Brant, David - Interview master file
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Johnny | It's rolling. | 0:04 |
Peter | Okay, good morning. | 0:06 |
- | Morning. | 0:07 |
Peter | We are very grateful to you for participating | 0:09 |
in the witness to Guantanamo Project. | 0:11 | |
We invite you to speak of your experiences and involvement | 0:14 | |
with detainees who were held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 0:17 | |
We all being to provide you | 0:22 | |
with an opportunity to tell your story in your own words. | 0:23 | |
We are creating an archive of stories | 0:27 | |
so that people in America and around the world | 0:30 | |
will have a better understanding | 0:33 | |
of what you and others have experienced and observed. | 0:34 | |
Future generations must know what happened at Guantanamo, | 0:39 | |
and by telling your story you're contributing to history. | 0:42 | |
We appreciate your courage and your willingness | 0:46 | |
to speak with us. | 0:48 | |
If at any time during the interview | 0:50 | |
you'd like to take a break just let us know | 0:51 | |
and if there's anything you say | 0:53 | |
that you'd like to retract or rephrase just let us know | 0:55 | |
and we can do that too. | 0:57 | |
- | Okay. | 0:58 |
Peter | I'd like to begin | 0:59 |
with some personal background information | 1:00 | |
including your name, your hometown, your birth date and age | 1:02 | |
if that will be okay. | 1:08 | |
- | Okay. | |
My name is David L. Brant. | 1:09 | |
I go by Dave. | 1:11 | |
I am currently the Managing Director | 1:14 | |
of a Federal Consulting Practice counting from BDO. | 1:17 | |
Prior to that, I was a partner | 1:22 | |
at Deloitte Consulting for five years. | 1:23 | |
Prior to that, I was with NCIS | 1:26 | |
Naval Criminal Investigative Service approximately 30 years. | 1:28 | |
And I was the Director of NCIS from 1997 till late 2005 | 1:31 | |
for approximately eight and a half years. | 1:37 | |
I'm married. | 1:39 | |
I have two kids, adults. | 1:40 | |
One is a 27-year-old man who is also an NCIS Special Agent. | 1:42 | |
And my daughter is 25 and she's a lawyer | 1:47 | |
works in the DC area. | 1:50 | |
I'm about to see how old am I? | 1:52 | |
I'm 58 years old and I live in Fairfax Station, Virginia. | 1:54 | |
Peter | What's your birthdate? | 1:59 |
- | September 30th, 1952. | 2:01 |
Peter | And your hometown, where you were born? | 2:04 |
- | I was born in a town in Illinois, Danville, Illinois. | 2:05 |
Mid-state about a 100 miles South of Chicago. | 2:09 | |
Peter | And your education. | 2:12 |
- | I have a Bachelor's degree in psychology | 2:13 |
from Bradley University and a Master's degree | 2:16 | |
in criminology from Indiana State University. | 2:19 | |
- | I'd like to begin with just a little background | 2:23 |
preceding the NCIS | 2:26 | |
if you could just bring us up to that point | 2:27 | |
after graduate school. | 2:31 | |
- | It's a short background. | 2:34 |
I went undergrad grad, grad. | 2:35 | |
So I got my master's in 1975 | 2:40 | |
and I became a police officer in Miami, Florida in 1975. | 2:43 | |
And I was a police officer there for a couple years | 2:50 | |
and I had an interest in going into federal law enforcement. | 2:54 | |
And after time January '77, I became a special agent | 2:58 | |
with what was then an organization that was named NIS | 3:04 | |
Naval Investigative Service, and later became NCIS | 3:09 | |
Naval Criminal Investigative Service. | 3:13 | |
And I hired on initially in Norfolk, Virginia. | 3:15 | |
And then again, over the course of 29 plus years | 3:18 | |
almost 30 traveled to several different assignments | 3:22 | |
and had several different positions. | 3:25 | |
Ultimately again, headed the agency from late '90s | 3:27 | |
to early 2000s | 3:31 | |
Peter | Before we talk about 2001, | 3:33 |
could you tell us a little about | 3:36 | |
what the NCIS does kind of work that it does? | 3:36 | |
- | Yeah, the NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Service | 3:40 |
the easiest way to explain it outside | 3:43 | |
of the the knowledge of the television show NCIS, | 3:45 | |
is that if you think of FBI DEA, Secret Service, CIA | 3:49 | |
any of the more publicly known law enforcement agencies, | 3:56 | |
NCIS is a civilian led and a civilian populated | 4:02 | |
federal investigative organization that does all categories | 4:07 | |
of felony, criminal investigation, | 4:12 | |
all categories of counter-intelligence support | 4:14 | |
and counter-terrorism support | 4:17 | |
for the Department of the Navy. | 4:18 | |
The director of NCIS reports to the secretary of the Navy. | 4:21 | |
And in essence NCIS is a model that bit about around the FBI | 4:25 | |
only their client base really | 4:31 | |
is active duty dependence contractors affiliated | 4:34 | |
with the Department of Navy and the Department of Defense | 4:38 | |
worldwide organization at this point probably | 4:40 | |
near 350 or 400 offices globally. | 4:44 | |
Peter | And what kind of training do you receive? | 4:49 |
- | NCIS Special Agents attend the | 4:52 |
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, | 4:55 | |
which is in Glynco, Georgia. | 4:57 | |
And that's where all federal agencies, | 4:59 | |
federal investigators, absent FBI and DEA | 5:03 | |
do their basic training. | 5:07 | |
So it is an organization that trains approximately 88 | 5:08 | |
