Wolosky, Lee - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Interviewer

Okay, good afternoon.

0:05

-

Good afternoon.

0:07

Interviewer

We are very grateful to you

0:08

for participating in the witness to Guantanamo project.

0:09

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:14

and involvement with detainees

0:16

and others involved in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

0:18

-

Sure.

0:21

Interviewer

We're hoping to provide you an opportunity

0:22

to tell your story in your own words,

0:23

we are creating an archive of stories

0:26

so people in America and around the world

0:28

will have a better opportunity to understand what happened.

0:31

Future generations must know what happened in Guantanamo

0:36

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

0:39

If there is any time you wanna take a break,

0:42

please let us know.

0:44

And if you say something that you'd like us to remove,

0:45

we can remove it if you tell us

0:49

at the end of the interview.

0:49

-

Sure, thank you.

0:51

Interviewer

Thank you very much.

0:52

And I'd like to begin by asking you

0:53

if you can tell us your name

0:55

and some background as to where you were born

0:56

and how old you are and where you went to school.

0:59

-

Sure, Lee Wolosky.

1:02

I was born in New York in July 17, 1968.

1:04

Went to school in New York City first

1:10

and then Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

1:14

Interviewer

And from there?

1:18

-

From there, I practiced law at a law firm in New York,

1:19

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

1:24

And from there, I became a fellow

1:27

at the council on foreign relations.

1:29

And from there, I went to serve

1:32

on Bill Clinton's national security council staff.

1:35

I carried over to president George W. Bush's

1:38

national security council staff

1:43

until July of 2001.

1:46

And then I found my way back up to New York

1:50

to rejoin the legal profession.

1:54

And I joined a firm where I currently am

1:56

in where we are setting

1:58

Boies, Schiller and Flexner practice law

2:00

here from 2001 until July of 2015.

2:04

When I took a leave of absence from Boies, Schiller

2:09

and began my tenure as president Obama

2:12

special Envoy for Guantanamo closure.

2:17

And I served in that position from July 5th, 2015

2:20

until the end of the president's term,

2:24

January 20th, 2017.

2:27

Interviewer

Could you tell me a bit about

2:30

how that opportunity, that president Obama hired you?

2:31

-

I was actually hired by John Kerry at the state department

2:39

which is where I sat and served,

2:43

but I had served in democratic administrations previously

2:49

as I said, a moment ago

2:56

and was

2:58

Interviewer

John Kerry knew you and

3:01

-

No I mean I would prefer not to get into the details

3:03

of how I came to be hired into the job,

3:07

but what I will say is that,

3:10

I think that enough

3:13

I actually didn't really know John Kerry very well

3:14

although I did support and sort of helped out his campaign

3:17

for the presidency in 2004.

3:20

But I certainly knew a number of people

3:22

who were in a position to help make

3:26

senior staffing decisions on priorities to the president

3:30

as he sort of finished out his term.

3:35

And one of those people asked me

3:37

if I was interested in this job,

3:41

meaning the special Envoy for Guantanamo job,

3:45

that job, I should probably say.

3:48

And after thinking about it for a period of time

3:50

and talking to a number of people about it,

3:54

I decided to, sort of throw my hat in the ring for it

3:57

and then was asked to do it

4:03

in the spring of 2015.

4:06

Interviewer

Did you foresee any difficulties

4:09

in that kind of work

4:12

did you know what you were walking into?

4:14

-

Yeah, I foresaw a lot of difficulties

4:15

and I had a number of people telling me

4:17

that it was a somewhat crazy thing to do

4:21

cause I have a pretty decent life

4:23

in New York practicing law.

4:26

And I also had a number of people who told me

4:30

that I would not succeed in doing it,

4:33

but nonetheless, I decided to do it for a number of reasons.

4:36

One of them was a desire to serve again just generally.

4:42

And I had actually passed up a couple of opportunities

4:46

to join the Obama administration earlier in 2015,

4:50

there was sort of a (indistinct) to sort of a good time

4:55

for me in terms of what some of the work

4:58

I was finishing off here at Boies Schiller at the time.

5:02

And it was obviously the last opportunity I was gonna have

5:06

with at the time, less than two years to go

5:10

in the president's term.

5:14

Another thing I liked about it is that

5:15

it provided a very clear metric for success.

5:18

In other words, at the time I came into the government

5:23

I think we had something like 116 detainees at Guantanamo.

5:26

I forget how many were approved for transfer

5:32

but it was very...

5:34

I sort of liked being in situations where

5:37

they're a little less morphous than

5:39

can you do Asia policy?

5:42

And there were some successes and some failures,

5:44

this either we were going to succeed

5:47

in getting people out of Guantanamo or we weren't.

