

1:04:58

Interviewer 1

He told you how he killed the sergeant?

1:05:01

-

Yeah. He was proud of that, yeah.

1:05:03

Interviewer 1

Was that documented?

1:05:07

When you interview, do you tape interviews,

1:05:09

or do you just take notes?

1:05:12

Do you, do you know?

1:05:13

-

No, the interviews were not...

1:05:15

They were video monitored but not taped.

1:05:17

It's documented in the file.

1:05:24

Interviewer 1

Do you write it up after you leave?

1:05:27

-

I didn't, the case agent.

1:05:28

-

Who's present at the time?

1:05:30

-

Yes.

-

So, that's available too?

1:05:32

-

I suppose.

Interviewer 1

How did you choose who to interview?

1:05:38

You said you chose high value detainees,

1:05:40

and he was apparently one.

1:05:43

Did you make those choices?

1:05:46

-

I didn't.

When I got down there, they had a list of 10

1:05:48

that the FBI had this high value.

1:05:50

And there were people that came and went,

1:05:52

you know, so that list,

1:05:55

whether it was that person was now transferred

1:05:57

to the military, they were all filing,

1:05:59

they were, you know, no longer deemed important,

1:06:01

or somebody else was of more importance.

1:06:04

But we basically had a list of 10

1:06:06

that the federal agencies were sort of focusing on.

1:06:08

And whether that got...

1:06:11

The reason why I got involved in that,

1:06:15

was that the teams that were doing the interrogations

1:06:16

would ask us for assistance, if they were having,

1:06:19

you know, particular difficulty trying

1:06:22

to get information out of somebody,

1:06:24

or if they felt like they may not have,

1:06:25

you know, the best idea how to do it.

1:06:28

I mean, we do interview strategies

1:06:31

as part of our job in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

1:06:32

I had,

1:06:38

you know, experience,

1:06:41

you know, interviewing adolescents.

1:06:43

So, I, you know, I told him I could it.

1:06:46

Interviewer 1

Did you meet him just that one time?

1:06:49

-

Yeah. What I believe is,

1:06:52

and I'm not sure if it's all the same day,

1:06:54

but, we watched, Tom and I watched,

1:06:56

observed his interview for a while,

1:06:58

and then we went in and conducted our interview.

1:07:01

But this is, you know,

1:07:05

it's one of the sort of bread and butter things that we did

1:07:08

in the criminal world in the United States, so it's not...

1:07:13

I mean, most of the interviews of teenagers that I've done,

1:07:18

have been as victims of crimes,

1:07:22

but it's the same exact technique that you use.

1:07:24

I mean, you're just trying to humanize yourself to them,

1:07:28

and gives them an opportunity to talk about things

1:07:33

that are very, you know, sort of low stress to them,

1:07:35

to norm them, and to see what their normal like.

1:07:38

Interviewer 1

So, if you were that successful,

1:07:41

which apparently you were,

1:07:42

why wouldn't the military let you return

1:07:43

and continue interrogating them?

1:07:45

-

It's not that I wouldn't be able to,

1:07:48

I was doing it as a exercise

1:07:50

to teach the case agent that was down there how to do it.

1:07:52

Interviewer 1

The case agent to the military person?

1:07:58

-

No, the CITF people were the ones

1:08:00

we were doing that kind of advice for,

1:08:03

really, the only...

1:08:07

I'm trying to think.

1:08:12

Well, there was a number of different detainees

1:08:13

that I was involved in,

1:08:14

but I'm telling you basically the ones

1:08:17

that I had the most interaction with.

1:08:19

I mean, I physically did the interrogation of 682.

1:08:23

I did one session with this young guy,

1:08:27

but most of the time, we would observe,

1:08:30

and then they would take a break,

1:08:33

and we'd give 'em ideas or areas that I thought that they...

1:08:35

I thought, well, this guy he's showing signs of stress,

1:08:38

when you talk about this, he may be lying to you about this.

1:08:41

He seems to really relax when you talk about this,

1:08:45

so why don't you spend some more time doing that?

1:08:47

You know, that, and that is,

1:08:50

you know, it's an ongoing process,

1:08:51

it's the most dynamic form of profiling,

1:08:54

is the interrogation process,

1:08:56

because you constantly have to shift gears

1:08:58

and read, and based on that, and then give information

1:09:00

and take information and feedback.

1:09:05

And, you know, it's a human interaction.

1:09:07

Interviewer 1

The case agent was open

1:09:10

to your assistance?

1:09:12

-

Yeah. The CITF always was.

1:09:15

I mean, they were federal agents who came down to,

1:09:18

as part of the,

1:09:21

you know, sort of investigative effort down there.

1:09:23

And so, they were very,

1:09:25

you know...

1:09:29

Interviewer 1

Appreciative.

1:09:31

-

Appreciative of our expertise,

1:09:31

because, you know, typically they were younger agents,

1:09:33

and they didn't have the level of experience,

1:09:37

but that's how we got into the unit

1:09:39

in the Behavioral Analysis Unit,

1:09:41

because we had a high level of experience

1:09:43

in these different areas.

1:09:45

Interviewer 1

So, when you said the CIA

1:09:51

did its own interrogation in its own trailer,

1:09:53

I assume you're all permitted to observe that interrogation?

