Guantánamo Diary (49 page)

*
At his 2005 ARB hearing, MOS described a member of the military interrogation team who was as an army first sergeant, and said, “I don’t hate him but he was a very hateful guy.” MOS appears to have given the ARB panel this interrogator’s real name. I believe this may be the same interrogator he refers to as “I-AM-THE-MAN” in this scene and also by the nickname Mr. Tough Guy, which appears unredacted
here
. In all there appear to be four interrogators who play major roles in MOS’s Special Projects Team. ARB transcript, 25.

†
We do not know whom MOS specifically names here. It is a matter of record, however, that military interrogators in Guantánamo were under the command of the Joint Task Force Guantánamo (JTF-GTMO), which was led at this time by General Geoffrey Miller. Their interrogation methods were sanctioned first by the “Counter Resistance Techniques” memorandum that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed on December 22, 2002; then by a March 13, 2003, legal opinion written by John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel; and finally by another authorization memo that Rumsfeld signed on April 16, 2003. The Senate Armed Services Committee found that General Miller sought official Pentagon approval for, and Rumsfeld personally signed off on, MOS’s “Special Interrogation Plan.” SASC, 135–38.

*
The Schmidt-Furlow report, the DOJ IG report, the Senate Armed Services Committee report, and several other sources all document the sexual humiliation and sexual assault of Guantánamo prisoners, often carried out by female military interrogators. After the release of the Schmidt-Furlow report in 2005, a
New York Times
op-ed titled “The Women of GTMO” decried the “exploitation and debasement of women in the military,” noting that the report “contained page after page of appalling descriptions of the use of women soldiers as sexual foils in interrogations.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15fri1.html.

*
It is now likely around mid-June 2003. MOS told the Administrative Review Board, “Around June 18th, 2003, I was taken from Mike Block and put in India Block for total isolation.” Former detainees who were held for a time in India Block describe windowless solitary confinement cells that were often kept at frigid temperatures. See, e.g., James Meek, “People the Law Forgot,”
Guardian
, December 2, 2003. The second detainee being held in India Block when MOS arrives seems to be identified in the next paragraph as Yemeni. ARB transcript, 26; http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/03/guantanamo.usa1.

*
An October 9, 2003 JTF-GTMO Memorandum for the Record recounts a contentious meeting between a visiting delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Guantánamo commander General Geoffrey Miller. During the meeting, General Miller “informed [ICRC team leader Vincent] Cassard that ISN 760, 558, and 990 were off limits during this visit due to military necessity.” MOS is ISN 760. The minutes of the ICRC meeting are available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/GitmoMemo10-09-03.pdf.

†
It seems likely from the context here that the interrogator is referring to Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

*
MOS seems to be contrasting the approaches of two of his interrogators, possibly the female interrogator identified in government documents by the name of Samantha and the interrogator he called “I-AM-THE-MAN.”

*
According to the 2003 Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, “DOC” is the acronym for the Detention Operations Center, which directs all movements within Guantánamo.

†
“Mr. Tough Guy” appears here unredacted.

*
It appears from the redacted pronouns here, and becomes clear from unredacted pronouns later in the scene, that this interrogator is female. In the ARB transcript, MOS indicates that a couple of days after the male first sergeant started interrogating him, a female interrogator joined the team. This seems to be the second of the four interrogators who will carry out the “Special Interrogation Plan.” She will become a central character. ARB transcript, 25.

*
Very likely because of shackling. Just a few pages before, MOS described how the interrogator “made me stand up, with my back bent because my hands were shackled to my feet and waist and locked to the floor.” The Senate Armed Services Committee found that shackling MOS to the floor was prescribed in his “Special Interrogation Plan.” SASC, 137.

*
This incident is well documented in the Schmidt-Furlow report, the DOJ IG’s report, and elsewhere. Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt and Lt. Gen. John Furlow,
Army Regulation 15-6: Final Report, Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility
(hereinafter cited as Schmidt-Furlow). Schmidt-Furlow, 22–23; DOJ IG, 124. The Schmidt-Furlow Report is available at www.defense.gov/news/jul2005/d20050714report.pdf.