different and unique primarily | 5:12 | |
federal law enforcement organizations around the country | 5:15 | |
and the NCIS is a partner organization and trains there. | 5:17 | |
Peter | This I hadn't thought of it | 5:22 |
till you just said that. | 5:23 | |
Is there some competition among the agencies | 5:24 | |
and the fact that you don't train with the FBI? | 5:27 | |
- | No, I don't believe so. | 5:30 |
I think honestly over the years, the FBI | 5:31 | |
as you probably know has always had for decades, | 5:34 | |
the FBI Academy which is a great facility | 5:37 | |
and serves other agencies as well. | 5:41 | |
But the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center | 5:43 | |
has served as a great resource for all categories | 5:47 | |
of investigators scattered around government. | 5:52 | |
And actually it's a plus because during training | 5:54 | |
a lot of the classes are joint training. | 5:57 | |
A lot of the organizations train | 5:59 | |
with other federal agencies, DEA, Secret Service. | 6:01 | |
I'm sorry, DEA trains with the FBI | 6:04 | |
but ATF, Secret Service, Marshals Service, NCIS | 6:06 | |
many times are in joint classes. | 6:10 | |
So it's a good venue for different organizations | 6:11 | |
who are perhaps focused on a specific part of government | 6:16 | |
to learn about each other and set a scenario up | 6:21 | |
where they actually are knowledgeable | 6:25 | |
and can work together in the future. | 6:27 | |
Peter | So where were you just before 9/11? | 6:29 |
Where were you stationed-- | 6:32 | |
- | I was the director. | 6:33 |
I was the director from 1997 until 2005. | 6:35 | |
Peter | Does that mean you were in DC? | 6:39 |
- | Yes, our headquarters in Seattle Headquarters | 6:40 |
in Washington DC. | 6:42 | |
Peter | So at 9/11 were in your office | 6:43 |
at that morning? | 6:47 | |
- | Yes. | 6:48 |
We were actually in a staff meeting. | 6:48 | |
Peter | Could you describe | 6:50 |
how NCIS reacted that day? | 6:52 | |
- | Actually, I'm gonna veer off that question | 6:54 |
and I'm gonna go to a more, | 6:56 | |
not that either is more devastating than the other | 6:59 | |
but I'll tell you a story that is | 7:02 | |
in terms of immediate impact to me and our organization | 7:05 | |
at the time NCIS, it was really on October 12th | 7:08 | |
and I went blank on the day, October 12th, 2010 | 7:19 | |
I believe it was, but it was when the Cole was attacked. | 7:26 | |
The Cole was attacked | 7:30 | |
which was really the first real indicator | 7:31 | |
that a war on terror was gonna come to the United States. | 7:36 | |
And similar to what would happen later on 9/11 | 7:40 | |
on October 12th, 2010, the Cole was attacked, | 7:45 | |
17 sailors were killed. | 7:51 | |
And I was sitting at my desk when that occurred in DC | 7:53 | |
and we were getting reports in that | 7:56 | |
there had been an attack on a ship in Yemen | 7:58 | |
and all the initial reports were that | 8:02 | |
it was likely an accident | 8:04 | |
because it was somewhat inconceivable | 8:06 | |
the way the reporting was coming to me | 8:08 | |
that it was a terrorist attack | 8:12 | |
and it was a refueling at sea effort | 8:13 | |
and people kind of immediately jumped to some assumptions | 8:16 | |
that something had gone wrong during the refueling effort | 8:19 | |
and the ship had an accident. | 8:22 | |
Literally within a first couple hours, | 8:24 | |
we were getting back channel | 8:27 | |
and really on the scene reporting | 8:29 | |
from sources inside that it was not an accident | 8:32 | |
and there were indicators that the ship had been attacked. | 8:36 | |
And the rest of the story, obviously you're aware of | 8:39 | |
what happened for my organization at the time NCIS | 8:42 | |
we were the first federal agents on the scene in Yemen | 8:44 | |
and had a lot of unique and insightful experiences | 8:49 | |
about what had happened there. | 8:53 | |
And ultimately as 9/11 and followed | 8:55 | |
knew that there was a likely connect | 9:00 | |
and this was really a continuation | 9:02 | |
of what had begun on October 12th, 2000. | 9:06 | |
My reaction then in October was sort of repeated | 9:12 | |
on 9/11, which was one disbelief | 9:17 | |
that the way the acts had been carried out | 9:22 | |
could actually occur and that it signaled | 9:27 | |
an entirely new chapter in a book in the war on terror. | 9:31 | |
Organizationally, NCIS at the time | 9:37 | |
was one of the lead agencies for the Cole attack | 9:41 | |
and ended up working closely with the FBI | 9:45 | |
and a number of agencies to ultimately resolve that | 9:47 | |
and identify those responsible. | 9:51 | |
Regarding the 9/11 incidents and the 9/11 disaster | 9:53 | |
our organization at the time, similarly was part of | 10:00 | |
an overall comprehensive effort to respond to the Pentagon | 10:03 | |
on the scene of that devastation. | 10:09 | |
And we had numerous teams on the ground | 10:11 | |
supporting forensic efforts and interviewing | 10:13 | |
and reconstructing the scene, et cetera, et cetera | 10:17 | |
which went on for months and months. | 10:19 | |
Peter | The way you described it, | 10:22 |
are you saying you right away understood | 10:23 | |
it was al Qaeda who attacked the World Trade Center? | 10:25 | |
You made the connection to the USS Cole? | 10:28 | |
- | Yeah, I don't think it was... | 10:30 |
Me personally, I didn't react to | 10:33 | |