1:09:56

-

In general, no, but I did go in that one night

1:10:00

when they brought 682.

1:10:03

But that's the only time I was ever in the...

1:10:06

They had these huts, basically, you know,

1:10:08

kind of big glorified trailers, I guess,

1:10:10

that was separate from the sort of really big,

1:10:14

long interrogation buildings

1:10:17

that the military, and the FBI,

1:10:19

and the federal set of guys used,

1:10:23

men ans women actually.

1:10:26

Interviewer 1

And had you ever heard of something

1:10:28

called Camp No, know when you were down there?

1:10:29

-

I don't believe so.

1:10:37

Interviewer 1

And the General's cottage,

1:10:39

had you heard of that?

1:10:40

-

No.

Interviewer 1

Those were terms that we use sometimes

1:10:44

for interrogation, but no one really knows.

1:10:45

So, I just wondered if that was separate

1:10:47

from the CIA trailer?

1:10:49

-

I don't know.

The CIA, I think there were three or four trailers

1:10:51

in that separate section that the CIAs use.

1:10:54

But I know that there was,

1:10:57

you know, there was an isolation section in the brig

1:10:59

and not in brig.

1:11:03

The brig was, yes, I'm sorry.

1:11:04

There's an isolation section where they kept 63

1:11:06

and then the brig,

1:11:10

but there was also a solitary section in the actual camp.

1:11:11

The brig is, you know, far removed from where the camp was.

1:11:19

Interviewer 1

When you say brig,

1:11:22

is that a different camp or?

1:11:23

-

No, the brig is the jail, the military jail

1:11:25

that's on the base.

1:11:29

Interviewer 1

And that didn't have our camp number?

1:11:31

That was totally separate from the camp?

1:11:33

-

It is the Marine Corps jail.

1:11:35

So, they used it for an isolation chamber for 63.

1:11:37

Interviewer 1

Just for him alone,

1:11:43

or for some other men too?

1:11:44

-

While I was there, it was just him.

1:11:45

Interviewer 1

Wow!

1:11:47

-

But I think that's all part of like disorienting him,

1:11:49

and making him think he's not on the same place.

1:11:53

But then, one of the things that we had advocated

1:11:57

and I heard, I don't know how long after it happened,

1:12:00

it actually happened,

1:12:02

was to build sort of the country club version of GITMO

1:12:03

to reward people who were being cooperative.

1:12:07

And, you know, it could be, you know very minor things,

1:12:09

but some freedoms and, you know, soccer field,

1:12:12

or, you know, condo type living, whatever it is,

1:12:15

and I think they eventually did build that.

1:12:18

You know, but there's no...

1:12:22

You know, they were, at the time,

1:12:25

they were trying to figure out a system

1:12:27

of rewards and punishments for these guys.

1:12:29

You know, we...

1:12:34

It was mostly punishments and very little-

1:12:37

Interviewer 1

What do you think of a reward systems

1:12:39

that makes sense than the way you train people,

1:12:40

is that?

1:12:44

-

Sure.

I mean, again, you know, by giving them

1:12:45

a little bit of dignity and respect,

1:12:48

it's gonna go a long way to undermine their belief systems

1:12:51

about us being evil.

1:12:54

If you reinforce it by being mean and nasty

1:12:58

and harsh to them, then it's gonna be very easy for them

1:13:00

to continue their belief systems.

1:13:03

If you undermine their belief systems,

1:13:05

it throws them for a loop.

1:13:08

They really don't know how to respond,

1:13:09

and they're gonna end up responding like a human

1:13:10

to, you know, somebody who reaches out their hand

1:13:13

and helps them.

1:13:16

And, you know, for the most part,

1:13:17

it's, you know, it's very effective.

1:13:21

I mean, you have to look at the personality

1:13:23

of the person you're talking to.

1:13:24

If you're dealing with a psychopathic narcissistic offender,

1:13:25

then you're gonna have to feed his ego to get to him,

1:13:32

because he doesn't care.

1:13:35

If you're dealing with somebody who has a human empathy

1:13:36

and who cares about, you know, other people,

1:13:40

then you might be able to approach them from that,

1:13:43

it just depends on that person.

1:13:45

And you really have to type that person,

1:13:46

and then norm that person and see what their behavior

1:13:48

is like, and then use it.

1:13:51

Interviewer 1

It seems so common sense to me.

1:13:53

I can understand what a military-

1:13:55

-

Well, they've never been trained in that,

1:13:57

that's not their job.

1:13:58

They don't do that for a living,

1:13:59

and that's why we came down there.

1:14:01

Unfortunately, they were not open to what we had to say.

1:14:02

Eventually, they did change their manual,

1:14:08

and now all rapport-based.

1:14:10

So, you know, I think we did accomplish our goal,

1:14:14

but, you know, it took time.

1:14:17

Interviewer 1

Were the justice department officials

1:14:19

down there too, at the time?

1:14:21

-

When you say justice department officials?

1:14:23

-

DoJ?

1:14:25

-

I am a DOJ official.

Right. I work for the FBI-

1:14:27

-

You're also DoJ?

1:14:28

-

We're under DoJ.

