The interrogation room in Guantanamo Bay, Christmas Eve 2002. Detainee 063 –
an Al-Qaeda suspect called Mohamed al-Kahtani, who may or may not be that
sought-after 20th 9/11 hijacker – is crying in his chair. It is his 33rd day
of continuous interrogation – a month with almost no sleep – and the
interrogators have started up with the white noise again and are pouring
water over his head.
Maybe the snarling dogs will come back too, or he’ll once more be humiliated
by some woman pressing up against him while he’s told to stand or crouch
naked for hours on end. He’ll be yelled at, shaved by force and made to act
like a dog and will have instructions bellowed at him from a distance of
2in. He’ll be so terrified and exhausted that he’ll wet himself.
Happy Christmas, Mohamed. Good Christian men, rejoice.
Mohamed, who really is a bad ’un, believe me, does not know this yet but
there’s only a fortnight more of this misery – torture, some would call it –
to endure. Afterwards there’ll be a scandal about the way he and one or two
others were being treated and the US government will say: okay, we’ll call
off the dogs – it was just our people on the ground overreaching themselves,
being a bit too zealous. We’re a democratic government; we don’t do stuff
like that – despite the sort of provocation we have to endure. If only we
had known, and so on.
The thing is – they knew. It was the US government’s explicit
policy to wipe away the Geneva conventions and subject the supposedly most
dangerous captives to what were euphemistically called “aggressive”
interrogation techniques – techniques that flouted international law. The
people behind the policy are therefore, according to the British human
rights lawyer Philippe Sands, criminals who may well face charges should
they choose to take a holiday in, say, France or Germany.
And who are they, these people? Top government lawyers who – at the behest of
Donald Rumsfeld, the then defence secretary – cooked up a means of bypassing
Geneva and in effect allowed the interrogators on the tip of Cuba to do
whatever the hell they wanted. And, at Guantanamo Bay, lowly, inexperienced
lawyers on the ground who were left isolated to provide the legal regulation
for what might constitute humane treatment and what might not.
Meanwhile some of the top military brass, including General Richard Myers,
chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, were hoodwinked about what was really
going on.
We may have suspected that the US government had approved all this stuff, but
we didn’t know for sure until the publication last week of a remarkable book
by Sands, who works at Matrix chambers alongside our own lovable Cherie
Booth QC, the wife of a man who – according to her fellow QC – knew full
well what was being done at Guantanamo and did nothing whatsoever to urge a
halt.
“Blair knew,” Sands says, shaking his head. “Of course he knew. I mean, if I
knew about it back then, Blair must have done.”
Torture Team, Sands’s book, published by Penguin, may well be the best bit of
contemporary investigative journalism you will read: it is right up there
with Woodward and Bernstein, a tour de force of relentlessly dogged pursuit,
of interviews with guilty men acquired against all the odds, a beautifully
told and humane narrative that follows a paper trail and nails the truth.
What is perhaps most remarkable about it is the clear sympathy that Sands, a
leftie, has for the succession of gung-ho, proto-Republican legal
professionals who either deliberately or inadvertently allowed the torture
of prisoners to take place.
He shared dinner with these monkeys, sank beers with them, allowed them to
express themselves without censure – afforded them the opportunity to hang
themselves, I suppose. That is why this is such a good book, and why a film
may follow. It is also why Sands will find himself facing the US Congress on
Tuesday, when he will be asked to spill yet more beans.
An affable and engaging chap, he shakes his head once more. “Well, you see,
these are decent people – they are not bad people at all,” he says of the
likes of Diane Beaver, a bog-standard Midwestern lawyer who was desperate
for help, scared stiff and frankly out of her depth when she started
formulating legal advice about the treatment of prisoners. Also “decent”, in
Sands’s eyes, is the horribly “feisty” and to-the-right-of-a-fishknife
chipmunk Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defence for policy, who exulted in
having dreamt up the legal wording that enabled the US government to ignore
the Geneva conventions.
One by one, though, their defences dropped and they succumbed to the British
barrister’s mild but persistent inquiries. They all spoke, admitting that as
a result of inadequate legal advice, lines had been crossed and prisoners
had suffered.
One reason may be that they thought they’d been doing the right thing all
along. After all, the US had just suffered its most serious collective
trauma since Pearl Harbor and bad ’uns were rounded up.