5:49

I will say that by the time I came into office,

5:53

there was a sense in part

5:56

because of a restriction in U S law

5:59

that we may not actually succeed in closing it

6:02

but that we had to reduce the population in Guantanamo

6:05

very substantially for a variety of reasons.

6:12

One was because it was the right thing to do

6:14

and consistent with the president's policy.

6:15

But also because if we were going to have

6:18

a final shot at getting the Congress to change the law

6:21

and to remove the transfer ban that prevented,

6:24

that purported to prevent the president

6:28

from moving (indistinct) war detainees

6:30

into the United States

6:32

then the best case that we were gonna make

6:34

was for a very small number

6:36

or a small of a number of detainees as possible.

6:38

So quite independent of our interest in closing Guantanamo

6:41

and quite independent of our interest

6:46

in reducing the population

6:50

because it was the right thing to do.

6:52

We also sort of conceived

6:55

a final push to get the law changed

6:57

as one that was going to be best made

7:02

with a small of a population as possible.

7:05

Interviewer

What you said at one point

7:09

was your goal to actually shut down Guantanamo

7:11

was that part of it?

7:14

-

Well that was the president's goal

7:15

from before he was president?

7:16

So yes, I mean the goal was definitely to close Guantanamo

7:20

and the way to achieve that goal

7:24

was really through the release of individuals

7:26

out of U S custody who were approved for transfer

7:30

and then working on

7:35

possibly some foreign prosecutions for others

7:38

but really then taking what we referred to as

7:41

the irreducible minimum

7:46

those individuals who were not going to be released

7:48

from U S custody during president Obama's term either

7:51

because they were subject

7:55

to military commission proceedings,

7:57

or because we weren't gonna release them for other reasons

7:59

but to have that population,

8:05

which is around 35 people currently

8:07

to get the number down as far as possible.

8:12

So we were intending to close Guantanamo from day one

8:15

as the president made clear,

8:19

but the mechanism to get it closed

8:22

was to release those that we could release

8:24

and thereby reducing the population

8:27

so that when we were in a position

8:29

of moving this irreducible minimum

8:32

to a secure facility in the United States

8:34

it would be as small as possible.

8:37

Interviewer

So your challenge was to socially

8:39

transfer out all those people.

8:42

So you only have this

8:44

what you call very small number of people left?

8:45

If that, that was your challenge.

8:50

-

Yeah and that was my primary responsibility

8:53

because I was the lead diplomat for getting that done.

8:56

So it was my primary responsibility

9:00

was in negotiating the transfer of detainees

9:03

who were approved for transfer to other countries

9:07

subject to a package of security assurances

9:11

which is something that my office

9:14

also was responsible for negotiating.

9:17

Interviewer

Could you explain how that process worked?

9:20

And when you say your office, what that means?

9:22

-

Well, I had an office at the state department and

9:26

Interviewer

With peoples assistance?

9:32

-

yeah, I had a professional staff

9:33

and my office was the, as I said,

9:36

sort of the the chief diplomatic focal point

9:38

for negotiating the transfer of detainees

9:43

who were approved for transfer

9:48

either for purposes of repatriation,

9:49

if they would be going back to their countries of origin

9:52

or for resettlement if they were not going to be able

9:56

to go back to their country of origin.

10:00

So there was an office at the state department that I led

10:03

that was responsible for that diplomatic outreach.

10:08

Interviewer

Did you have connections

10:15

with these foreign countries that you convinced

10:16

or I'm not sure how to process the word,

10:19

to take a man of transfer if they weren't repatriated

10:21

-

you mean personal connections

10:26

Interviewer

Or how did you find these countries

10:27

that have-

10:29

-

Well, the United States certainly did.

10:31

And I was the president's special Envoy

10:32

and senior state department official.

10:37

And so we would do the things that we do in the government

10:40

to decide where we were going to engage in the world.

10:45

My office was part of the office of the secretary.

10:53

So it was an opportunity to really be able to have

10:56

a sort of a bird's eye view on U S diplomacy.

11:02

So it positioned us well to be able to

11:05

look around the world and sort of see

11:09

where we thought we might have opportunities,

11:11

but I certainly wasn't the only one,

11:15

making diplomatic asks,

11:17

president did that personally,

11:19

secretary Kerry did that personally.

11:21

I did it personally.

11:24

Either in the first instance or following up something

11:28

that the president or the secretary Kerry,

11:31

may have set in motion.

11:33

Interviewer

And Were there incentives given

11:36

to these countries to take these men?

11:41

-

No, if you mean financial incentives, no.

11:43

We, in some cases would provide a small amount of money

11:47

to reimburse certain costs.

11:53

In the case of resettlement's in particular

11:56

where a detainee was not going to his home country

11:58

and might require the expenditure certain money

12:02

like for renting a place to live,

12:06

language training if he doesn't speak the language,

12:10

vocational training, and the United States would provide

12:13

small amounts of money to enable us to work

12:17

on these resettlement's so that our partner countries

12:24

were not having to foot the bill for that.