who specific by name by group | 10:38 | |
but I think on a personal basis | 10:41 | |
following from what we had learned during, | 10:47 | |
at that time still the ongoing investigation | 10:50 | |
regarding the attack on Cole, | 10:52 | |
that there was an obvious connect | 10:55 | |
an obvious really continuation of what were indicators | 10:57 | |
that had been increasing for some time | 11:05 | |
that at some location, some venue and some fashion | 11:09 | |
Cole was a precursor potentially for other, | 11:13 | |
even more massive types of incidents that could follow. | 11:18 | |
Peter | So what role did you guys play immediately | 11:24 |
if this wasn't a Naval incident | 11:27 | |
the same way the USS Cole was? | 11:28 | |
- | Well, NCIS, again, because of the attack at the Pentagon, | 11:31 |
because there were Naval victims | 11:36 | |
several of those killed were enlisted | 11:41 | |
I believe there were some enlisted Naval officer victims. | 11:44 | |
So there was a Nexus department of Navy Nexus, | 11:47 | |
but also for as an organization, | 11:52 | |
a department of defense Nexus | 11:54 | |
because that was sort of the chain of command. | 11:56 | |
So, as I mentioned is as you would know, | 11:59 | |
virtually any criminal investigative organization | 12:03 | |
that had capabilities forensic capabilities, | 12:06 | |
crime scene capabilities, people who had experience | 12:09 | |
in bomb scene, pathologies et cetera, were brought together. | 12:12 | |
The FBI being a lead investigative agency is part | 12:19 | |
of a pretty comprehensive, extensive effort to figure out | 12:22 | |
what had happened where | 12:28 | |
and what may have led up to this event. | 12:29 | |
So we had teams that were on the ground to Pentagon | 12:31 | |
for some time. | 12:33 | |
And then as investigative leads begun to form | 12:34 | |
coming out of the incident large, then there were elements | 12:41 | |
of inquiries that we supported overseas | 12:44 | |
where we had people that others didn't | 12:47 | |
and in the states where we may have had some understanding | 12:49 | |
or some relationships where we could try | 12:53 | |
to develop information. | 12:54 | |
Peter | So did you send people | 12:56 |
to Afghanistan right after the attack? | 12:57 | |
- | Not immediately in terms of a response to the event | 13:01 |
but NCIS at the time had and still has I believe | 13:07 | |
special agents deployed as part of battle groups | 13:13 | |
on aircraft carriers, | 13:17 | |
on large deployments of Naval personnel. | 13:20 | |
NCIS has agents deployed in a number of locations overseas | 13:24 | |
in the Middle East and other locations. | 13:32 | |
So the access to different sources of information was part | 13:34 | |
of what we were trying to contribute. | 13:41 | |
NCIS also had two special agents, | 13:43 | |
going back to the attack on Cole a bit. | 13:47 | |
There were two special agents that had been in Yemen | 13:49 | |
the day before the attack | 13:51 | |
and had been there working with the security forces | 13:53 | |
and had relationships and understanding | 13:56 | |
about the investigative and the security apparatus there. | 13:59 | |
That was also a great benefit as people started to arrive | 14:02 | |
in the country to try to figure out what had happened. | 14:06 | |
So because of the global nature of NCIS's mission | 14:08 | |
and because they, as an organization | 14:13 | |
sort of travel with the fleet, wherever the fleet is | 14:17 | |
that afforded a nice venue, if you will, | 14:21 | |
to leverage those relationships | 14:27 | |
and assist in a number of ways. | 14:28 | |
Peter | So when the US Government dropped flyers | 14:31 |
over Afghanistan to capture people | 14:35 | |
and then take them to Baghlan and Khandahar | 14:38 | |
and ultimately in Guantanamo was the NCIS, | 14:41 | |
they are present and... | 14:43 | |
- | No, no not specifically with that type of activity, no. | 14:48 |
Peter | When people decided, someone decided | 14:52 |
that Guantanamo should be open for the men, | 14:55 | |
I assume NCIS was brought into that | 14:57 | |
since it was a Naval base. | 14:59 | |
- | NCIS was not specifically involved | 15:01 |
in the decision to do that | 15:07 | |
and the mechanics of detaining or holding detainees there. | 15:08 | |
NCIS has had and may still have an office in Guantanamo Bay | 15:16 | |
for years and years and years. | 15:22 | |
And the office was initially focused | 15:24 | |
on the more normal activities associated with NCIS | 15:27 | |
and the population at Guantanamo Bay thefts, | 15:32 | |
general crime, burglaries whatever might've happened. | 15:37 | |
As the Guantanamo detainee facility was set up, | 15:40 | |
the NCIS resident office was there to assist | 15:46 | |
in any sort of concerns initially associated | 15:49 | |
with any sort of crime activity, or I guess any sort | 15:53 | |
of organic thing that would happen on Guantanamo Bay | 15:56 | |
regardless of whether there was a detainee facility | 16:02 | |
there or not. | 16:05 | |
As the task force, the detainee task force | 16:06 | |
began to be formulated to process the detainees | 16:10 | |
and interview them and look for evidence | 16:15 | |
and informational value, NCIS as I think you know | 16:18 | |
became part of that DOD task force | 16:22 | |
which was led by Army. | 16:25 | |
And we then contributed personnel to that effort | 16:27 | |