†
This might be “the Night Club.” Elsewhere in the manuscript, MOS refers to a detainee who was “a member of the Night Club” and a guard who was “one of the Night Club attendants.” MOS manuscript, 293.

*
Court papers filed in MOS’s habeas appeal reference records that may be from this exam: “The medical records document increased low back pain ‘for the past 5 days while in isolation and under more intense interrogation’ ” and note that the pain medication prescribed for him could not be administered throughout July 2003 because he was at the “reservation.” The June 9, 2010, Brief for Appellee is available at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/brief_for_appellee_-_july_8_2010.pdf.

*
Is seems possible, if incredible, that the U.S. government may have here redacted the word “tears.”

†
MOS may be referring here to the particular cellblock in Camp Delta where he encountered the Puerto Rican division.

‡
It soon becomes clear that the lead interrogator is accompanied by another female interrogator, as his interrogator had threatened in the previous session.

*
That position is likely a forced stoop precipitated by the shackling of his wrists to the floor; see footnotes
here
and
here
.

*
Like all interrogations, this session would likely be observed from a monitoring room. The 2003 Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures mandated that during all interrogations “a JIIF monitor will be located either in a monitor room that is equipped with two-way mirrors and CCTV or in a CCTV only room.” SOP, 14.2.

*
The third of the four interrogators who will carry out MOS’s “Special Interrogation Plan,” this masked interrogator is named “Mr. X” in the Schmidt-Furlow, DOJ IG, and Senate Armed Services Committee reports. At his 2005 Administrative Review Board hearing, with characteristic wit, MOS said this interrogator was always covered “like in Saudi Arabia, how the women are covered,” with “openings for his eyes” and “O.J. Simpson gloves on his hands.” ARB transcript, 25–26.

*
The Senate Armed Services Committee, which reviewed JTF-GTMO interrogation records, dates what appears to be this interrogation session as July 8, 2003. On that day, the committee found, “Slahi was interrogated by Mr. X and was ‘exposed to variable lighting patterns and rock music, to the tune of
Drowning Pool
’s ‘Let the Bodies Hit [the] Floor.’ ” SASC, 139.

*
Based on MOS’s descriptions of the interrogation sessions that follow, I believe the shifts may work like this: morning/early afternoon shift with the male first sergeant/“I-AM-THE-MAN”/Mr. Tough Guy interrogator; late afternoon/evening shift with the Special Projects Team’s female interrogator; and overnight with the interrogator known as Mr. X.

†
This paragraph could refer to the female member of the Special Projects Team; see footnote
here
.

*
Because it encompasses lunch, MOS seems to be describing the routine of his first shift/day shift interrogator.

*
As these July 2003 sessions were happening, General Miller was submitting Slahi’s “Special Interrogation Plan” to SOUTHCOM commander General James Hill for approval. On July 18, 2003, Hill forwarded the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The plan was approved by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on July 28, 2003, and signed by Rumsfeld on August 13, 2003. For a detailed account of the development and authorization of MOS’s “Special Interrogation Plan,” see SASC, 135–41.

†
This “her” is unredacted, so it seems clear that the afternoon shift is with the female member of the interrogation team. Described here as “the least evil” of the evils he was facing, this is likely the same interrogator he describes as “the least of many evils” a few pages earlier.

When Defense Secretary Rumsfeld issued his original authorization to use interrogation techniques beyond those included in the Army Field Manual, including forced standing, he famously appended the note “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?” But as Albert Biderman found in his study of coercive interrogation techniques employed by North Korean interrogators during the Korean War, “Returnees who underwent long periods of standing and sitting… report no other experience could be more excruciating.” Biderman explained, “Where the individual is told to stand at attention for long periods an intervening factor is introduced. The immediate source of pain is not the interrogator but the victim himself. The contest becomes, in a way, one of the individual against himself. The motivational strength of the individual is likely to exhaust itself in this internal encounter. Bringing the subject to act ‘against himself’ in this manner has additional advantages for the interrogator. It leads the prisoner to exaggerate the power of the interrogator. As long as the subject remains standing, he is attributing to his captor the power to do something worse to him, but there is actually no showdown of the ability of the interrogator to do so.” See http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torturingdemocracy/documents/19570900.pdf.