12:27

Interviewer

Well, what did the countries find?

12:30

Why did the countries agree to take these men?

12:34

-

I'd say for many different reasons

12:40

depends on the country and the nature of the relationship

12:42

the United States had with the country in question.

12:46

But I would also say that

12:47

a lot of them shared the goal of closing Guantanamo

12:49

and they understood that we needed help in order to do that

12:53

in part because we were unable

12:57

to bring these people into the United States.

12:59

And in some cases we were unable to send them home.

13:01

So we did rely on our friends and partners

13:03

to help us get it closed and many, or try to get a closed.

13:08

And in many cases they cooperated

13:12

with us because they shared the goal.

13:15

Interviewer

Have they ever asked you

13:17

why the U S wouldn't take detainees?

13:19

-

Yes, it was, it was a good question I frequently got,

13:22

Interviewer

How do you answer it?

13:25

-

The truth, which is it's prohibited

13:27

that the Congress put in a provision of law

13:30

that prevents us from taking them into the United States.

13:34

Interviewer

And they accepted that.

13:38

-

Yeah, well

13:40

(chuckles)

yeah and some of them would say

13:41

but you want us to do it and we'd say, yes.

13:43

So-

13:47

Interviewer

And when you talk about security concerns

13:48

what does that mean?

13:50

-

Well, I think what I said was security assurances.

13:51

So the secretary of defense is the person in the government

13:53

who ultimately makes the decision to release a detainee.

13:59

And he's vested with that responsibility by law.

14:03

And there's a statutory standards

14:08

that he needs to certify as being met.

14:10

And the standard is that steps are being taken

14:13

to substantially mitigate the risk

14:17

that the detainee might pose to the United States

14:20

after his transfer or to the I believe it says

14:23

to the security of our,

14:26

the risk to our friends and allies or something like that.

14:28

But the standard is substantial mitigation of risk.

14:31

It's not that there is no risk

14:34

and it's not elimination of risk.

14:36

So the way that we implemented the statutory standard

14:38

is described actually in some detail

14:43

in the president Obama's February, 2016 closure plan

14:46

and it really had four elements.

14:51

One was monitoring.

14:53

We asked our former foreign partners to monitor transferees,

14:57

former detainees.

15:01

The second is travel restrictions.

15:03

We asked them to limit or restrict travel

15:07

for a fixed period of time.

15:10

The third is through information sharing

15:13

with the United States

15:14

about the activities of the former detainee.

15:16

And then the fourth is integration planning,

15:19

sort of what I was talking about a moment ago,

15:21

language training if applicable,

15:25

vocational training, sometimes family reunification,

15:27

really having a plan for that.

15:32

Interviewer

Did the U S follow up on issues

15:35

of the security issue?

15:39

Like did the U S and this is no reflection idea.

15:41

We're just curious did the U S check back in to see

15:44

if in fact the men were getting counseling

15:46

or getting vocational training.

15:49

-

Absolutely.

15:50

Interviewer

it did?

15:51

-

Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer

How would it do that?

15:52

-

You know there are mechanisms for,

15:57

what I will say is that the United States

15:58

has a very strong interest in the activities

16:01

of former detainees.

16:05

That is something that we track very closely.

16:07

The security assurances that I just described

16:10

are a mechanism that helps us track the activities

16:14

and monitor the activities of our former detainees.

16:18

But one of them was information sharing that I said.

16:21

So we would not transfer a detainee

16:24

to a place where we did not think

16:27

that there would be a very clear line of communication

16:30

with the receiving country.

16:34

So we definitely did and it was my office that did this.

16:35

We sort of made sure we have strong interest in making sure

16:40

that our resettlement's are success.

16:42

And part of that is following up on all elements

16:45

of the package, the diplomatic package.

16:48

So both the security stuff and the non-security stuff.

16:51

In fact, many of us viewed the integration planning

16:54

and implementation of that planning

16:58

to be part of the security package

16:59

because if you have families that are reunified

17:01

if you have detainees who have access to education,

17:05

to vocational training, to language training that reduces,

17:08

it's been proven that

17:12

that reduces the risks of re-engagement.

17:13

And so we had a strong interest in making sure

17:17

that our partners did what they actually told us

17:20

they were going to do both

17:22

because it was the best thing for our security.

17:25

And it was the best thing for these individuals.

17:28

We never make apologies.

17:31

We didn't make apologies for the detention

17:33

of any of the people who we ended up releasing

17:36

but at least from my perspective,

17:40

we tried to make sure that they had the ability

17:42

to move on with their lives after many years of detention

17:49

by the United States.