I mean, we're in that chain of command, but,

1:14:33

you know, certainly, I was not part

1:14:37

of the Department of Justice

1:14:39

you know, the headquarters,

1:14:41

but we certainly interacted with them

1:14:43

through these video teleconferences, and also,

1:14:46

when I sent my memo up, you know, to...

1:14:51

Interviewer 1

But that's so shocking to me

1:14:55

'cause they had to know

1:14:57

'cause they had seen John News memos.

1:14:58

I assume and maybe they didn't,

1:15:01

but it seems to me that they would have known

1:15:02

what you would, you know, the reaction?

1:15:05

-

What was going on down there?

1:15:08

Interviewer 1

Yeah.

1:15:09

-

Well, I mean, we have a chain of command, right?

1:15:10

So, I have to send it to my unit chiefs and to headquarters,

1:15:12

and, you know, then they're responsible

1:15:18

for giving it to the Pentagon and the DoJ, or whatever.

1:15:20

But I'd wanted to make sure that, that process was begun.

1:15:24

And like I said, I tried to insert

1:15:28

a sort of a two-week rapport-based plan,

1:15:32

so that we could have time for the wheels of justice to turn

1:15:37

and they come down and fix it.

1:15:42

And by the time I,

1:15:44

you know, got to that part in the process,

1:15:46

I think what eventually happened,

1:15:49

was they decided to just take 63 and implement their plan.

1:15:50

And, you know, without, of course, our approval

1:15:55

or our participation,

1:15:58

and we heard about after the fact,

1:16:00

you know, 63's gone,

1:16:02

"He's in the hospital."

1:16:05

Interviewer 1

Why didn't they send you back

1:16:08

down to Guantanamo again?

1:16:09

Why were you only there for 45 days?

1:16:11

-

Because, well, first of all,

1:16:13

I mean, one of my areas of expertise

1:16:15

is interviewing and interrogation,

1:16:19

but I worked child abductions,

1:16:20

and serial murders, and serial rapes.

1:16:23

And that was our, you know, that's my main mission.

1:16:27

We rotated down there to help the process,

1:16:31

and then advocated for permanent placement down there,

1:16:34

of, you know, people in our position

1:16:38

so that they'd have continuity and consistency,

1:16:40

and they did that.

1:16:44

So, we just went back to our regular jobs when we came back.

1:16:45

Interviewer 1

Did anybody say anything to you

1:16:50

when you went back as to your work in Guantanamo?

1:16:51

-

Well, I think initially before I wrote my memo,

1:16:55

they were like, "Why aren't you getting along down there?"

1:16:59

And once they got my memo, I think they realized.

1:17:01

And, you know, I said, "Why am I not getting along?"

1:17:05

I said, because...

1:17:08

And this is what I said to 'em,

1:17:09

"Because in 10 years from now,

1:17:10

I'm gonna be standing in front of Congress

1:17:13

with my right hand raise,

1:17:15

trying to explain why I didn't stop this from happening

1:17:16

if I don't do what I'm doing."

1:17:19

And I think, you know, they got that, you know?

1:17:21

And so, it happened a lot sooner than I thought.

1:17:23

But what, you know,

1:17:28

unfortunately, I got cancer in the middle of all this.

1:17:29

And so, a lot of the,

1:17:32

you know, interviews and investigations,

1:17:35

I did, I was interviewed by phone.

1:17:38

But what I felt with all the investigations

1:17:41

that had occurred, but they had a very narrow focus.

1:17:45

The military were looking at

1:17:49

what their military people were doing.

1:17:50

The Federal people were looking at

1:17:52

what their Federal people were doing,

1:17:54

and there was no,

1:17:56

"Well, that's somebody else's jurisdiction,

1:17:57

we're not looking at that."

1:17:58

And so, they asked very narrow questions,

1:17:59

and they didn't wanna know the whole picture.

1:18:01

And it became very easy for them to say it,

1:18:03

to put blinders on and not sort of get the big picture.

1:18:04

And so, I think that was the biggest flaw in that system.

1:18:08

You know, "The Military will be responsible

1:18:12

for turning over the military documents."

1:18:15

Well, no, they're not,

1:18:17

they're not being responsible,

1:18:20

they're not gonna do that, you know?

1:18:21

So, anyway, I preserved them.

1:18:23

so those are, you know, in a safe at the FBI

1:18:25

if they're ever needed.

1:18:29

Interviewer 1

Have they been examined by others?

1:18:32

-

Yeah. Well, I sent them to headquarters,

1:18:34

you know, and they,

1:18:37

you know, disclosed a number of them

1:18:39

I think through freedom of information redacted versions.

1:18:43

I think they probably turned them over to Senator Leahy,

1:18:48

and Senator McCain's offices.

1:18:51

I don't know what I was talking about,

1:18:57

so I'm off track here.

1:18:58

Interviewer 1

So, you find yourself in a situation

1:19:00

that you had no idea what was gonna happen.

1:19:02

And then when you came back?

1:19:03

-

Yeah. When I came back.

1:19:06

But I remember what I was gonna say.

1:19:07

After I had a bone marrow transplant,

1:19:12

I was kind of out of communication for about a month or two.

1:19:15

And I got a call, sort of a frantic call from the FBI's

1:19:19

General Counsel's Office,

1:19:24

and guy said, "We're trying to determine

1:19:25

who wrote this legal analysis?

1:19:29

Are you aware of this legal analysis?"