which I don't know if it's clear or not, | 16:32 | |
but it's kind of two separate things. | 16:34 | |
It was an office that sort of handled the day-to-day | 16:35 | |
activities of the personnel of Guantanamo Bay, | 16:38 | |
which was there and has been there. | 16:41 | |
Peter | Does that mean the military personnel? | 16:42 |
- | Pardon me. | 16:44 |
Peter | Military personnel when you say personnel. | 16:45 |
- | Anybody who's working at Guantanamo Bay | 16:47 |
be they contractors, civilians | 16:50 | |
military personnel assigned there, | 16:52 | |
if someone was living in on base housing | 16:54 | |
and their house was broken into, | 16:56 | |
NCIS agents would respond and do an investigation. | 16:58 | |
So it kind of the typical NCIS office for that facility. | 17:01 | |
Then the second piece that began to be built | 17:07 | |
was the Army led detainee interrogation task force | 17:09 | |
which NCIS contribute to. | 17:15 | |
Peter | Was the NCIS prepared for that? | 17:17 |
Did they have people and staff | 17:19 | |
who worked (indistinct) | 17:20 | |
- | Yes, we at the time they now | 17:22 |
I would say one of the strengths historically | 17:28 | |
for NCIS as an organization, | 17:31 | |
me having spent of my career there | 17:34 | |
is the interviewing skills that special agents develop | 17:36 | |
and train for over time. | 17:39 | |
So I would say NCIS in general | 17:40 | |
would highlight the interviewing interrogation skills | 17:45 | |
of their special agents is a core piece | 17:47 | |
of their capability as an organization? | 17:50 | |
So, yeah, we were, I think at the time | 17:52 | |
pretty well equipped to do that. | 17:54 | |
Peter | And who train them to be-- | 17:56 |
- | Well, the training part of it starts from basic school on. | 17:58 |
People get basic training and interviewing witnesses, | 18:03 | |
victims, suspects, Miranda Rights, Article 31 Rights | 18:06 | |
that's from day one of an NCIS Special Agent. | 18:10 | |
And then as with each organization | 18:14 | |
NCIS has its own additional training at the entry level | 18:16 | |
where those special agents get specific NCIS led | 18:22 | |
and supported training unique to folks supporting | 18:26 | |
a military population Article 31 training, | 18:29 | |
JAG lawyers provide some of the training, | 18:33 | |
NCIS has it's own training. | 18:35 | |
And then as they progress | 18:37 | |
through the early years of their careers, | 18:38 | |
NCIS Special Agents and NCIS provides a lot | 18:42 | |
of advanced training from vendors, consultants | 18:45 | |
people who have different types | 18:47 | |
of experience in interviewing people. | 18:49 | |
And honestly, NCIS because of the diversity | 18:51 | |
of work that NCIS does, | 18:57 | |
and the relative smallness of the organization | 18:59 | |
most special agents get extensive experience | 19:02 | |
in just talking to people, quite frankly, | 19:06 | |
just getting to know and understanding | 19:08 | |
and perceiving different types of scenarios | 19:11 | |
where they know how to ask good questions. | 19:15 | |
And I think that creates a very effective force | 19:17 | |
of investigators who know how to talk to people. | 19:22 | |
In this scenario as the they get more detainee | 19:25 | |
facility was stood up, | 19:29 | |
there was I think, a pretty good vetting of folks | 19:33 | |
within the organization NCIS who had the right background, | 19:38 | |
who had some levels of experience. | 19:42 | |
And they additionally got at the time | 19:44 | |
as they went to GTMO as time progressed | 19:46 | |
some updated training on different types of cues | 19:52 | |
and indicators to look for and how to interact | 19:56 | |
with someone that was from a different culture | 19:59 | |
and different history and spoke a different language. | 20:01 | |
And you're gonna speak to Dr. Michael Gelles, | 20:02 | |
who was one of those who was key in providing some | 20:05 | |
of the insights of, if you're talking to a Muslim, | 20:09 | |
a potential jihadist hostile to US | 20:14 | |
how does one talk to that person and begin | 20:20 | |
to try to establish a relationship and learn the truth? | 20:22 | |
Peter | What I'd like to understand is | 20:26 |
did the DOD or the Army or some other military organizations | 20:29 | |
tell the NCIS how to question these people | 20:36 | |
and change perhaps the culture | 20:40 | |
that NCIS usually does in interviewing people? | 20:42 | |
- | No, not at all. | 20:45 |
So each organization contributed as each member | 20:47 | |
of the task force contributed trained resources | 20:51 | |
Air Force, Army, NCIS and then there was FBI, CIA, DIA | 20:56 | |
all the other agencies had participating roles. | 21:01 | |
The piece that NCIS played was part | 21:05 | |
of the the joint interrogation facility that the task force | 21:07 | |
and the focus from the onset for that piece was | 21:12 | |
a criminal investigation. | 21:17 | |
So the effort was less about collecting intelligence | 21:18 | |
from the battlefront and capturing data | 21:24 | |
that was real time important | 21:30 | |
to ongoing military engagements, | 21:33 | |
more about did this person participate | 21:37 | |
in a prosecutable crime? | 21:41 | |
And if he did, the effort was focused on | 21:43 | |
or believed to be, or he was a suspect | 21:48 | |
in one event or another, the effort was purely | 21:50 | |