17:54

And that meant all the things that I talked about

17:56

putting them into an environment where they could succeed

17:59

they could make good constructive life choices

18:03

for themselves and for their own benefit

18:06

and also to keep them away from bad things.

18:09

Interviewer

when you say we'd never make apologies

18:14

is that a government protocol,

18:17

is that a government policy

18:20

or where's that come from, we don't make apologies?

18:22

-

The basis for the detention

18:27

of the individuals in Guantanamo

18:29

was litigated by the courts.

18:32

And it's been settled law

18:34

that we had the authority to detain the people

18:38

who we detained in Guantanamo.

18:41

There've been multiple habeas and other legal challenges

18:43

to that detention authority in the United States

18:47

with very few exceptions has defended in court

18:50

the relevant legal authorities.

18:54

So there are a few cases

18:56

where there was more likely than not

19:00

that there were fundamentally cases of mistaken identity.

19:02

And those are sort of separate cases.

19:06

They're extremely unfortunate cases

19:07

that perhaps are deserving of apology

19:09

and more than an apology

19:12

but with respect to the other group who were detained

19:14

because they were in Afghanistan or Pakistan

19:19

or pass through safe houses, et cetera

19:24

our policy was to detain them at a certain period of time.

19:28

And then our policy was to release them

19:33

subject to the security assurances

19:36

at another period of time.

19:38

And that was our policy.

19:39

Interviewer

So

19:42

-

which is different

from saying that they shouldn't have been in Guantanamo.

19:45

Okay, so I'm not defending Guantanamo

19:47

I'm defending the legal authority of the United States

19:51

of people who were picked up

19:54

under the circumstances that many of the detainees

19:58

were picked up under.

20:00

Again that's also not to defend the length of the duration

20:01

the length of the detention,

20:05

because clearly a lot of these people

20:07

should have been released a long time ago.

20:10

Interviewer

So people like the Uyghurs,

20:14

are you familiar with the Uyghurs?

20:15

-

I'm familiar with them,

20:17

but they were before my time.

20:18

Interviewer

Because they clearly,

20:20

everyone believes that they were clearly innocent there.

20:22

-

I think that's right.

20:25

Interviewer

So that would be an example

20:26

of someone who maybe someday should get an apology.

20:27

Is what you're saying or

20:30

-

I don't know enough about their cases

20:32

but my understanding is consistent with what you just said

20:34

which is that they never should have been there.

20:37

Interviewer

Do you think

20:41

I'm sure you, I don't know what you can tell us

20:42

but do you think president Obama lose the fact

20:44

that he never was able to close Guantanamo?

20:48

Did you ever get that just as you were leaving (indistinct)

20:50

-

I think he's spoken about that publicly

20:54

about his frustration

20:57

in not being able to get Guantanamo closed.

20:58

And I think he's also spoken publicly

21:03

about his sense and retrospect

21:05

that maybe he would have done a couple of things differently

21:07

at the beginning of his term,

21:09

if he had the benefit of where things would end up.

21:13

Interviewer

If you had more time

21:16

do you think you could have even gotten more men out?

21:17

-

I think we could have,

21:22

I think that there's you know,

21:24

fundamentally there's a problem with releasing the people

21:26

who were trying to convict for the 9/11 attacks

21:29

and the USS Cole

21:33

or serving sentences in the military commission system.

21:36

And that's a group of 10.

21:39

We did get it down to 41

21:41

which is a pretty small number

21:44

and all but five of those are not approved for transfer

21:45

meaning that no matter how much time I had

21:49

I wasn't gonna be able to get them out

21:55

unless they were either re designated

21:57

as approved for transfer or someone prosecuted,

22:00

meaning either U S tribunal

22:05

or conceivably a foreign tribunal.

22:08

Interviewer

Can you tell us

22:11

why the other five didn't get out?

22:12

-

Each one of them had a complication

22:17

associated with them.

22:20

One thing I will say it doesn't cover all five.

22:22

Is that the process that I ran

22:26

and that I described a little bit of

22:28

which involved having detainees go to foreign countries

22:30

that are not their home country

22:35

requires their cooperation.

22:38

So they have to

22:40

Interviewer

agree to go to that country

22:43

-

They have to even just agree to meet in the first instance

22:45

with representatives of that country

22:47

that may come to visit them

22:49

for the purpose of determining whether

22:51

the country wants to issue an invitation

22:53

and a number of our detainees

22:56

decided that they didn't want to cooperate in that process.

23:00

Which really limits our ability to try to get them out

23:03

if they're not gonna cooperate.

23:07

Even in one case, an individual

23:09

who didn't wanna go back to his home country

23:12

and refuse to cooperate.

23:15

So there are a few cases like that.

23:17

And then there were a couple of cases

23:21

that we just were not able to get done in time.

