By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
CAIRO, March 8 - The capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
provides American
authorities with their best opportunity yet to prevent
attacks by Al Qaeda
and track down Osama bin Laden. But the detention also
presents a tactical
and moral challenge when it comes to the interrogation
techniques used to
obtain vital information.
Senior American officials said physical torture would
not be used against
Mr. Mohammed, regarded as the operations chief of Al
Qaeda and mastermind of
the Sept. 11 attacks. They said his interrogation
would rely on what they
consider acceptable techniques like sleep and light
deprivation and the
temporary withholding of food, water, access to
sunlight and medical attention.
American officials acknowledged that such techniques
were recently applied
as part of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the
highest-ranking Qaeda
operative in custody until the capture of Mr.
Mohammed. Painkillers were
withheld from Mr. Zubaydah, who was shot several times
during his capture in Pakistan.
But the urgency of obtaining information about
potential attacks and the
opaque nature of the way interrogations are carried
out can blur the line
between accepted and unaccepted actions, several
American officials said.
Routine techniques include covering suspects' heads
with black hoods for
hours at a time and forcing them to stand or kneel in
uncomfortable
positions in extreme cold or heat, American and other
officials familiar
with interrogations said. Questioners may also feign
friendship and respect
to elicit information. In some cases, American
officials said, women are
used as interrogators to try to humiliate men
unaccustomed to dealing with
women in positions of authority.
Interrogations of important Qaeda operatives like Mr.
Mohammed occur at
isolated locations outside the jurisdiction of
American law. Some places
have been kept secret, but American officials
acknowledged that the C.I.A.
has interrogation centers at the United States air
base at Bagram in
Afghanistan and at a base on Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean.
Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a
suspect in the planning of
the Sept. 11 attacks, were initially taken to a secret
C.I.A. installation
in Thailand but have since been moved, American
officials said.
Intelligence officials also acknowledged that some
suspects had been turned
over to security services in countries known to employ
torture. There have
also been isolated, if persistent, reports of beatings
in some
American-operated centers. American military officials
in Afghanistan are
investigating the deaths of two prisoners at Bagram in
December.
American officials have guarded the interrogation
results. But George J.
Tenet, the director of central intelligence, said in
December that suspects
interrogated overseas had produced important
information.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
have said that American techniques adhere to
international accords that ban
the use of torture and that "all appropriate
measures" are employed in interrogations.
Rights advocates and lawyers for prisoners' rights
have accused the United
States of quietly embracing torture as an acceptable
means of getting
information in the global antiterrorism campaign. "They
don't have a policy
on torture," said Holly Burkhalter, the United
States director of Physicians
for Human Rights, one of five groups pressing the
Pentagon for assurances
detainees are not being tortured. "There is no
specific policy that eschews torture."
Critics also assert that transferring Qaeda suspects
to countries where
torture is believed common - like Egypt, Jordan and
Saudi Arabia - violates
American law and the 1984 international convention
against torture, which
bans such transfers.
Some American and other officials subscribe to a view
held by a number of
outside experts, that physical coercion is largely
ineffective. The
officials say the most effective interrogation methods
involve a mix of
psychological disorientation, physical deprivation and
ingratiating acts,
all of which can take weeks or months.
"Pain alone will often make people numb and
unresponsive," said Magnus
Ranstorp, deputy director of the Center for the Study
of Terrorism and
Political Violence at St. Andrews University in
Scotland. "You have to
engage people to get into their minds and learn what
is there."
About 3,000 Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been
detained since the fall of
2001. Some have since been freed. The largest known
group, about 650, is
being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. American officials
said the detainees at
Guantánamo and similar military-run centers were not
regarded as having
valuable information.
Senior Qaeda members, however, are interrogated by
specially trained C.I.A.
officers and interpreters. F.B.I. agents submit
questions but do not
generally take part, American officials said.
Starving the Senses
Deprivation And Black Hoods
Omar al-Faruq, a confidant of Mr. bin Laden and one of
Al Qaeda's senior
operatives in Southeast Asia, was captured last June
by Indonesian agents
acting on a tip from the C.I.A. Agents familiar with
the case said a black
hood was dropped over his head and he was loaded onto
a C.I.A. aircraft.
When he arrived at his destination several hours
later, the hood was
removed. On the wall in front of him were the seals of
the New York City
Police and Fire Departments, a Western official said.