obtain evidence that was gonna be suitable | 21:57 | |
for criminal prosecution. | 22:00 | |
So the organizations that participated have that piece | 22:02 | |
of their mission and capability | 22:06 | |
each probably brought a little different culture | 22:09 | |
a little different history | 22:12 | |
on how they as an organization do things, | 22:13 | |
but the individuals were expected | 22:16 | |
to have the training and understanding | 22:20 | |
about how to conduct a criminal investigation | 22:22 | |
and interrogate and seize evidence, et cetera, et cetera. | 22:24 | |
Peter | When the NCIS agent interviewed | 22:27 |
or interrogated detainee was there someone else | 22:29 | |
in the room as well? | 22:32 | |
- | Yeah, so the best of my recollection, | 22:34 |
and again some of this, I was not on scene. | 22:36 | |
I did not participate in the actual interviews. | 22:39 | |
So as the head of the agency at the time I was more the | 22:41 | |
recipient of status reports, progress, et cetera. | 22:44 | |
But I'm reasonably certain in almost all cases | 22:49 | |
there were multiple people in the room. | 22:57 | |
There was always an interpreter in the room | 22:58 | |
because although some of the NCIS agents | 23:00 | |
as well as others on the task force spoke Arabic, | 23:04 | |
the majority did not. | 23:06 | |
So there was always an interpreter | 23:08 | |
who was working with the investigator. | 23:10 | |
Peter | And would you receive daily reports | 23:15 |
on the investigations? | 23:17 | |
- | Not daily. | 23:19 |
The task force was headed as you know by the army | 23:20 | |
but periodically just status of I've visited there a couple | 23:26 | |
of times and would always try to meet | 23:32 | |
with the special agents who were coming back | 23:34 | |
or going there for a period of time, either before or after. | 23:38 | |
I would usually try to sit down with them as a group | 23:41 | |
or sometimes individually | 23:44 | |
to get a sense of progress and experience | 23:46 | |
and did they think there were likely prosecutions | 23:49 | |
that were gonna result, et cetera, et cetera. | 23:53 | |
Peter | Could you describe the first time you went | 23:57 |
to Guantanamo when that was and what you saw and you did? | 23:59 | |
- | I can't remember the date. | 24:03 |
It was prior to the permanent, if you will detainee facility | 24:06 | |
where there were interrogation rooms that had been built | 24:12 | |
and the infrastructure was much more mature. | 24:15 | |
It was probably in the first year | 24:22 | |
of the detainee task force stand up. | 24:25 | |
I went with the commander of army CID, who was the lead | 24:30 | |
of the interrogation task force, General Don Ryder. | 24:34 | |
And we basically toured the facility | 24:37 | |
by that I mean, a walking tour | 24:41 | |
of where the detainees were being held | 24:43 | |
and look basically got a lay of the land, if you will. | 24:44 | |
I got briefed on sort of the daily activities | 24:50 | |
and how folks were maintained. | 24:53 | |
And then the majority of our time there | 24:55 | |
we met with the task force members which were made up... | 24:58 | |
The Investigation Task Force members | 25:01 | |
and they were made up primarily | 25:04 | |
at that time of NCIS, Army, CID | 25:05 | |
and I believe there were a couple | 25:08 | |
of Air Force OSI folks there, but we jointly talked | 25:09 | |
with them and sort of got a feel for what they were doing | 25:12 | |
and how they thought things were going | 25:16 | |
and that kind of thing. | 25:17 | |
Peter | Did you sit in on an interrogation? | 25:18 |
- | No, I did not. | 25:20 |
Peter | Did you have any sense early on | 25:21 |
that things were not the way you would like it to be? | 25:24 | |
- | No. | 25:27 |
I think the early days | 25:28 | |
and I'm gonna have to be somewhat generic in the timeframes | 25:30 | |
'cause I can't really remember the exact sequences | 25:35 | |
is what I consider early days. | 25:37 | |
But in the first, let's say six months to a year, | 25:39 | |
the NCIS investigators | 25:46 | |
and also the other agencies investigators | 25:48 | |
were enthusiastic about what they thought was high potential | 25:52 | |
for prosecutable cases. | 25:56 | |
And these were times where those being detained | 25:59 | |
and delivered to GTMO there were strong indicators | 26:03 | |
that they had been involved | 26:07 | |
in significant activity, significant crime | 26:09 | |
evidence was thought to be pretty strong | 26:15 | |
regarding the individuals connect to a crime | 26:20 | |
meaning recovered documentation | 26:24 | |
or witness statements about one or the other. | 26:26 | |
So at that time I would say the Investigation Task Force | 26:32 | |
was very confident that there would be evidence | 26:37 | |
that could be developed to successfully prosecute | 26:42 | |
if US Government intended to do so | 26:46 | |
folks who had committed serious crime | 26:50 | |
ie involved in death, involved in killing others. | 26:51 | |
So the focus was really on good leads, sort of good work | 26:55 | |
and the potential to have an impact on prosecuting people. | 27:02 | |
Peter | Where were these strong indicators from? | 27:07 |
Where was this evidence from 'cause subsequently | 27:09 | |
they found much evidence was compromised and wasn't at all-- | 27:12 | |
- | Well, and I think you may have some sense of... | 27:16 |