23:22

Interviewer

Why would they not want to cooperate?

23:26

-

I don't know.

23:29

Interviewer

And do you see things changing

23:32

under the Trump administration?

23:37

-

So far we haven't seen too much change.

23:39

I don't think that there are any active efforts though,

23:42

to get people out.

23:44

And there are at least two cases where I think,

23:47

they probably could get out.

23:50

We didn't finish it,

23:53

but it's largely it is the diplomatic arrangements

23:54

were largely concluded by the time I left office

24:00

there's a 30 day congressional notification period.

24:05

So my deadline was actually around

24:08

December 19th, December 20th,

24:11

it was not January 20th.

24:13

So there was still activity on the diplomatic front,

24:15

in that one month.

24:18

And I think that there are a few,

24:19

just a couple of probably

24:23

I could think of two, that probably could move now

24:24

if the new administration decided

24:28

that they wanted to do that

24:31

I have no belief that they are pursuing

24:33

those types of transfers though at the moment,

24:37

although as we speak and it's March 9th

24:40

or something like that 2017,

24:42

the periodic review board process is still going on.

24:45

So that is the process that looks at these

24:49

individuals who are not approved for transfer,

24:51

36 of them now.

24:54

And reevaluate whether

24:57

they may be re-designated for transfer.

25:00

So as of today at least the Trump administration

25:05

has not stopped that process.

25:09

That is an ongoing government bureaucracy

25:11

that continues to to do what it's been doing

25:14

for the past several years.

25:17

Now, if someone is approved for transfer,

25:19

there's a question as to whether or not

25:21

the Trump administration will engage

25:23

in the diplomatic efforts

25:26

that the Obama administration engaged in

25:27

to actually move that person out of Guantanamo.

25:29

All questions that we don't know that the answer to.

25:33

Interviewer

So you're saying two people,

25:35

some country or two countries

25:37

are going to take those two people if Trump was willing?

25:38

-

Yeah, I think that there are two

25:41

that could probably go out based on where we left things.

25:43

Interviewer

Are there some challenges that you had

25:50

that were somewhat unique

25:52

or interesting that would be worth telling

25:53

for history that I didn't ask you about

25:55

between those two years?

25:57

-

You know it wasn't always the easiest job

26:00

to get foreign countries to take in people

26:02

who were labeled as terrorists,

26:05

and labels are very potent.

26:09

And in fact a lot of the people who we had detained

26:12

when I took my job were hardly hardcore terrorists.

26:19

They were in many cases,

26:24

people who were in Yemen one day,

26:28

19, 20 years old, or even younger.

26:31

And someone told them that if they went to Afghanistan

26:34

and this is all pre 9/11

26:39

very few people who we had in Guantanamo

26:41

who were detained after,

26:45

who went to Afghanistan after 9/11,

26:47

these are the low level people.

26:50

They generally ended up there either because,

26:53

because of religious conviction

26:57

or because of economic conviction

26:59

they have no economic prospects in Yemen.

27:01

So they were told that if they went to Afghanistan

27:04

the Taliban would pay them a couple hundred bucks

27:07

and you can get a wife too.

27:10

So for a lot of people,

27:11

the attraction to end up in Afghanistan was economic,

27:13

lack of prospects.

27:21

In some cases it was to make common cause with Taliban,

27:24

in very few cases it was actually to take up arms

27:28

against the United States.

27:30

Because as I said, a lot of these people

27:32

who I ended up helping to get out,

27:34

almost all of them maybe all of them

27:38

were people who went to Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks.

27:41

So I think that you asked about how to,

27:46

you know, the challenges.

27:51

And so the challenge is explaining all that

27:53

when all that our foreign partners might be reading

27:56

about in the paper is how Obama is releasing terrorists.

28:00

Now, some people who I talked to on the hill

28:05

actually believed that if you went

28:09

and did exactly what I just said,

28:11

you went and you went to Afghanistan pre 9/11,

28:12

and you pass through an Al Qaeda training camp

28:15

that you were a terrorist

28:18

and you were always going to be a terrorist.

28:20

And I understand that position

28:21

but then the question is, okay

28:24

if this person really never did much of anything

28:26

except pass through a training camp when he was 18

28:29

does that mean he needs to be held in U S custody

28:34

for decades without charging him with any crime?

28:37

And so these are the discussions that we had

28:40

with our foreign partners.

28:42

And it's always good to actually talk

28:43

about specific cases, specific individuals

28:46

not just label everyone.

28:49

Oh, those are the baddest dudes.

28:50

You know, there are a bunch of terrorists,

28:52

there are some terrorists there

28:55

and there's some dangerous people.

28:57

And the Obama administration was never gonna

28:58

release people who we thought fit into that category.