1:19:31

And I said, yeah, I'm aware of this, I wrote it.

1:19:33

And they're, "No, no. We're talking about the legal analysis

1:19:36

of the interrogation tactics?"

1:19:38

And I said, yeah, I wrote it.

1:19:39

He goes, "You wrote this?"

1:19:41

And I said, yeah.

1:19:42

He goes, "Why did you write it?"

1:19:43

And I said, "Because I was down there,

1:19:44

I saw what was happening, I saw the problems with it.

1:19:46

I wanted to stop it,

1:19:48

and I thought maybe somebody at headquarters

1:19:49

might be wanting to be made aware of this."

1:19:51

And he goes, "Nobody told you to write this?"

1:19:54

And I said, "No, nobody told me to."

1:19:57

He goes, "You should just be aware you saved the FBI's ass."

1:19:58

And I said, "What do you mean?"

1:20:03

He goes, "Well, you documented the fact

1:20:04

that we were fighting them from the minute

1:20:07

we found out about this stuff.

1:20:10

And that is, you know, exactly what we did,

1:20:12

but at least you put it down on paper."

1:20:15

And I said, "I'm a lawyer, I'm an FBI agent,

1:20:17

that's what we do, I was just doing my job.

1:20:20

It's nothing, you know, out of the ordinary."

1:20:22

And, you know, eventually the director was,

1:20:24

you know, waving that memo in front of Congress,

1:20:27

and so, I'm glad I did it.

1:20:29

You know, it was the right thing to do.

1:20:32

And in fact, they just finished filming.

1:20:33

Well, they just put together,

1:20:37

they finished filming it while I was still an agent,

1:20:38

but a 45 minute video that they're gonna show

1:20:40

to new agents right before they take their oath of office.

1:20:44

And it's called "The Core Values,"

1:20:49

And it's about the FBI's core values.

1:20:51

And I did the segment on rigorous obedience

1:20:53

to the conference constitution.

1:20:56

So, they filmed me talking about it

1:20:57

in front of the U.S constitution.

1:20:59

And that, you know, to me,

1:21:02

you know, 'cause, you know whenever you work

1:21:03

in a classified area,

1:21:06

there's no, you know, recognition,

1:21:09

or you know, anything really from that area,

1:21:11

and you just learn to understand and accept that.

1:21:14

But it was good to be able to say,

1:21:18

"Look, you know, this is what we all do."

1:21:20

I mean, no person or agency is perfect,

1:21:24

but we took this job because we really believed in this.

1:21:28

And there's no excuse for,

1:21:32

you know, on one hand saying

1:21:35

you're upholding the constitution, on the other hand,

1:21:38

you know, completely undermining it.

1:21:40

Interviewer 1

Well, it just really inspiring

1:21:44

to think what you did,

1:21:46

and to think that you walked down there totally unaware

1:21:48

of what you would be walking into?

1:21:51

-

Well. Yeah. And it wasn't just me,

1:21:53

because the guys before me, although they may not have,

1:21:54

like I said, had the legal perspective,

1:21:57

they knew that it was wrong and they objected to it.

1:22:02

But we were invited down there to advise them,

1:22:04

we weren't down there to control them.

1:22:07

So, I think they were,

1:22:10

you know, you're sort of a little bit isolated

1:22:12

when you're down there and the communications are difficult.

1:22:14

So, you know, I think when they went back,

1:22:19

they started talking about it,

1:22:22

but I was down there already, you know, when they came back.

1:22:23

So, they were sort of brewing things up there,

1:22:25

and I was brewing things down there, down at GITMO,

1:22:28

and I think it came to a head,

1:22:31

you know, when Tom Near came down.

1:22:33

I mean, he was absolutely fighting,

1:22:34

you know, as hard or harder than I was.

1:22:36

And, you know, Mark Macquarie was absolutely

1:22:39

trying to fight that fight.

1:22:43

And Major Lacey or Bernie tried valiantly

1:22:44

to do what they were doing,

1:22:47

and, you know, unfortunately were ordered to stop.

1:22:48

And so, I think there were a lot of people

1:22:51

who knew what was right and they were fighting for it.

1:22:54

I just happened to be from New York,

1:22:56

and I might've been a little more vocal than others,

1:22:58

you know, because of that.

1:23:00

And, you know, because of my history,

1:23:01

you know, as a prosecutor and an agent,

1:23:03

I felt very confident that what I was talking about,

1:23:06

was the right thing to do.

1:23:09

And I had the answer for them,

1:23:11

you know, and we presented that answer.

1:23:14

Tom, and I, and Bill Spencer to the General,

1:23:15

and it was flatly refused.

1:23:19

Interviewer 1

Just a couple of more questions.

1:23:23

One is, since you mentioned it a couple of times

1:23:25

about waterboarding or wet toweling.

1:23:27

Have you actually heard of anybody being waterboarded

1:23:29

or wet toweling in Guantanamo?

1:23:33

-

Yes. I can't...

1:23:35

I mean, I know they...

1:23:38

It was in the plan for 63.

1:23:39

I didn't witness it,

1:23:43

but when they talk about it,

1:23:44

they talked about it absolutely as a matter of fact,

1:23:47

yeah, we're gonna do this.