And these enemies of the state were not summarily beheaded – the somewhat
paradoxical method of interrogation favoured by Osama Bin Laden’s numerous
franchises. The worst they could expect was constant exposure to the
admittedly awful music of, among others, Christina Aguilera; being forced to
stand or kneel; having a bit of water thrown over them; and not being
allowed to sleep for very long. And being shouted at and perhaps prodded in
the chest a little brusquely.
Maybe they’d be shown some nasty dogs too, from time to time – but the US
military doggies, bless them, never got too close to the prisoners; they
just growled a bit from a distance.
Isn’t Sands missing the bigger picture here? It is notable that in his 280
pages detailing the abuse inflicted upon the likes of Kahtani, scarcely two
pages are devoted to an exposition of Kahtani’s own alleged crimes: the
cold-blooded murder and mayhem he supposedly intended to wreak upon the
people of the United States.
I paraphrase to Sands what was said by Feith in the book – that the British QC
is in effect “on the side of the asshole”.
But Sands counters by saying, first, this is not what his book was about; and,
second, that playing Christina Aguilera very loudly to Muslims doesn’t work.
“The serious interrogators I spoke to – and I spoke to a lot – were all
agreed on one thing: that force never works. You need to establish a rapport
with the prisoner.
“Also, as Cal Temple [a former chief of the counterterrorism division of the
Defence Intelligence Agency] told me, ‘When you capture someone, you have a
window of a day or so to get him to speak. Take him to the top of a
building, threaten to push him off . . . that can work . . .”
In fact, Kahtani was being prodded in the chest and sprayed with water a full
10 months after his capture. Nothing new came from his confessions – and, of
course, the legitimacy and substance of what he said is being questioned
because it was obtained by force. He is now on trial for his life.
So, smacking the prisoners around won’t get you what you want, gratifying
though it may be in the short term. But what of the ticking-bomb scenario,
as repeatedly envisaged by the likes of the conservative lawyer and
political pundit Alan Dershowitz? You have a prisoner in an interrogation
room and a hidden bomb that is about to go off somewhere and kill a lot of
people. Torturing the prisoner to tell you where the bomb is is a lesser
evil than the bomb going off and killing lots of innocent people. Sands
spreads his hands wide and smiles. “It has never happened. That situation
has never occurred.”
He compares the behaviour of the guilty or compliant lawyers in the US to
those German lawyers who in the mid1930s connived with the Nazi party to
legitimise what became geno-cide. And he makes a lot of this – unwisely, in
my opinion. It is hugely overstating the case against Feith and – as Sands
avers – the real bad man: William Haynes, the general counsel to the US defence
department, who was either deliberately obstructive or utterly uninterested
in suggestions that Kahtani and others were being tortured.
They may have done bad things, caught up in the terrible spirit of the moment
after 9/11, but they were not Nazis. Sands is almost too ready to concur:
“Yes, I think that’s right. They weren’t Nazis by any stretch of the
imagination. It is overplayed.”
Well, in which case, why labour the point? Sands says he was searching for a
historical legal parallel – when lawyers were found culpable of legitimising
the actions of a rogue state. I still think, though, that it is an
outlandish, Dave Spartish conceit that undermines his argument.
Similarly, he rather lets Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, off the
hook by focusing his attention on the lawyers who advised them. After all,
the lawyers were not responsible for policy; they merely formulated the
words that allowed the policies to be enacted. Again, Sands agrees and says
this is a criticism he has heard from friends. But then he is particularly
interested in the potential shortcomings of those in his own profession:
“For better or for worse, the lawyers are the gatekeepers,” he says.
Still, his book is a magnificent achievement, done in his own time and at his
own expense, well away from the heavy (and lucrative) workload at Matrix
chambers. I like the image of him cannily fixing up these interviews with
President George W Bush’s most eminent lawyers and then scurrying over to
the US as fast as he can to talk to them before they have time to Google his
name and discover he’s a dyed-in-the-wool leftie who intends to give them –
politely and with great affection, in some cases – a thoroughly good kicking.
Some of his subjects Googled him while his flight was in the air, and he
arrived to find the interviews had been cancelled. On each occasion, he
managed to talk them, or their wives, around by wheedling, using subtlety
and presenting himself always as a barrister – not a pesky journo – who was
determined to give a fair hearing to all.
Speaking of fair hearings – what does he think of his famous colleague at
Matrix, Cherie Blair? Or Cherie Booth?