29:01

Then there were a lot of people who fit into the category

29:04

that I'm talking about

29:06

and it's in those people where you really have to engage.

29:07

And I tried to do this consistently

29:12

with members of Congress.

29:13

I tried to do it with our foreign partners and say, okay

29:14

I know what you're reading.

29:17

I know what you're being told

29:19

but let's talk about a particular individual, Okay?

29:20

Here's this guy, we'll tell you

29:23

we'll share all of our intelligence about this guy

29:26

and we're not gonna hide anything.

29:29

We're gonna tell you exactly what we think he did

29:31

and then we'll have a discussion about

29:33

whether we think he needs

29:37

to spend the rest of his life in Guantanamo

29:39

or whether he should be released subject

29:41

to a very controlled environment,

29:43

at least at the outset to see where his mind is

29:45

and to watch him carefully.

29:47

And so these are the discussions that we had to have

29:49

with our foreign partners.

29:53

We also tried to have them with our adversaries on the hill

29:55

in order to try to get them to change the law

29:59

and to otherwise support our policy.

30:01

Because it's very important to remember

30:02

that closing Guantanamo was a bi-partisan policy

30:04

until just the past few years.

30:09

President Bush released over 500 people from Guantanamo

30:13

without the security insurances that we put in place

30:18

and that I described here today.

30:20

He concluded by the end of his second term

30:23

that and he wrote this in his memoirs decision points

30:26

that it was important to close Guantanamo

30:29

because it was a recruitment tool

30:32

for people who were inciting hatred

30:35

against the United States,

30:37

and it was a distraction for our allies,

30:38

that's basically what he wrote.

30:41

So it was his policy to close Guantanamo.

30:42

McCain, John McCain, during the 2008 presidential election,

30:46

said that he was in favor of closing Guantanamo.

30:50

Obama said that he wanted to close Guantanamo.

30:52

So it's only been in the past several years

30:55

that closing Guantanamo has become a political hot potato.

31:00

So we talked about all these things

31:06

with our friends and partners,

31:07

and fortunately we were able to move a lot of people

31:09

out of Guantanamo with their cooperation and assistance.

31:15

Interviewer

I mean, very impressively.

31:20

You were very impressive in that,

31:21

but you raised something that I hadn't thought of.

31:22

Did you convince any of the people on the hill

31:25

to change their mind?

31:28

-

Not enough no.

31:30

It was hard.

31:32

Unfortunately Guantanamo became one

31:34

of these political lightening rods

31:38

where it was very hard to have the type of discussion

31:40

that I'm now having at least in a public forum

31:44

in private Yes, I would be able to occasionally

31:48

get members of Congress to say,

31:51

you know, all you're really doing is saying

31:54

we should evaluate each detainee on a case by case basis.

31:56

And I would say exactly,

31:59

that's all I'm asking you to do.

32:01

You know there may be ones that we could conclude,

32:03

both conclude shouldn't be going anywhere

32:06

'cause they're dangerous.

32:08

Maybe there'll be people who don't fit into that category

32:09

and we could both conclude, should be transferred.

32:13

But I think that

32:15

even if you're able to have these discussions in private,

32:17

when the lights were on and the cameras were rolling

32:20

some of those same people would

32:24

in open congressional testimony, say

32:26

why are you releasing these terrorists?

32:28

They're gonna harm the American people.

32:30

And I was thinking, well

32:31

don't you remember that conversation we had in private

32:32

where you agreed that some of them were probably bad,

32:35

but some of them weren't

32:37

and it's always good to look at people individual basis

32:38

but I didn't say that in public, maybe I should.

32:42

Interviewer

Right.

32:45

(laughing)

Well, how much of a diplomat are you?

32:47

-

Well, I mean I'm from the Bronx initially.

32:50

So it's not in my blood so,

32:52

Interviewer

And did you ever,

32:56

looking back, do you have any regrets

32:57

that maybe you could have done something

32:59

differently that might've been more successful?

33:01

Doesn't sound like it but

33:02

-

Well, during my tenure

33:04

We moved 75 detainees out of Guantanamo,

33:06

which accounts for about 38% of all of the detainees

33:11

who moved out of Guantanamo

33:15

during the president's eight year term.

33:17

So we did that in a final push in the last 16 months or so

33:20

of the president's time in office

33:25

between September, 2015

33:28

which was when I did my first one or first one on my watch

33:30

and January 20th.

33:35

And we were doing them right to the end

33:36

of the president's term.

33:38

We did almost 40% of all of the ones

33:40

that's September, 2015

33:44

to January 20th, 2017.

33:45

So we had a fair amount of activity there towards the end.

33:49

Interviewer

Did you ever speak

33:52

to the detainees yourself?

33:54

-

I've only, not really.