1:23:50

And they talked about the SERE techniques,

1:23:51

and, and again, you know, SERE is,

1:23:52

Survival, Evasion, Resistance,

1:23:54

something, I can't remember.

1:23:57

But I tried to explain to them,

1:24:01

I said, "These tactics were developed

1:24:03

in order to build resistance in our pilots,

1:24:07

so that if they were tortured,

1:24:12

they'd be able to resist it,

1:24:14

and not give up the information.

1:24:16

So, what you're actually doing

1:24:18

by implementing these tactics,

1:24:19

is building their resistance against us,

1:24:22

doing things like torture.

1:24:25

So, how is this gonna promote what you wanna do?"

1:24:27

"Well, no, no, it's, you know, they'll go crazy, they do..."

1:24:31

No. Well, once you do it to a guy once, he's scared,

1:24:34

and he thinks he's drowning,

1:24:38

which to me, very clearly a violation of Torture Statute

1:24:39

because what is it doing?

1:24:44

It's putting him in his fear of losing his life,

1:24:44

and that's a violation of the Torture Statute.

1:24:47

So, but once you stop, he will know,

1:24:51

and everyone he talks to,

1:24:55

will know that they won't go past a certain point,

1:24:57

and you feel like you're drowning

1:25:01

but you're just gonna cough and splutter,

1:25:03

and all this other stuff

1:25:05

you have a natural reflex relax action to breathe in,

1:25:06

when you believe you're actually gonna die by doing it.

1:25:09

And so, you know, it's a very...

1:25:13

You know, it's a mental torture as well

1:25:15

as a physical torture in that case.

1:25:17

And so, they just couldn't understand,

1:25:19

I don't think it's that subtle.

1:25:23

But, you know, so they were using something

1:25:26

completely outside of the genre that it was developed for,

1:25:28

but that's exactly the kind of just-

1:25:35

Interviewer 1

You think they went ahead

1:25:38

and did it in spite of your advice apparently?

1:25:41

-

Yeah. It certainly was part of their plans.

1:25:45

And, you know, again, I did not witness any of that,

1:25:47

but they spoke of it as if it was,

1:25:51

you know, a completely accepted practice there.

1:25:54

Interviewer 1

And before you went to Guantanamo,

1:25:56

had you heard of torture in Afghanistan?

1:25:57

-

No. You have to understand

1:26:02

that I was working criminal cases.

1:26:03

I was doing, you know, child abductions and child sex crimes

1:26:05

you know, and serial killers and serial rapists.

1:26:10

And, you know, on 9/11,

1:26:14

you know, everybody in the FBI

1:26:16

began working terrorism cases.

1:26:18

I mean, we had a bunch of people

1:26:20

that just did that before that,

1:26:21

but we in our unit did a study of the actual 19 hijackers.

1:26:22

And so, we drilled down on one of 'em,

1:26:29

and found out everything we could

1:26:33

about their background and their behavior

1:26:35

to use as a body of knowledge to prevent this in the future.

1:26:38

And so, we spent quite a bit of time,

1:26:42

and including and up to the time I went down to GITMO.

1:26:44

But I think around the time when I came back from GITMO,

1:26:47

we started sort of...

1:26:52

I mean, we never stopped doing criminal cases,

1:26:55

but they certainly were put on the back burner.

1:26:57

You know, cases would come in,

1:27:02

and I eventually became completely,

1:27:03

my time became completely captivated with that.

1:27:06

Interviewer 1

So, you were involved in identifying

1:27:08

or profiling the terrorist subjects through those 19 men

1:27:11

who, you know, flew the planes?

1:27:16

-

Yes.

1:27:17

Interviewer 1

So, number 63,

1:27:18

if people think is a 25 jacker,

1:27:19

you use that same profiling to work with?

1:27:22

-

Well, I mean, again, if you look at profiling,

1:27:25

it is looking at somebody who committed a crime,

1:27:28

and learning all his behavioral characteristics

1:27:31

so that we can, you know, say,

1:27:34

you know, this behavior tells us that,

1:27:36

you know, this is the kind of person you're dealing with,

1:27:39

you know?

1:27:41

And then, we have an opportunity to look at the behavior,

1:27:42

and then study that person.

1:27:46

So, now, next time we have behavior, we can say,

1:27:47

well, you're looking for this kind of person

1:27:51

or this kind of person.

1:27:52

So, we were looking for,

1:27:53

you know, distinctions between them,

1:27:54

and the leaders and the followers, and so forth.

1:27:56

And yeah, I'm fairly, very well aware of

1:27:58

what's been published like in Time Magazine about 63,

1:28:01

and being the 20th hijacker and all that stuff.

1:28:03

You know, obviously, I'm not gonna confirm or deny that,

1:28:06

but, you know, you can make your own decisions

1:28:08

based on what his behavior was.

1:28:10

But the fact is that,

1:28:12

you know, I don't care who he was

1:28:16

or what he did, or didn't do,

1:28:18

you know, we have a mandate to uphold the constitution

1:28:21

and that's what we had to do.

1:28:24

Interviewer 1

You know, we're almost done

1:28:26

unless you wanna add something.

1:28:28

But I just wanna ask you,

1:28:29

did you see doctors interact with?

1:28:29

-

Doctors?

1:28:33

-

Mm-hmm.

-

Like physicians?

