The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [228]
I was sure that during the previous eight months Bahlul had learned how standard military interrogations worked. I wanted to deliver the message that this interrogation was different, and I wanted him to arrive at different conclusions concerning who I was, why I was there, and what I knew.
The first thing I did was change the interrogation setting. Bahlul had been questioned in a standard room and kept cuffed. We took him to a room designed to look like a small living room, which we furnished with couches, a carpet, a coffee table, and pictures. Matt, the CIA chief, helped us obtain the location and set it up.
When Bahlul was brought into the room, I was sitting on a chair next to the coffee table, waiting for him. He was wearing an inmate’s orange jumpsuit, and both his arms and legs were shackled, but he had a confident, bored look, as if to say, Here’s yet another interrogator who I’m going to have to run through the same issues with. Once he was unshackled, he sat down on the couch, across the coffee table.
I asked him how he was being treated. “Acceptable.” He went on to say that, while there were some instances where the Quran was desecrated “at the beginning,” he felt that they had been dealt with. “Overall, the treatment has been good, and as Muslims, we have to acknowledge justice.”
We started talking to Bahlul about his family and the place he was from in Yemen. I had spent a good deal of time in Yemen investigating the USS Cole bombing, and I surprised Bahlul with my knowledge of the land, people, and culture. “You know more about Yemen than the others did,” he told me.
Next I asked him what had made him go to Afghanistan. He gave what appeared to be his stock answer, that he had gone to help people learn the Quran. He said that he had no interest in al-Qaeda or jihad, and that he had gone solely for religious reasons. He also insisted that he hadn’t met any Arabs fighters there, and that he had spent all his time with poor Afghanis who needed religious instruction. We discussed his impressions of the country.
“What do you think of Osama bin Laden’s fatwa to expel the infidel Americans from Muslim lands?” I asked.
“I don’t believe in that fatwa, and there are religious scholars in Saudi Arabia who ruled that America’s presence was not an occupation but legitimate assistance, as it had been requested by the king of Saudi Arabia.”
I played devil’s advocate and gave al-Qaeda’s justifications for jihad in response. He countered them and we had a debate. That Bahlul was so familiar with arguments that countered al-Qaeda’s arguments was a sign that he was familiar with al-Qaeda’s arguments as well. When I kept responding with more of al-Qaeda’s arguments, he continued to respond with religious ideas that contradicted them, but slowly his arguments got weaker and he seemed less sure of himself. It was clear to me that he was repeating things that he had been practicing to say if captured, not saying things he passionately believed in.
“Where is your family now?” I asked, switching topics. “Have you heard from them recently?”
“I don’t know, but I hope that they made it home safely.” I asked this to see whether he had taken his family with him to Afghanistan, following bin Laden’s declaration that it was a religious duty for devout Muslims. The indication that they had been in Afghanistan was a sign that he was likely a member of al-Qaeda. Why else would people take their families to a war zone?
After a while I stopped taking notes, even though I was still asking questions and he continued to answer them. I also began to look disinterested, and at one point I even closed my