FBI Considers Torture As Suspects Stay Silent

The Times (UK) ^ | 10-22-2001 | Damian Whitworth

[blam]

MONDAY OCTOBER 22 2001

FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent

FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

AMERICAN investigators are considering resorting to harsher interrogation techniques, including torture, after facing a wall of silence from jailed suspected members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, according to a report yesterday. More than 150 people who were picked up after September 11 remain in custody, with four men the focus of particularly intense scrutiny. But investigators have found the usual methods have failed to persuade any of them to talk.

Options being weighed include “truth” drugs, pressure tactics and extraditing the suspects to countries whose security services are more used to employing a heavy-handed approach during interrogations.

“We’re into this thing for 35 days and nobody is talking. Frustration has begun to appear,” a senior FBI official told The Washington Post.

Under US law, evidence extracted using physical pressure or torture is inadmissible in court and interrogators could also face criminal charges for employing such methods. However, investigators suggested that the time might soon come when a truth serum, such as sodium pentothal, would be deemed an acceptable tool for interrogators.

The public pressure for results in the war on terrorism might also persuade the FBI to encourage the countries of suspects to seek their extradition, in the knowledge that they could be given a much rougher reception in jails back home.

One of the four key suspects is Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Moroccan, suspected of being a twentieth hijacker who failed to make it on board the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Moussaoui was detained after he acted suspiciously at a Minnesota flying school, requesting lessons in how to steer a plane but not how to take off or land. Both Morocco and France are regarded as having harsher interrogation methods than the United States.

The investigators have been disappointed that the usual incentives to break suspects, such as promises of shorter sentences, money, jobs and new lives in the witness protection programme, have failed to break the silence.

“We are known for humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck. Usually there is some incentive, some angle to play, what you can do for them. But it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure . . . where we don’t have a choice, and we are probably getting there,” an FBI agent involved in the investigation told the paper.

The other key suspects being held in New York are Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan, Indians who were caught the day after the attacks travelling with false passports, craft knives such as those used in the hijackings and hair dye. Nabil Almarabh, a Boston taxi driver alleged to have links to al-Qaeda, is also being held. Some legal experts believe that the US Supreme Court, which has a conservative tilt, might be prepared to support curtailing the civil liberties of prisoners in terrorism cases.

However, a warning that torture should be avoided came from Robert Blitzer, a former head of the FBI’s counter-terrorism section. He said that the practice “goes against every grain in my body. Chances are you are going to get the wrong person and risk damage or killing them.”

In all, about 800 people have been rounded up since the attacks, most of whom are expected to be found to be innocent. Investigators believe there could be hundreds of people linked to al-Qaeda living in the US, and the Bush Administration has issued a warning that more attacks are probably being planned.

Newsweek magazine reports today that Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader who died in the first plane to hit the World Trade Centre, had been looking into hitting an aircraft carrier. Investigators retracing his movements found that he visited the huge US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia, in February and April this year.

[Outrance]

Illegal?, Immoral? You obviously haven't been to my dentist. Lighten up, people are just venting, thats not to say these b@st@rds don't deserve the worst we could dream up. Back to reality :I think there are Psy-Ops that are more effective than physical harm. Imagine the possibilities!

[VRWC_Member428]

Like I said earlier, when they're proven guilty, we can execute them, stick them in that hole in Colorado to rot for the rest of their lives, or hang them on the steps of the capitol building. I'm definitely not against the use of force to resolve this matter. If there were a smallpox outbreak, I'd expect nuclear weapons to be used by us the next day (after our forces are safely withdrawn from Afghanistan, Iraq, et al)

But I can't support bringing ourselves down to the level of the enemy. Wether torture involves massive loss of blood from various metallic instruments, or no loss of blood from "sophistocated" means of torture, you can't hide the fact that it is torture. If the principles our country was founded on condoned torture, we wouldn't have that clause in the VIIIth amendment, and we wouldn't have signed onto the Geneva Convention.

My main reason for not wanting to use torture is from a Biblical standpoint. I don't know of any mandate which would consider it moral to torture anybody. When I ask myself "What would Jesus do" in this situation, torture wouldn't come to my mind. When the Israelites had a problem with a country and God was behind them, they'd simply go in and wipe out the enemy, just as we are attempting to do in Afghanistan, and later in other countries. I certainly don't believe that Jesus taught pacifism. After all, he told his disciples to sell their cloak and buy a sword. We are to defend ourselves. But I don't believe torture figures in. The only time torture/torment is called for in the Bible is after the day of divine judgement.

[The Raven]

Hey, this is the US. Torture is illegal (5th Amendment). So is exporting suspects to a foreign land (because the government could do that to you, too).