So the initial screening interviewing contact | 27:18 | |
with the detainees was done by the intelligence group. | 27:28 | |
The intelligence apparatus and the focus was | 27:31 | |
is there actionable information that these folks have | 27:35 | |
that we can turn around and feed it back to those | 27:39 | |
on the front lines and either capture potential terrorists | 27:43 | |
or prevent additional acts of violence. | 27:49 | |
So there was a lot of time spent | 27:51 | |
by resources outside the Investigation Task Force | 27:55 | |
in the early portion of one's detention | 27:58 | |
trying to determine if those detained | 28:02 | |
had real-time information. | 28:05 | |
In concept that focus was less about | 28:08 | |
what anyone may have done in the past | 28:11 | |
or what they had been involved in | 28:14 | |
or had they committed a crime, | 28:16 | |
it was more, do you know something right now | 28:18 | |
that will help us save somebody's life | 28:21 | |
or help us prevent an attack. | 28:23 | |
Time-wise as the intelligence piece shifted away | 28:29 | |
from an individual, that individual was then focused | 28:35 | |
on more specifically did he participate and commit | 28:39 | |
and or know of crime. | 28:44 | |
Crime in terms of deaths or assaults or et cetera. | 28:46 | |
In the first part, much information was gathered | 28:51 | |
either when the person was captured in Afghanistan | 28:57 | |
when they were spoken to and interrogated on scene, | 29:01 | |
when they came in to GTMO initially | 29:05 | |
there was information that had evolved | 29:08 | |
about that particular persons connect to terrorism. | 29:10 | |
That was in essence passed to the investigators | 29:17 | |
who would look to refine that information | 29:20 | |
to vet additional connects, to send leads back | 29:24 | |
into the task force who's on the ground | 29:28 | |
to validate a particular place, time, people | 29:31 | |
and conduct an investigation. | 29:36 | |
So there were legitimate and very, I think, fruitful | 29:38 | |
and productive investigative accomplishments, if you will | 29:45 | |
that many of those who were brought in | 29:53 | |
had in fact been connected to hardcore terrorism. | 29:57 | |
Peter | Was NCIS involved in Afghanistan | 30:01 |
and the interrogation or the interviewing too? | 30:03 | |
- | Not typically, no. | 30:06 |
There was typically that was a war fighter type activity | 30:07 | |
where someone's captured and right at that time, | 30:14 | |
in that place, they were interviewed and interrogated. | 30:17 | |
Now, NCIS, as things evolved | 30:19 | |
had resources on the ground | 30:23 | |
and would periodically support interviewing a suspect | 30:27 | |
who was captured and detained in terms of | 30:34 | |
what types of questions should you ask, | 30:38 | |
how should you approach this person | 30:41 | |
and then many times NCIS would, | 30:44 | |
not many times sometimes literally helped | 30:48 | |
with the logistics of transporting and figuring out | 30:50 | |
where the person should go next. | 30:52 | |
But for the most part to the best of my recollection, | 30:54 | |
much if not all of the sort of immediate capture, retain, | 30:59 | |
secure, discussion, interview was done by those soldiers | 31:07 | |
and or other US forces on the ground. | 31:12 | |
And NCIS would have been in a support role. | 31:16 | |
Peter | So there were no rumors going on early on | 31:19 |
in the early days Guantanamo | 31:22 | |
that something might have happened in Afghanistan | 31:24 | |
in terms of the treatment of the prisoners. | 31:27 | |
- | No, not in my view. | 31:31 |
And again, my job as the Director of NCIS during that time | 31:33 | |
we were a support element and a very small support element | 31:39 | |
in terms of Afghanistan. | 31:44 | |
And as I mentioned earlier NCIS had people supporting | 31:46 | |
via presence on ships, presence with the fleet. | 31:53 | |
We then at some point began to establish | 31:57 | |
more direct connects to some of the forces going in country | 32:01 | |
where we would advance them information | 32:05 | |
about the environment, the culture | 32:07 | |
what they might be facing. | 32:10 | |
But as far as on the ground type of contact minimal | 32:12 | |
and my focus, was stood up was really | 32:17 | |
on the investigative task force | 32:19 | |
providing resources to support that task force | 32:21 | |
and ensuring that the NCIS resources | 32:24 | |
who were connected were really ready | 32:28 | |
to take on that mission. | 32:31 | |
Peter | You went down to Guantanamo a second time | 32:36 |
and probably a third time. | 32:40 | |
So when did it begin to appear different to you | 32:41 | |
than what you had first observed and described? | 32:44 | |
- | Actually, I have to correct data. | 32:47 |
I went once the second time we didn't get there | 32:49 | |
because our plane broke down. | 32:53 | |
So I was thinking about the second time | 32:55 | |
that it was with the same individual | 32:57 | |
we didn't make it there. | 33:00 | |
And so actually times on the ground and GTMO I went once. | 33:02 | |
The indicators were I would say the excitement around | 33:12 | |
and positive view that they were gonna be prosecutable cases | 33:22 | |
that there were really, really bad guys | 33:27 | |
and that these guys needed to go to trial | 33:30 | |
and get convicted and be put away. | 33:32 | |