It was, said a former senior C.I.A. officer who took
part in similar
sessions, a mind game called false flag, intended to
leave the captive
disoriented, isolated and vulnerable. Sometimes the
décor is faked to make
it seem as though the suspect has been taken to a
country with a reputation
for brutal interrogation.
In this case, officials said, Mr. Faruq was in the
C.I.A. interrogation
center at the Bagram air base. American officials were
convinced that he
knew a lot about pending attacks and the Qaeda network
in Southeast Asia,
which Mr. bin Laden sent him to set up in 1998.
The details of the interrogation are unknown, though
one intelligence
official briefed on the sessions said Mr. Faruq
initially provided useless
scraps of information.
What is known is that the questioning was prolonged,
extending day and night
for weeks. It is likely, experts say, that the
proceedings followed a
pattern, with Mr. Faruq left naked most of the time,
his hands and feet
bound. While international law requires prisoners to
be allowed eight hours'
sleep a day, interrogators do not necessarily let them
sleep for eight consecutive hours.
Mr. Faruq may also have been hooked up to sensors,
then asked questions to
which interrogators knew the answers, so they could
gauge his truthfulness, officials said.
The Western intelligence official described Mr.
Faruq's interrogation as
"not quite torture, but about as close as you can
get." The official said
that over a three-month period, the suspect was fed
very little, while being
subjected to sleep and light deprivation, prolonged
isolation and room
temperatures that varied from 100 degrees to 10 degrees.
In the end he began to cooperate.
Mr. Faruq began to tell of plans to drive
explosives-laden trucks into
American diplomatic centers. A day later, embassies in
Indonesia and more
than a dozen other countries in Southeast Asia were
closed, officials said.
He also provided detailed information about people
involved in those
operations and other plots, writing out lengthy
descriptions. He held out
longer than Mr. Zubaydah, who American officials said
began to cooperate
after two months of interrogation.
American intelligence knows a great deal about Mr.
Mohammed, who has been
sought since the mid-1990's. That knowledge, an expert
said, can provide
leverage. "The important thing is to construct
the suspect's personal
history and learn about the person before you
interrogate them," a European
counterterrorism official said. "Shock is a great
technique. When we can
show someone that we already know a lot about them,
including intimate
personal details, they are shocked and more likely to
start talking."
The Centers
Details Emerge From the Shadows
The secret C.I.A. center at Bagram where Mr. Faruq
probably remains is near
the two-story detention center where lower-level
suspects are being held.
Both sites are off limits, even to most military
personnel. The only
descriptions of life inside have come from released
detainees.
American officials at the base say that all detainees
are treated according
to international law and are held under humane
conditions. Still, the
Americans expressed reluctance to describe details of
the conditions
because, as Col. Roger King, spokesman for the
American-led force in
Afghanistan, put it: "Every detail we give you
about how we run the facility
provides information to the enemy about how to be more
successful in
resisting if captured."
But he did provide some information that both
complemented and contradicted
the descriptions given by former detainees.
In a typical prison, where punishment is the aim,
routine governs life. At
Bagram, where eliciting information is the goal, the
opposite is true.
Disorientation is a tool of interrogation and
therefore a way of life.
To that end, the building - an unremarkable hangar -
is lighted 24 hours a
day, making sleep almost impossible, said Muhammad
Shah, an Afghan farmer
who was held there for 18 days.
Colonel King said it was legitimate to use lights,
noise and vision
restriction, and to alter, without warning, the time
between meals, to blur
a detainee's sense of time. He said sleep deprivation
was "probably within
the lexicon."
Prisoners are watched, moved and, according to some,
manhandled by military
police officials. Most detainees live on the hangar's
bottom floor, a large
area divided with wire mesh into group cells holding 8
to 10 prisoners each.
Some are kept on the top floor in isolation cells.
Former detainees have given disparate accounts of
their treatment, with the
harshest tales, predictably, emerging from the
isolation cells. Those who
have probably been subjected to the most thorough
interrogations, and the
greatest duress, have probably not been released.
Colonel King said that an American military
pathologist had determined that
the deaths of two prisoners in December were homicides
and that the
circumstances were still under investigation.
Two former prisoners said they had been forced to
stand with their hands
chained to the ceiling and their feet shackled in the
isolation cells.
One said he was kept naked except when he was taken to
interrogation room or
the bathroom.
