Posted on 04/06/2002 3:56:46 PM PST by Pokey78
PERHAPS the most important Al-Qaeda prisoner to have been captured since September 11, Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian, could be sent to a US military base on the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia in an attempt to disorientate him. The arrest of Zubaydah, 31, in Pakistan last month has presented Washington with a unique opportunity to penetrate the highest level of Al-Qaeda’s operational command. The terrorist chief was believed to have been attempting to re-group Al-Qaeda units when his safe house in Faisalabad was raided by Pakistani police and American agents. Zubaydah was badly wounded in the shootout that ensued and is receiving treatment for bullet wounds to his stomach and groin. Other Al-Qaeda captives have been sent to a special detention centre at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But military and intelligence sources in Washington last week doubted that Zubaydah would be joining them. “We don’t want him in Camp X-Ray drawing strength from knowing his men are around him,” an intelligence source said. “He might think that’s where he’s going, but we want him off balance, uncertain and alone.” Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, refused to discuss Zubaydah’s whereabouts last week, but other US officials indicated that he would be moved from Pakistan to a secure military facility where he could be held indefinitely for intensive interrogation. The remoteness and security of Diego Garcia, primarily used as a staging post for B-52 bombers, makes it perfect for the crucial tasks of restoring his health and then breaking his expected resistance to questioning, intelligence sources said. Zubaydah is believed to have become the number three in Al-Qaeda’s hierarchy behind Osama Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said he served as the network’s “operational planner” and may have been preparing future terrorist attacks. He is also one of a very few Al-Qaeda lieutenants who may know Bin Laden’s recent whereabouts. “We intend to get every single thing out of him to try to prevent terrorist acts in the future,” said Rumsfeld. An intercepted e-mail from Afghanistan is believed to have alerted intelligence officials to the house in Faisalabad where Zubaydah was surprised last month. Police arrested at least 12 other Al-Qaeda members and about 40 Pakistanis. They also confiscated a potential treasure trove of documents, computer discs and telephone numbers. The need for a breakthrough with Zubaydah is provoking difficult questions in Washington about how far US interrogators should go in applying psychological or physical pressure. “We’re not going to beat him with rubber hoses. We’re not going to apply electrodes to his genitals,” said Cliff van Zandt, a former FBI profiler and consultant on criminal behaviour. “But we might keep him up three days without sleep, we might deprive him of the ability to tell night from day, and we could remove him as far as possible from any support system, any geography, government or individual he might be familiar with.” Several intelligence experts last week urged that Zubaydah be given a truth serum such as sodium pentathol, but van Zandt and others scoffed at what one described as a “Hollywood” technique too unreliable to be useful. If truth drugs worked, one US official said, Washington wouldn’t be having so many problems with unco-operative prisoners. The extent of those problems was laid bare when the Pentagon finally confirmed it was holding a second American-born prisoner captured in Afghanistan. It was on December 2 that Matthew Campbell of The Sunday Times reported from Mazar-i-Sharif that one of the Al-Qaeda prisoners he had met emerging from the fortress siege claimed to have been born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It took the Pentagon and the Justice Department four months to confirm that Yasser Esam Hamdi, 22, was born in Louisiana to Saudi parents and might be entitled to American citizenship. Additional reporting: Raffi Nasser, Karachi
Then, we will torture him mercilessly by giving him bagel chips and orange juice. We might even be so cruel as to give him a copy of the Quran and tell him which way to face Mecca. And if we're feeling really sadistic, we could even give him porno storybooks like "Arabian Nights."
Especially since most of those were already shot off.
We own him now in ways that he is not yet aware of.
I'm making myself sick.
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