1:28:34

-

Yeah.

1:28:34

-

No.

Interviewer 1

And did you see any ICRC personnel

1:28:36

in there?

1:28:39

-

What's ICRC?

-

You know, Red Cross?

1:28:41

-

Red Cross?

You know, there was a time while I was down there,

1:28:48

I think that there was a group of them there.

1:28:52

Interviewer 1

But you didn't interact?

1:28:57

-

I did not.

1:28:58

Interviewer 1

And did you interact

1:28:59

with any foreign diplomats who came in?

1:29:00

Apparently, foreign diplomats came in

1:29:03

and interrogated the detainees.

1:29:05

Did you have any interaction with any of them?

1:29:07

-

We did not.

1:29:09

Interviewer 1

And did you know they were present?

1:29:10

-

Sure, yeah.

1:29:12

Interviewer 1

Did anybody care

1:29:13

about how they interrogating the detainees?

1:29:14

-

As far as I'm aware,

1:29:23

they were just given access to the people

1:29:25

from their countries, that's all that I know.

1:29:29

Interviewer 1

And you were never present

1:29:32

in any of the interrogations?

1:29:33

-

No.

Interviewer 1

Were FBI agents present

1:29:35

during those interrogations if you know of?

1:29:37

-

I don't know that anywhere.

1:29:39

Interviewer 1

And were psychologist ever talked to you

1:29:46

to, you know, either to give you information

1:29:50

or to learn something from you?

1:29:53

-

Well, the CITF psychologist,

1:29:55

yeah, we worked together very well

1:29:57

up until the point where Pfeiffer basically,

1:29:59

you know, threatened them.

1:30:03

Not basically, with Pfeiffer threatening them

1:30:04

with insubordination and court marshals.

1:30:07

They were very open with us and they...

1:30:11

We interacted, and we basically agreed on every point.

1:30:13

Even though that wasn't their mission,

1:30:16

they just could not wrap their arms around,

1:30:18

you know, what these guys wanted to do as a methodology,

1:30:22

it just didn't make sense to them.

1:30:27

We had, you know, our unit had been,

1:30:29

you know, for 30 years getting serial killers,

1:30:31

you know, these hardened people to talk cooperate.

1:30:34

And we said, you know, there's no difference,

1:30:39

we can, you know, you can...

1:30:41

This is easily translatable,

1:30:42

but the difference is the culture and the religion,

1:30:44

so learn about it.

1:30:47

So, I used my interview with 682

1:30:47

to educate myself

1:30:52

so I could better educate other people.

1:30:53

And I thought that, you know, was a good model,

1:30:55

and, you know, it was effective in that case,

1:30:58

and I think it would have been effective

1:31:01

in other cases as well.

1:31:03

Interviewer 1

Do you have any flips back on Guantanamo?

1:31:06

Today, it's still open 10 years later.

1:31:07

Do you have any thoughts about,

1:31:10

you know, these past 10 years?

1:31:12

-

Well, I mean, what I believe, first of all,

1:31:16

is that there was a need

1:31:20

to do something,

1:31:25

and I believe Guantanamo was a quick fix.

1:31:27

And I believe that keeping these people

1:31:31

off of the continental United States was deliberate,

1:31:35

and short-sighted.

1:31:40

I believe that they should have had better advice,

1:31:45

if any advice,

1:31:50

on what the long-term ramifications would be.

1:31:53

So, I think that what happened,

1:31:58

is what happened in fact,

1:32:00

is the natural result of not planning.

1:32:02

And I believe the generals,

1:32:05

there were two reserve generals

1:32:07

that ran it before General Miller got there.

1:32:09

One of 'em was a family court judge,

1:32:11

and I can't remember what the other one was,

1:32:13

maybe a mortician.

1:32:14

None of the generals that ran it to that point

1:32:17

had any experience in running a prison,

1:32:19

or in interrogating anybody,

1:32:23

yet they were making the decisions.

1:32:26

And they were relying on people who also didn't have

1:32:28

any experience that I know of,

1:32:34

you know, Pfeiffer, and Becker, and Beaver.

1:32:37

So, it was, you know doomed for failure in that respect.

1:32:41

And it's not that the expertise wasn't available,

1:32:46

they asked for it late in the game,

1:32:51

but they did ask for it, and then they ignored it

1:32:52

for as long as they could,

1:32:56

and then eventually, we got them to change that.

1:32:57

So, I think, you know, it's a process,

1:33:00

you know, it's interacting...

1:33:02

The interactions of major components of the U.S government,

1:33:04

and sometimes they take a little time to get the word around

1:33:09

and get things changed.

1:33:13

But I think the system eventually worked

1:33:14

in terms of the techniques,

1:33:17

but we're still left with this unknown question.

1:33:19

What do you do with these people?

1:33:24

And, you know, how were they collected in the first place?

1:33:26

How accurate was the information you got about them

1:33:31

when you collected them?

1:33:33

And now that you have 'em, and let's say,

1:33:35

you know, they are dangerous, what do you do?

1:33:38

I mean, prisoners of war.

1:33:41

after the war is over, you turn it back over, right?

1:33:43

Is that where you're gonna do?

1:33:46

Is there a war?

1:33:47

Is it ever gonna be over?