Mr. Shah, who was never in an isolation cell, said
neither his hands nor
feet were ever tied, but he had seen prisoners with
chains around their ankles.
Colonel King said that the building was heated and
that the prisoners were
fed a balanced diet under which most gained weight. Mr.
Shah said he had
received plentiful food - bread, biscuits, rice and
meat - three times a day.
The center holds fewer than 100 people, so detainees
are regularly released
or transported elsewhere to make room for more. Most
probably spend two to
three months there, Colonel King said.
Mr. Shah said his interrogators used the threat of
moving him to Guantánamo
Bay to try to force cooperation, warning him
conditions there would not be as pleasant.
Guantánamo Bay
Order Obscures Signs of Distress
At Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, American military officials
said the population,
now relatively steady at about 650, was sorted into
varying categories of
dangerousness, a change from the early days when
prisoners were treated
equally, each isolated in an individual cell.
This month the military command opened a new
medium-security section called
Camp Four where selected prisoners live in
dormitory-style housing,
congregate, shower regularly, play board games and are
able to write more
frequent letters to family members. About 20 prisoners
moved in this week,
and when construction is completed as many as 200
prisoners could be housed there.
"This is designed to house people who are deemed
to be less of a security
risk," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military
spokesman at the base.
But underlying the superficial orderliness are signs
of deep psychological
distress among the population. There have been 20
reported suicide attempts
involving the prisoners, an extraordinarily high
number compared with other
prison populations, said Dr. Terry Kupers, an Oakland
psychiatrist who is an
authority on mental health in prisons.
[Another suicide attempt took place on Friday, The
Associated Press said today.]
Except for those who are recently promoted to Camp
Four, the regime for most
prisoners has been isolation in single cells. They are
permitted out of the
cells twice a week, for 15 minutes each time, to
shower and exercise in the
yard. They are not permitted to have physical contact
with one another.
Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind, a Pentagon spokeswoman,
said guards were trained
to recognize signs of deep depression and had managed
to prevent suicides.
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Foreign Soil
Many Definitions Of `Acceptable'
Far less is known about the conditions for the
suspected Qaeda members who
have been turned over to foreign governments, either
after the United States
finished with them or as part of the interrogation
procedure. Even the
numbers and locations are a mystery.
American and foreign intelligence officials have
acknowledged that suspects
have been sent to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. In
addition, Moroccan
intelligence officials have questioned suspects and
shared information with
their American counterparts.
In one case in Morocco, lawyers for three Saudis and
seven Moroccans accused
of plotting to blow up American and British ships in
the Strait of Gibraltar
last summer said their clients were tortured. Moroccan
officials denied that
physical torture was used but acknowledged using sleep
and light deprivation
and serial teams of interrogators until the suspects
broke.
"I am allowed to use all means in my
possession," a senior Moroccan
intelligence official said. "You have to fight
all his resistance at all
levels and show him that he is wrong, that his
ideology is wrong and is not
connected to religion. We break them, yes."
In Cairo, leaders of several human rights
organizations and attorneys who
represent prisoners said torture by the Egyptian
government's internal
security force had become routine. They also said they
believed that the
United States had sent a handful of Qaeda suspects to
Egypt for harsh
interrogations and torture by Egyptian officials.
"In the past, the United States harshly
criticized Egypt when there was
human rights violations, but now, for America, it is
security first -
security, before human rights," said Muhammad
Zarei, a lawyer who had been
director of the Cairo-based Human Rights Center for
the Assistance of Prisoners.
Egyptian officials denied that any Qaeda members or
terror suspects had been
moved to Egypt. An Egyptian government spokesman,
Nabil Osman, blamed rogue
officers for abuses and said there was no systematic
policy of torture.
"Any terrorist will claim torture - that's the
easiest thing," Mr. Osman
said. "Claims of torture are universal. Human
rights organizations make
their living on these claims. Their job is not to talk
about the human
rights of the victim but of the human rights of the
terrorist or those in jail."
Mr. Osman declined to say whether Egypt had assisted
with interrogations of
Qaeda suspects at the request of the Americans. He
would say only that both
governments had cooperated in sharing information
about terrorists and
potential terrorist activities.
"We are providing them with a wealth of
information," he said.
He said many of Egypt's antiterrorism initiatives,
like military tribunals,
had been imitated by the Untied States. "We set
the model," he said, "for
combating
terrorism."