He has a lot of time for her, he says; he thinks she’s terrific. “But I think
she maybe shows bad judgment,” he says, laughing a little. No kidding.
seriously, how can they do those sort of things to a man?
Calum makin, Malvern, UK
Anyone who condones torture or "enhanced interrogation" can only do so with validity if they are prepared to do such things day in and day out themselves. On command of a government.As a job.
If you can't then you come under the anti-torture group.
ayla, London,
"some woman pressing up against him"
Every time i read about this so called torture at gitmo, i always wonder what torture?
On the other hand you always read in fine print when the other side drill out peoples eyes in a cellar in Sadr city.
Albert , Vaxjo, Sweden
"......The thing about atrocity is that civilized people will be in denial and twice as much if it is their own people are involved in atrocity. The UK must stand well clear of this decline." - Kevin - UK
You are just as guilty as the USA for letting your gov't do the same, hypocrite.
CC, New Orleans,
Unfortunately, the governments have approximately the same estimation of lawyers or barristers as we do...
D Griffing, Naples Long Beach, USA
The individuals responsible anywhere for making policy decisions regarding interrogation must simply experience them first-hand.
If it is thought that a paradigm shift in the universally accepted rules of the Geneva Convention are called for, they should be voted and approved again... universally.
D Griffing, Naples Long Beach, USA
Sands misses the point & the logic of any hypothetical empirical situation that is raised. Because it has NEVER occurred before doesn't mean it will never do so - that remains an open logical possibility as long as it is not contrary to the known laws of nature though it may remain extremely remote i.e. has low probability but is still also physically possible. Therefore the force of the counter-reply against Dershowitz's example is nil & the relevance of D's original compelling example holds.
Marcel Stchedroff, Oxford, Oxon.
Torture is evil.(Cont.)The comment by Gamini de Silva (above) says "Psychologists & Medical/paramedics/Nurses [are]
directly involved in torture".That is horrifying & Sands & The Times shd investigate his claims.There is "China's Psychiatric Inquisition"(should read that book).Is it also in the US?
Joan Moira Peters, Whangarei (UK Citizen , temp. o/seas in NZ)
Simply put:All who were complicit should be tried at yhe war crimes tribunal at the Hague.If its good for the nazis and taylor its good enough for the yankees.
August Abraham, Port of Spain, Trinidad&Tobago
Torture is evil. If any decent people wonder whether it might be justified to combat terrorism, all they have to do is ask themselves whether they would be willing to be the torturer. No humane person would say yes. Moreover, the article shows that obviously, no reliable evidence wd be obtained.
Joan Moira Peters, Whangarei , UK Citizen temp. o/seas
The ' We are at war' excuse allways fails to state the composition of the ' We' part and is therefore never wrong , never right.
While this war is more often wrong on the individual than right for the group , it is corrupted.
J.Brink, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The German people were not Nazis to begin with. Their fall from grace to barbarity appeared invisible from within. The thing about atrocity is that civilized people will be in denial and twice as much if it is their own people are involved in atrocity. The UK must stand well clear of this decline.
kevin, Lincoln, UK
There are also the Psychologists and and Medical/paramedics/Nurses directly involved in torture. The AMA has yet to do anything about it. In the USA "patriotism" seems to come above everything else.
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Gamini de Silva, Reading, UK
"The extremists,(I call them that to be politicaly correct) were cutting off the heads of Americans on tv"
Extremists? You mean "Freedom Fighters" opposing an illegal occupation (show me the WMD's!).
If the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to 'Gitmo', why should it apply in Iraq??
Nasty, yep.
Andy Crofts, Oulu, Finland
If these people "weren't Nazis", despite the awful things they did and countenanced, we really ought to ask whether the Nazis themselves "were Nazis". We console ourselves by thinking the Nazis were some kind of inhuman beasts, but the truth is that many of them were ordinary people too.
Tom Welsh, Basingstoke, England,
Lets keep it in perspective. We are at war. War is not for nice guys. We were attacked. The extremists,(I call them that to be politicaly correct) were cutting off the heads of Americans on tv. So what if we made the prisoners less than comfortable.Maybe we should apologize and let them go
patrick reddington, mount joy, United States of America
Blair knew. And now, he's laughing all the way to the bank.
T, Kansas City, US
"WHERE'S BIN LADEN?"
You really think if you scream that enough times at enough people you'll eventually get lucky. "Osama? We have tea a Fortnum's every Thursday."
Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Japan