So I hope the FBI doesn't go beyond rolling the eyeballs of the silent terrorists around the interview table. For effect, only.

Maybe removing their leg skin and salting.

[VA Advogado]

Obviously it can't compare with the training the special forces go through, but unless you've experienced severe purposeful sleep deprivation, you can't believe how badly it screws up your mind.

Wow. Sounds ugly. Some people go thru life that way even with 8 hours sleep a night. LOL

[packrat01]

promises of shorter sentences, money, jobs and new lives in the witness protection programme, have failed to break the silence.

NO!

No money. No jobs. No protection for such as these.

Perhaps, if they were turned loose in NYC; seeing as how there's no reason to hold them; some civic minded citizens could persuade them?

[packrat01]

nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted

They're not being held to be punished. They're being held because they may have had something to do with a whole gob of death, destruction, murder, and mayhem.

But they're not being punished.

[WindMinstrel]

In a past life, I was an interrogator for the Army, and later a "debriefer" for the DIA. We studied an awful lot about different psychological interrogation methods, and looked at history for some insights. One thing we found, though, was torture doesn't really work for intel. Sure, it makes you feel good to smash around child molesters and practitioners of mopery, but that's about it.

Why, you ask? Well, first of all, torture removes most of the non-verbal cues that someone's lying to you. As you can no doubt imagine, it's hard to notice subtle pupil dialations or voice frequency changes if someone is screaming from a hot stick in the eye.

Furthermore, torture is a great motivation for people to tell you the information you want. However, they'll tell you it even if they don't know anything! Makes it a bit counterproductive.

The Israelis are rather interesting to look at, of course. They're certainly less ... subtle ... than we are in their questioning. However, the only physical interrogation techniques with which they've had any great success is shaking. Basically they shake your noggin as if it were a can of paint at Home Depot, and that makes you spill your guts (and your lunch). The theory is that it causes some physiological changes that make you more willing to talk.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

"[G]ive these guys to the Chinese."

Although I was at first partial to handing them over to the KGB, I have re-thought the issue. Do we really want to hand over people with potentially valuable information to a foreign power? Especially to one that still has nuclear weapons pointed at us? Part of what they know MAY have to do with methods of circumventing U.S. security. While we might want to know this, I am fairly certain that we don't want anyone else to know, although the PRC seems to have figured out that all they really need to do is get another Democrat in the White House.

These people need to talk, but they need to talk to US, not to the Chinese, or the Russians, or the Israelis.

[lavaroise]

Under US law, evidence extracted using physical pressure or torture is inadmissible in court and interrogators could also face criminal charges for employing such methods. However, investigators suggested that the time might soon come when a truth serum, such as sodium pentothal, would be deemed an acceptable tool for interrogators.

Who talks about using US laws and courts against these people. Torture them and kill them later. This is war.

[packrat01]

If you want to avoid getting smacked by bullies it is best to avoid them all together. We can't be stationing troops in Islamic countries, and defending them, while complaining about how crazy they are.

But now the crazies are our next door neighbors. Do we move out, or kick THEM out?

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

"Tell me, had our founders, during the revoloution caught an English officer who had VITAL information on an attack upon Colonial soldiers, do you think they would have had a pretty little trial?"

Source?

As far as I have read, torture was not used by either side during the American War of Independence. It was, in fact, customary for captured officers to be invited to dinner by their victorious opposite numbers. General Washington may have been a rebel, but he was still a gentleman.

Colonel Andre, a spy and Benedict Arnold's accomplice, was tried and executed. He was not tortured.

[LandofLincoln]

The evidence we get through torture is not admissable in court. Who is going to court? Torture them until you feel you have gotten all that one stupid person can know, and then kill them. Nobody will ever know. Kind of like DON"T ASK, DON"T TELL!

[Mr. K]

I agree... While most of us here are probably just 'venting' I doubt many would actually want the laws of our country changed to allow 'torture'. We are more civilized than that. I do NOT think truth serum is torture.

I mean really people- can you imagine the civil service job posting for this?

[sendtoscott]

You get three guesses as to why we do not have to worry about this eventuality.

Getting labeled a "terrorist" takes a lot less than killing 6000 people. Any abortionist who gets shot, or any clinic that gets bombed, could get pro-lifers labeled as terrorists, no matter how many public statements they make saying that sort of thing is wrong.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Do you realize how LIBERAL you sound on this thread?

NO MEN OF HONOR OR HIGH MORAL PRINCIPLE WOULD COUNTENANCE TORTURE. PERIOD.

[calmseas]

Agreed. My post was just "me" being facetious, as I often like to do on FR. Unfortunately, the humor doesn't always translate well to text.