The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [279]
The Red Cross determined that—in addition to KSM—thirteen other prisoners, suspected of having been in al Qaeda’s “inner circle,” suffered mistreatment constituting torture. The authors here confine themselves to U.S. treatment of prisoners relevant to the 9/11 story, but the mistreatment extended to captives elsewhere—as at Abu Ghraib prison after the invasion of Iraq. As well as pertinent documents referred to below, there has been groundbreaking reporting by Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, and Mark Danner (“inner circle”: Summary of High Value Detainee Program, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 9/06, www.c-span.org; torture: Red Cross Report; pertinent documents: e.g. as excerpted in eds. John Ehrenberg et al., The Iraq Papers, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010, 403–. In addition to the previously cited Red Cross Report, see also “The Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment & Interrogation,” Report, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2/04).
37 “complain”: “Lesson 18,” al Qaeda Manual, www.justice.gov. The “manual” was among items confiscated in May 2000 from the home of a suspected al Qaeda member, Anas al-Liby, following a search by the Manchester (U.K.) police. The document was supplied to the United States, translated, and used by the prosecution in the 2001 embassy bombings trial (transcript, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, S [7] 98-CR-1023, 3/26/01, “Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody,” Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 110th Cong, 2nd Sess., Washington, D.C., U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 11/20/08, Executive Summary, xii).
38 review acknowledged: Special Review, “Counterterrorism,” & see “Memorandum for John Rizzo, CIA from Asst. A.G. Jay Bybee, 8/1/02, & see LAT, 12/22/02, Telegraph (U.K.), 3/9/03;
39 “my eyes”: Red Cross Report.
40 “If anything”: Special Review, “Counterterrorism.” The reference to a threat to kill KSM’s children appears in the CIA’s 2004 “Special Review” of counterterrorism detention and interrogation activities. According to the 2007 statement of another detainee’s father, KSM’s children were at one point “denied food and water,” at another “mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.” A Justice Department memo released in 2009 shows that approval was given to use insects to frighten an adult detainee into talking, while another document reports that the CIA never used the technique. According to a cousin, one of KSM’s sons is mentally disabled and the other epileptic. As of this writing both boys were reportedly with their mother in Iran (threat: Special Review, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 5/7/04, www.cia.gov; statement: “Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10020,” www.defense.gov—the statement was made by Ali Kahn, father of Majid Kahn; memos: Memorandum for John Rizzo, CIA from Jay Bybee, Asst. A.G., 8/1/02, Memorandum for John Rizzo, CIA from Stephen Bradbury, Principal Asst. Deputy A.G., 5/10/05, www.aclu.org; disabled/epileptic: New Yorker, 9/13/10; with mother: ibid., WP, 11/14/09).
41 Poland/“verge”/“I would”: Red Cross Report;
42 14 seconds/2½ minutes: ABC News, 11/18/05;
43 183 times: Special Review, “Counterterrorism.”
44 long history: “Waterboarding: A Tortured History,” NPR, 11/3/07, NYT, 3/9/08, WP, 11/5/06, Margulies, 73–;
45 “in violation”: ibid., 74;
46 executed Japanese: “History Supports McCain’s Stance on Waterboarding,” 11/29/07, www.politifact.com;
47 “The United States”/“alternative