That became, I think it began to wane a bit. | 33:34 | |
And again, I'll have a hard time giving you a timeframe | 33:39 | |
but as year one went to year two | 33:42 | |
the investigators were... | 33:48 | |
The ease of obtaining evidence, | 33:53 | |
the new information and the whole process | 33:55 | |
I think people were beginning to get less confident | 33:59 | |
that the prosecutions were gonna be as numerous | 34:03 | |
as maybe they had hoped or expected | 34:07 | |
based on what had initially been shaped. | 34:10 | |
Part of it was just quite frankly, it was very difficult | 34:13 | |
as you noted earlier, to get hard evidence | 34:18 | |
meaning material evidence, letters, notes | 34:22 | |
something substantively tying someone fingerprints | 34:27 | |
the standard stuff to an event | 34:31 | |
and it was exceedingly difficult to get through interviews | 34:34 | |
people to provide evidence that connected others | 34:40 | |
and or the person being talked to a scene. | 34:44 | |
So I think as I would begin to talk to our special agents | 34:47 | |
NCIS Special Agents, returning from an assignment | 34:53 | |
on the investigative task force, | 34:57 | |
most would be very complimentary of the experience. | 35:00 | |
And when I say the experience, | 35:05 | |
the opportunity to interview someone and try to understand | 35:07 | |
what that someone was thinking and his history | 35:11 | |
and how he got to where he got to quite frankly, | 35:14 | |
and the approach was always as you'll hear | 35:18 | |
probably with others, | 35:21 | |
it was always a relationship-based approach. | 35:22 | |
So the way our folks were taught to interview | 35:25 | |
was simply we're gonna have a conversation | 35:28 | |
and you're gonna have to trust me | 35:33 | |
and I'm gonna have to trust you. | 35:34 | |
That's not an easy thing to do when you're dealing | 35:37 | |
in that type of environment. | 35:38 | |
But the experience of learning about the people | 35:40 | |
that had been detained, some of them very bad, | 35:44 | |
some of them unknown and some of them probably not even sure | 35:47 | |
how they got to where they got to, | 35:51 | |
the special agents involved in that | 35:54 | |
found it both fascinating and insightful. | 35:56 | |
And they stayed committed to obtaining information relevant | 35:59 | |
to a person who committed a serious crime, but it was tough. | 36:05 | |
This is how I would shape it. | 36:10 | |
And during all of that, with regard to the people | 36:11 | |
that worked with NCIS Special Agents, | 36:16 | |
all remained positive about the experience, | 36:20 | |
but they got burned out. | 36:24 | |
Basically they tired of it. | 36:26 | |
So we rotated people in and out of there 90, 180 days. | 36:27 | |
Peter | Why would they get burned out? | 36:31 |
- | Just sitting in a room all day | 36:33 |
with a couple of people over and over with an interpreter, | 36:35 | |
many times nothing to talk about, | 36:40 | |
many times very difficult sorting through | 36:44 | |
what was being said, what was being fabricated, | 36:49 | |
what might be truthful. | 36:54 | |
It was just a day in day out to stay sharp | 36:58 | |
and to stay alert and attuned | 37:02 | |
and really motivated for what was a long drawn out potential | 37:05 | |
to obtain minimal bits of information that might be of value | 37:14 | |
would just tire people out. | 37:19 | |
I think just physically and more psychologically | 37:20 | |
and emotionally than anything. | 37:23 | |
Peter | And your role was to meet with these agents | 37:25 |
and hear what they have discovered or? | 37:27 | |
- | Well, as the head of the organization, | 37:30 |
again, I didn't have a day in a day | 37:32 | |
tactical hands-on report to me role, | 37:34 | |
but as the director who was responsible | 37:36 | |
for deployment of our resources and accountability | 37:39 | |
how they were utilized, I wanted to hear and see and feel | 37:44 | |
and understand the worth and the impact | 37:47 | |
and the value of what the folks were contributing. | 37:52 | |
So I would always try to have some sense of that | 37:54 | |
through more personal interaction | 37:57 | |
than just a report through the chain of command. | 38:01 | |
Peter | And when did you begin to have some inklings | 38:04 |
that maybe everything wasn't exactly the way | 38:07 | |
your staff had been trained? | 38:11 | |
- | Well, I think, and again, I'm gonna have a hard time | 38:12 |
giving you an exact timeframe | 38:15 | |
but I got word from... | 38:16 | |
And it was Mark Fallon who was the NCIS. | 38:19 | |
He was the Deputy Commander | 38:24 | |
of the Investigative Task Force of Fort Belvoir | 38:26 | |
And his boss was Colonel Britt Mallow | 38:31 | |
who you may have heard that name already. | 38:34 | |
Those two, he was an Army Colonel and an NCIS Special Agent | 38:36 | |
were the top two, who from Fort Belvoir responsible | 38:39 | |
for overseeing the task force | 38:43 | |
and maintaining really though the whole picture | 38:44 | |
of that task force. | 38:47 | |
Via Mark Fallon and via people | 38:50 | |
that were on the ground at GTMO | 38:57 | |
NCIS agents had come through others to him, | 38:59 | |
it came to my attention with Dr. Michael Gelles, | 39:05 | |
who was a Forensic Psychologist at NCIS at the time | 39:09 | |
Assistant Director, Ralph Blanco | 39:14 | |
who was the head of criminal investigations at the time | 39:16 | |