1:33:48

You know, all these questions

1:33:49

just nobody seemed to be looking at.

1:33:51

Although, I do know some of the people

1:33:54

that were involved,

1:33:56

I guess, I assume they're still involved

1:33:58

in sort of trying to develop a current plan for it,

1:34:02

you know, some good minds.

1:34:05

So, hopefully they'll come up with something.

1:34:06

Interviewer 1

I think what you said is really true.

1:34:09

There was no end game and no one was thinking.

1:34:10

-

Yeah.

1:34:13

Interviewer 1

Before we go,

1:34:15

listening to you, I'm just reminded you had nothing to do

1:34:17

with interviewing Jose Pedreiro,

1:34:20

or, you know, in the Naval brig in South Carolina?

1:34:22

-

No. I didn't know.

1:34:29

Interviewer 1

And none of the three men

1:34:31

who were in that Naval brig.

1:34:32

There were two others there, Colombian?

1:34:34

-

No, I didn't.

1:34:37

Yeah. No, I didn't.

1:34:38

Interviewer 1

Is there anything else

1:34:41

that you would like to say that I didn't ask you,

1:34:42

that maybe would be really valuable?

1:34:45

-

Let me think about that for a second.

1:34:48

Interviewer 1

Do you wanna ask a question?

1:34:51

Interviewer 2

I just wanna confirm

1:34:53

that you didn't experience any negative consequences

1:34:54

from internal, from the FBI by being outspoken.

1:34:59

It sounds as though obviously long term,

1:35:03

they showed their appreciation.

1:35:05

Short-term, did you feel that you had...

1:35:07

That there were issues?

1:35:10

-

I think, you know, in the immediate short term,

1:35:11

you know, they just like...

1:35:14

'Cause I couldn't actually communicate on email

1:35:15

or the phone, unless we use the STU secure phone

1:35:19

what was actually going on.

1:35:23

And so, the immediate reaction was,

1:35:25

why are you, you know bumping heads with these guys?

1:35:28

But once they got the information,

1:35:33

and you know, they sent Tom down,

1:35:36

because the guy that was supposed to be there in a week,

1:35:39

couldn't, you know, his background,

1:35:44

his clearance just was taking too long.

1:35:47

The guy who was supposed to be with me,

1:35:50

overlapping from before had a family emergency,

1:35:53

so he left early, so it was just me.

1:35:56

So, they were like, what is the issue?

1:35:58

Why aren't you getting along with these guys?

1:35:59

And so, but when I wrote that memo,

1:36:02

their reaction was very clear,

1:36:06

you know, yeah, we need to do something immediately.

1:36:08

And so, you know, that's when the process began.

1:36:12

I think that maybe,

1:36:15

'cause I, you know, obviously I wasn't up there,

1:36:17

but I think that when they wrote that memo

1:36:20

and interacting with Charlie and Bob

1:36:22

who had been there right before me,

1:36:25

I think that, you know, they sort of coalesced,

1:36:27

and went forward.

1:36:31

I mean, we...

1:36:32

When we came back, we debriefed everybody on what went on,

1:36:36

and I'm sure they did the same thing before us.

1:36:40

So, you know, I'm sure that process was begun,

1:36:42

and I just happened to be the one on the ground

1:36:44

when it really kicked in.

1:36:46

But we thought that,

1:36:49

you know, that since the General,

1:36:52

obviously, invited us down for our expertise,

1:36:54

that once we actually got to see him face-to-face

1:36:57

not filtered through Pfeiffer, that he would understand.

1:36:59

And what we found was a guy who spoken,

1:37:03

you know, business management, seminar quips,

1:37:07

you know, better, faster, cheaper,

1:37:10

and, you know-

1:37:13

-

General Miller?

1:37:14

-

General Miller.

You know, he did not do a lot of,

1:37:19

you know, interactive dialogue.

1:37:22

He just sort of spurted out these little quips

1:37:25

and that was it.

1:37:29

And then, you know, he told us have a nice day,

1:37:31

you know, basically, so.

1:37:33

But, you know, clearly, the FBI from the start was,

1:37:36

I mean, I think here's the basis of the problem.

1:37:41

You have the U.S military,

1:37:45

who in the middle of a military action,

1:37:47

has apparently standards that are vastly different

1:37:49

than what our standards in the FBI.

1:37:53

And now, you've put them both together in a situation

1:37:57

where those standards are in conflict,

1:38:00

direct conflict of each other.

1:38:03

And I think that was the basis of the problem,

1:38:05

it was bound to happen.

1:38:09

You know, I just happened to be there at the time.

1:38:10

And I think anybody who was in that situation,

1:38:12

who had my experience,

1:38:15

would have done exactly the same thing.

1:38:17

-

We hope.

1:38:19

-

Yeah.

But but being in that situation, you're...

1:38:20

It's a tough situation

1:38:24

because you're invited by the military,

1:38:25

you know, it's not like you are in the middle

1:38:28

of an investigation,

1:38:30

where you have your full,

1:38:31

you know investigative and arrest powers.

1:38:33

And so, it's sort of like,

1:38:37

you know, our teeth are taken away,

1:38:39

all we can do is advise.

1:38:42

And so, you wanna try to find a way

1:38:44

to actually convince them,

1:38:45

rather than just going head to head and fighting them.