33:57

I mean, I was present on one occasion

33:59

when a foreign government went down to Guantanamo

34:04

to conduct an interview.

34:08

What I described earlier,

34:10

where they got to ask questions

34:12

and decide whether they wanted to take the person.

34:15

So because of the nature of the delegation

34:20

that the foreign government in question

34:25

brought to Guantanamo,

34:28

it was thought appropriate that I go to.

34:30

So I went and I watched I didn't question

34:33

but I watched our partner country conduct this process.

34:37

So I was able to observe it close,

34:42

Interviewer

Was that revealing to you?

34:44

-

Very revealing, yeah.

34:46

I mean, in many different ways,

34:47

because, it's a scary at first to be face-to-face

34:50

with people who are so vilified in many respects

34:59

in the public consciousness.

35:11

And certainly it's not a very,

35:15

the environment that you're doing this in

35:17

does suggest to you that they are very dangerous people.

35:20

A lot of them, and I sort of sat through

35:25

maybe five interviews, something like that.

35:28

And they are all over the map.

35:32

I mean there are people who will say,

35:33

detainees would say, yeah I hate the United States.

35:35

I wanna destroy the United States.

35:38

And then there are people who say,

35:40

of course I don't hate the United States.

35:42

I just wanna, you know,

35:43

I just want to find a wife

35:45

and have kids and move on with my life.

35:47

So it really is all over the map

35:49

which I guess it goes back to my point

35:51

that yet you really have to view these

35:53

on a case by case individual by individual basis.

35:55

And it's always dangerous to make generalizations in life

35:58

but it's particularly dangerous

36:01

when you're dealing with a population like this

36:04

where ultimately you're deciding

36:08

the future of these people's lives.

36:11

Interviewer

I'm sure it was really important

36:14

for you to see these people in the flesh

36:14

so you know who you were really...

36:17

-

Yeah, it was.

36:19

And I was at Guantanamo twice during my tenure.

36:20

And the first time was basically just an introductory tour.

36:24

There wasn't a lot of reason for me to go to Guantanamo.

36:27

I was mostly traveling around the world

36:29

trying to negotiate arrangements

36:31

to get people out of Guantanamo.

36:35

So I did go down soon after I was appointed

36:37

just to be exposed to the facility at that time.

36:40

I didn't really interface with detainees directly

36:46

But the second time I went down,

36:50

which was a couple of months after that first time,

36:52

as I said I was able to sit in a room with them

36:54

and our foreign partners who were coming to interview them.

36:59

Interviewer

And is there anything else and challenging

37:06

in terms of the conversations you had

37:08

with other countries that might be worth

37:10

for history to know about?

37:12

-

No I just think it's important to,

37:13

we moved a lot of people out 75 people

37:16

and one thing that does concern me

37:19

is since I'm sitting up here in New York

37:22

and there was no mechanism really in the U S government

37:24

to monitor that work, the resettlement's

37:28

monitor the monitoring.

37:31

Monitoring the implementation of the arrangements

37:33

that we put in place to govern the transfer

37:36

of these individuals.

37:39

I think it's important to

37:41

for there to be some sustained follow-up

37:43

whether that's through U S government ideally

37:45

or if not through other sources

37:48

Interviewer

I'm sorry are you saying

37:51

that the Trump administration is not following up

37:51

on monitoring the way you had set it up?

37:55

-

Well, what I'm saying is I don't really

37:58

I don't really know what they are doing and aren't doing

37:59

but I know that my office really isn't doing that work.

38:02

At least I'm not doing that work.

38:06

And my office has really been,

38:07

there's no one really working in my office at the moment.

38:13

It's still is in place

38:16

and there still are one or two people who were there,

38:18

but not only do we do transfers

38:21

and negotiate arrangements diplomatically,

38:25

but we also as I said earlier,

38:28

we were charged with basically policing

38:31

the diplomatic arrangements that were put in place

38:33

with foreign countries.

38:37

So what I am saying is,

38:38

I don't know if that's being done.

38:39

I don't know who's doing it.

38:40

In my view, I feel very strongly

38:43

it should be done by this administration

38:45

because they could either agree or disagree with the policy

38:48

that we pursued.

38:51

But the fact is we transferred a lot of people out

38:52

and particularly at the end,

38:56

and they should be concerned about making sure

38:57

that the arrangements that we struck

39:02

which has proven to have had

39:04

a very low rate of re-engagement

39:07

it's, eight people,

39:10

it's less than 5% of the people we transferred

39:13

that those arrangements will continue to be enforced

39:16

because they have proven to be effective

39:23

in making sure that

39:26

we didn't make a mistake in releasing someone.

39:27

So they could disagree with the policy we pursued,

39:30

but we pursued it.

