The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [254]
Bin Laden’s body was wrapped in a kafan (a white burial sheet), placed in a bag with heavy stones, and dropped into the North Arabian Sea on the day of the raid.
The same day, backers of coercive interrogation techniques began claiming that their use had led investigators to bin Laden. Similar false claims had been made following the capture of other al-Qaeda members, such as KSM, Khallad, and Jose Padilla. The great British prime minister Winston Churchill once remarked that “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on,” and that was true in this instance, too.
The American people soon learned that when KSM was waterboarded in 2003, and when al-Qaeda’s operational chief, Abu Faraj al-Liby, was subjected to coercive techniques (but not waterboarding) in 2005, they were asked about Abu Ahmed. They denied knowing his true identity and downplayed his significance in al-Qaeda. This denial, which was patently false, was “proof” for defenders of EITs that the Kuwaiti was important to al-Qaeda, and their “proof” that EITs work.
We already knew in 2002—through the use of traditional interrogation methods with detainees—that the Kuwaiti was important. And the fact that KSM and Abu Faraj lied about knowing him showed yet again that the EITs didn’t work. A successful interrogation is one in which detainees cooperate and confess, not lie. That may seem obvious, but apparently not to EIT supporters.
Not only did KSM know Abu Ahmed, the Kuwaiti was the 9/11 mastermind’s protégé. They had similar backgrounds, and KSM entrusted him with management of the al-Qaeda guesthouse in Karachi, Pakistan: it was through that guesthouse that key al-Qaeda operatives and many of those involved in 9/11 passed, including Hambali, Khallad, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and Ammar al-Baluchi. They also went through the EIT program and didn’t reveal valuable information about the Kuwaiti either. Abu Ahmed was the perfect operative for KSM and bin Laden to use: he was an Arab and spoke the local language, understood the culture, and blended in easily.
More details about the Kuwaiti came from the Pakistani al-Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul, who was questioned by the CIA in July 2004. Senator Diane Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that Ghul gave up the information before he was subjected to harsh techniques.
A question I was asked after bin Laden’s death was: why did it take so long to get him? We had the first important clue in 2002; why did we only get to him in 2011?
The reason is that professional interrogators, intelligence operatives, and investigators were marginalized, and instead of tried and tested methods being used, faith was placed in EITs. The highest-ranking al-Qaeda detainees in U.S. custody—the likes of KSM, Nashiri, and Khallad—all of whom would most likely have known Abu Ahmed and other couriers, or would themselves be in communication with bin Laden, were given to the EIT users to question.
Things only really changed when CIA director Leon Panetta completely ended the coercive interrogation program and closed down the black sites. It’s not without coincidence that the eventual death of bin Laden came after the traditional methods of intelligence and investigation were resumed. The professionals were put back in control. We just lost important years, and knowledge and skills, in the years in between.
With bin Laden at the compound, and in the room with him during his final moments of life, was his Yemeni wife. It was the same wife whom Guantánamo detainee No. 37, the Yemeni al-Qaeda operative named al-Batar, knew well. He had helped facilitate her five-thousand-dollar dowry from bin Laden. Salim Hamdan had advised al-Batar to cooperate with me, and he had agreed—on condition that, like Hamdan, he be allowed to phone his family to let them know he was okay.
CITF and FBI commanders at Gitmo requested permission from General Miller, the head of the