1:38:47

And I saw like, right from the start,

1:38:50

I mean, when any kind of, you know, conflict,

1:38:53

any kind of disagreement was met with,

1:38:56

you know ranting and raving by Lieutenant Colonel Pfeiffer,

1:38:58

and so, I saw this wasn't gonna be really effective.

1:39:01

And then in talking to Mark Macquarie,

1:39:04

who clearly cared,

1:39:07

I mean, he was really fighting hard

1:39:10

but he was one man, you know?

1:39:12

And he's in the military,

1:39:14

so he has to deal with the chain of command.

1:39:15

So, I think, you know, we were able

1:39:20

to gain a critical mass at that point,

1:39:23

and get the people from FBI headquarters

1:39:26

and DoJ involved in down there.

1:39:28

And, you know, it sort of gave them a better window

1:39:30

into what was going on and the issues.

1:39:36

I would think that if any of them knew to that detail,

1:39:40

what was going on and the overlap of the U.S cases

1:39:43

with the, you know, with the detainees,

1:39:48

that, you know were being treated this way.

1:39:51

I mean, even if they weren't treated this way by our guys,

1:39:54

you know, even if our guys were maintaining

1:39:58

the constitutional standards,

1:39:59

the fact that they had been treated coercively at a minimum,

1:40:01

could have ruined these cases anyway.

1:40:07

So, you know, you really have to be careful on those,

1:40:08

you know, it's a slippery slope,

1:40:12

and I didn't wanna see cases go down the drain.

1:40:13

Interviewer 2

One additional question.

1:40:17

When you were there and they were adamant

1:40:18

that they wanted to continue in their way,

1:40:22

did they describe to you,

1:40:26

or did you witness any successes

1:40:27

that they had in the course of, in harsh tactics?

1:40:31

-

No.

1:40:35

Interviewer 1

When you look at-

1:40:36

-

Yes, sir.

1:40:37

When they...

1:40:40

First of all, I'm not aware of any successes.

1:40:41

And the whole reason we were there,

1:40:45

was because they were failing,

1:40:46

and they wanted to just get harsher as a response to that.

1:40:48

They did claim, I believe,

1:40:55

you know, they talked about somebody off,

1:40:59

you know, off the Island who was waterboarded

1:41:02

and he cooperated completely,

1:41:04

you know, again, I don't wanna use any names,

1:41:07

but, you know, my understanding is that he was cooperating

1:41:10

with the FBI before they started doing that.

1:41:12

And most of the good information they got,

1:41:14

was at that rapport-building stage.

1:41:16

And then with 63, you know, they said they eventually won,

1:41:19

you know, and they got him to talk.

1:41:25

Well, in fact, they instituted a program that we suggested

1:41:27

and it's all based on giving that person,

1:41:32

somebody to talk to in a rapport-based way.

1:41:35

And that, that was the way

1:41:38

that actually it became effective.

1:41:40

And they said, "Well, it's only effective

1:41:42

because we were harsh with them,

1:41:43

and you were like, sort of bad cop, good cop,

1:41:44

so now you're a good cop and that's why it worked."

1:41:47

And we said, "No, it would have worked

1:41:49

right from the beginning."

1:41:51

I think,

1:41:53

I can't remember his name,

1:41:56

the guy from "Law and Order,"

1:41:57

the guy with the real kind of slow voice

1:42:00

and the deep gravelly voice.

1:42:02

He's the one that gave me the award, Human Rights Award.

1:42:04

-

Fred Thompson?

1:42:07

-

No.

Not Fred, the other guy, that sort-

1:42:09

-

Sam Waterston?

1:42:11

-

Waterston. Sam Waterston.

Interviewer 1

He gave you the award?

1:42:13

-

Yes. Sam Waterston told us about his father

1:42:14

who had been a military intelligence guy in world war II.

1:42:17

And he said more German

1:42:22

were bought over to our side

1:42:26

by taking them out to a nice steak dinner.

1:42:28

And they were, you know,

1:42:31

through any other interrogation method.

1:42:32

And that's exactly, you know, that's it!

1:42:34

That's it, in a nutshell what rapport-building is,

1:42:37

treat 'em like human beings.

1:42:41

Interviewer 1

What's so amazing

1:42:41

is that there was a debate for years about whether,

1:42:42

which is more like successful.

1:42:46

And the way you describe it, it's not even a debate,

1:42:49

it's so clear.

1:42:51

-

Two minutes.

1:42:52

-

Okay.

Okay, and yeah.

1:42:54

I mean, I think it is very clear what's more successful.

1:42:55

I don't know, psychologically,

1:43:00

or, you know, in actuality, whether or not,

1:43:02

on a battlefield, how the best way

1:43:06

to get military intelligence

1:43:08

that you need immediately to save lives,

1:43:09

but that's not what I'm talking about.

1:43:12

I'm talking about in-custody interrogations

1:43:14

and rapport-building is absolutely the best way.

1:43:17

It's the only way that's been proven to be effective.

1:43:20

Interviewer 1

It's amazing inspirational.

1:43:24

Thank you so much.

1:43:25

-

Well, you know, Thanks.

Interviewer 1

It's great and we really appreciate it

1:43:26

-

Okay.

1:43:28

-

Okay, we're done.

Clemente, Jim - Interview master file

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