*
Again, likely shackled. See footnote
here
.

*
The interrogator may be referring to Mauritania, and to then-president Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya. See footnotes
here
and
here
.

*
This seems to be describing a night shift session with Mr. X. The scene is mentioned again in the final chapter.

*
Military, Department of Justice, and Senate investigators have described in more detail several of these threats. According to a footnote in the Schmidt-Furlow report, “On 17 Jul 03 the masked interrogator told that he had a dream about the subject of the second interrogation dying. Specifically he told the subject of the second special interrogation that in the dream he ‘saw four detainees that were chained together at the feet. They dug a hole that was six-feet long, six-feet deep, and four-feet wide. Then he observed the detainees throw a plain, pine casket with the detainee’s identification number painted in orange lowered into the ground.’ The masked interrogator told the detainee that his dream meant that he was never going to leave GTMO unless he started to talk, that he would indeed die here from old age and be buried on ‘Christian… sovereign American soil.’ On 20 Jul 03 the masked interrogator, ‘Mr. X,’ told the subject of the second Special Interrogation Plan that his family was ‘incarcerated.’ ”

The report continues, “The MFR dated 02 Aug 03 indicates that the subject of the second special interrogation had a messenger that day there to ‘deliver a message to him.’ The MFR goes on to state: ‘That message was simple: Interrogator’s colleagues are sick of hearing the same lies over and over and over and are seriously considering washing their hands of him. Once they do so, he will disappear and never be heard from again. Interrogator assured detainee again to use his imagination to think of the worst possible scenario he could end up in. He told Detainee that beatings and physical pain are not the worst thing in the world. After all, after being beaten for a while, humans tend to disconnect the mind from the body and make it through. However, there are worse things than physical pain. Interrogator assured Detainee that, eventually, he will talk, because everyone does. But until then, he will very soon disappear down a very dark hole. His very existence will become erased. His electronic files will be deleted from the computer, his paper files will be packed up and filed away, and his existence will be forgotten by all. No one will know what happened to him, and eventually, no one will care.’ ” Schmidt-Furlow, 24–25.

*
Context suggests there are two guards, one male and one female, and that the female guard undresses him. An incident in which MOS was “deprived of clothing by a female interrogator” is recorded in the DOJ IG report; the report suggests the date of that session was July 17, 2003. DOJ IG, 124.

*
The date, according to the DOJ Inspector General, is now August 2, 2003. The IG reported, “On August 2, 2003, a different military interrogator posing as a Navy Captain from the White House” appeared to MOS. Both the Senate Armed Services Committee report and the DOJ IG report describe the letter he delivered. According to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the letter stated “that his mother had been detained, would be interrogated, and if she were uncooperative she might be transferred to GTMO.” The DOJ IG reported that “the letter referred to ‘the administrative and logistical difficulties her presence would present in this previously all-male environment,’ ” and “The interrogator told Slahi that his family was ‘in danger if he (760) did not cooperate.’ ” The DOJ IG and SASC reports and the army’s Schmidt-Furlow report all make clear that this interrogator was in fact the chief of MOS’s “Special Projects Team,” and the Schmidt-Furlow report indicates he presented himself to MOS as “Captain Collins.” MOS describes him here as crawling from behind the scene; in his book
The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), Jess Bravin, a reporter for the
Wall Street Journal
, writes that the Special Projects Team chief who carried out this ruse had taken over MOS’s interrogation a month before, on July 1, 2003, which is the same day General Miller approved his “Special Interrogation Plan.” DOJ IG, 123; SASC, 140; Schmidt-Furlow, 25; Bravin,
The Terror Courts
, 105.