39:35

So the responsible thing to do one could argue is

39:36

to make sure that the arrangements that were put in place

39:40

to make sure that we didn't make a mistake

39:43

to make sure that the American people would be kept safe.

39:45

And the people of our partner countries would be kept safe

39:49

and (indistinct) put in place to make sure

39:52

that the resettlement would be successful

39:54

are being followed and enforced.

39:56

So that is a question you would need to ask

39:59

to the Trump people.

40:02

Cause I don't know whether they're doing it or not doing it

40:03

Interviewer

A couple more questions one is,

40:06

most of the men or not most

40:08

but in many of the men that we've interviewed

40:10

don't even have refugee status.

40:12

Is that an issue that you thought about

40:15

or other people thought about when they settled?

40:18

-

We did in many cases,

40:20

in all cases we paid attention to the legal status

40:24

that they would have and when and under what circumstances

40:27

they would be eligible for becoming residents,

40:31

permanent residents things of that sort.

40:35

And so we generally didn't send to people

40:38

people of the countries where there was no prospect

40:40

of that happening.

40:42

Interviewer

So the country promised you on some level

40:44

I know you can't always enforce it

40:47

and certainly not now but promise you

40:49

at some level that would be a process

40:51

leading to some status?

40:54

-

Well there was a possibility.

40:55

I mean, I think that it was a legal possibility.

40:57

So it wasn't a promise that necessarily

41:01

that the person would become a resident of Senegal

41:04

or Serbia or wherever

41:08

but that there was a way to do it.

41:09

Given the legal status that the person had arrived under.

41:12

Interviewer

Did countries ever call you your office

41:15

after someone arrived and said,

41:18

we made a mistake, we shouldn't take them

41:21

-

Yeah, yeah.

41:23

(laughing)

You know, and that did happen.

41:25

And then it'll also happen that

41:28

countries would call us and say,

41:30

this has worked out pretty well.

41:31

Do you wanna send us more?

41:33

We liked those calls a lot better

41:35

but look, I mean, it's always hard.

41:38

I mean, it's frequently hard when you take

41:40

someone who is Yemeni say

41:42

and then they spent 14 or 15 years at Guantanamo

41:45

and then you put them in a place like Uruguay

41:48

or Slovakia or Serbia and everything is foreign.

41:52

And that's hard under the best of circumstances.

41:55

And what we try to do is stay on it

41:59

and work with work with the country involved

42:04

teach them the lessons of our experience.

42:09

'cause certainly by the time I came around

42:11

we had done it many many times

42:13

in many, many different countries.

42:15

And we knew things that worked

42:17

and we knew things that didn't work.

42:18

And so the transfer was not the end

42:21

of the diplomatic engagement.

42:26

Interviewer

Oh, that's good.

42:27

So you might even come back

42:28

and then get involved again in the former detainee

42:29

-

Oh, we could, yeah.

42:31

I have like five more minutes if that's okay.

42:33

Interviewer

You could get back involved in that

42:37

or former detainees.

42:38

-

Well, I mean, we would get involved with the country.

42:39

I mean, we wouldn't get involved with the detainee

42:41

there are a lot of lawyers who represented detainees

42:44

when they were in Guantanamo.

42:49

And certainly one of the things that they would do

42:50

in many cases was continue to,

42:52

if they had developed a strong relationship,

42:55

continue to talk to the former detainee

42:58

once he was transferred.

43:01

And then they would try to,

43:03

those lawyers at that point, weren't doing legal work.

43:06

They were just advocating for their client

43:08

or former client's interests.

43:11

And we would get calls that said,

43:12

well he still isn't in that computer science program

43:15

and if the country had promised to provide

43:19

that type of training, which generally

43:22

they would have cause it was important to us

43:26

that that type of integration plan was put in place.

43:29

We would intervene and say,

43:33

why isn't he, in the computer science class?

43:35

And we did that because

43:39

we wanted our resettlement's to succeed

43:41

because we thought it was in the interest

43:44

of the United States that our resettlement's succeeded.

43:45

And so at one point there were people

43:51

who were doing that in the U S government

43:54

in the interest of making sure

43:57

that the resettlement's were successful.

43:59

Interviewer

Well then last question leading in that is

44:01

is there something I didn't ask you

44:03

that you thought you might wanna share with us?

44:05

-

Not that I can think of as I sit here yeah.

44:07

Interviewer

We need 20 seconds

44:10

that I hope you can give to us a room tone

44:11

before we can close down

44:13

to room tone just with silent for 20 seconds,

44:16

and then we can end the interview

44:19

-

Sure

44:20

Man

Begin room tone.

44:22

Interviewer

Okay, great.

44:34

Man

Thank you.

Interviewer

That was a really great interview.

44:35

Wolosky, Lee - Interview master file

Transcript

Item Info

Human Rights Archive

More Info & Options