both brought to my attention concerns | 39:19 | |
and I would say generic concerns initially | 39:22 | |
that some of the interviews, | 39:26 | |
some of the potential protocols | 39:31 | |
could be getting outside the bounds of acceptable activity. | 39:35 | |
And I preface that by saying, when you asked earlier | 39:38 | |
remember there were the teams resources | 39:45 | |
that came into support the detainees, | 39:50 | |
both interviewing intelligence backgrounds | 39:53 | |
from intelligence perspective and investigator perspective | 39:57 | |
were quite different. | 39:59 | |
The agencies themselves that contributed those teams | 40:03 | |
had quite different training, quite different backgrounds. | 40:06 | |
So NCIS is primarily civilian federal investigator beast | 40:08 | |
civilian organization. | 40:18 | |
Army, CID is primarily Army active duty. | 40:21 | |
Air Force similarly. | 40:26 | |
The intelligence apparatus that was in place | 40:28 | |
a lot of reservists, a lot of no real experienced personnel | 40:31 | |
in investigative histories or investigative protocols. | 40:39 | |
There were some level of tensions throughout | 40:43 | |
regarding how the intelligence piece | 40:47 | |
of the task force dealt with detainees | 40:51 | |
and how the investigative piece dealt with detainees. | 40:53 | |
Meaning the investigative folks | 40:56 | |
wanted all things legally admissible. | 40:57 | |
The intelligence just needed information. | 41:01 | |
And again, that was not in any way shape or me | 41:04 | |
come to me did I get indicators other than philosophically | 41:09 | |
this group was less concerned | 41:14 | |
about reading someone their rights 'cause they didn't | 41:16 | |
and getting evidence that was admissible | 41:20 | |
the investigative group was. | 41:23 | |
And even within that context, the backgrounds and the skills | 41:26 | |
and maturity and the histories were quite different. | 41:30 | |
So you might have someone who was | 41:33 | |
an NCIS agent for 10 years. | 41:34 | |
He or she had a lot of training, a lot of background | 41:37 | |
had a particular approach, a particular philosophy. | 41:40 | |
There might be someone in the room next door | 41:43 | |
who had no training and was just told to figure this out | 41:46 | |
and get what you can because we needed, | 41:52 | |
it's important to your country. | 41:54 | |
So all of those individuals I'm sure had similar | 41:56 | |
loadable goals to save lives, protect our troops, | 42:01 | |
but the combination of resources | 42:06 | |
and the way it was brought together in itself probably | 42:11 | |
created a potential for some different approaches. | 42:14 | |
So I began to get indicators | 42:18 | |
that the potential for some outside the boundaries | 42:20 | |
interrogation activities was becoming evident | 42:26 | |
and that something probably should be done | 42:30 | |
but not much more specificity than that. | 42:34 | |
Peter | Were you too in your (indistinct) | 42:37 |
- | Well, again, it was really quite simple | 42:39 |
to be honest with you. | 42:44 | |
I talked to Mark Fallon, Rob Lincoln | 42:48 | |
the names I've mentioned to Mike Gelles | 42:51 | |
is it like we're there for one reason, one reason alone | 42:53 | |
and that's to professionally and in all things | 42:56 | |
legally assistant interrogations, assistant investigations | 43:01 | |
towards potential prosecution of wrongdoers. | 43:05 | |
Regardless of what category of wrongdoers they are, | 43:09 | |
that's why we're there. | 43:14 | |
It's simple as that. | 43:14 | |
We're not part of anything larger, broader | 43:17 | |
we're a contributor and we have our role | 43:20 | |
and under no circumstances will we do anything outside | 43:23 | |
of what we would do | 43:26 | |
in any other criminal investigative effort. | 43:27 | |
And it's really clear how we put. | 43:32 | |
It's not complex. | 43:34 | |
You've reached upon their rights, | 43:36 | |
you treat them civilly and with integrity | 43:39 | |
and you ask questions and you determine as close as you can | 43:42 | |
through that process and protocol | 43:46 | |
what's happened or not happened. | 43:47 | |
It was apparent that others had different views | 43:51 | |
on how to do that. | 43:54 | |
So I guess simply I tasked my own people to, | 43:57 | |
I need some specifics of what's going on | 44:02 | |
and what exactly you suspect or fear or concerned about | 44:04 | |
because I don't wanna have any connect | 44:08 | |
and won't tolerate anything outside the bounds. | 44:10 | |
So that was sort of the initial discussion. | 44:12 | |
And it was I think, and you can imagine, | 44:17 | |
folks we're working together. | 44:22 | |
GTMO was a very confined area. | 44:25 | |
So everybody knows everybody else. | 44:28 | |
It doesn't matter what organization you're with | 44:30 | |
or what agency you're representing. | 44:31 | |
People know who's doing what, where when | 44:36 | |
and who's involved in all aspects of the effort, | 44:38 | |
I think it was a tough environment for those there | 44:41 | |
to kind of figure out what do I do with what my concerns are | 44:45 | |
and it took some time to begin to get that back. | 44:50 | |
And at some point I got information again | 44:54 | |
via the same channel | 44:56 | |
people at GTMO to Mark Fallon, | 45:00 | |
to Rob Lincoln, to Mike Gelles | 45:04 | |
that there may have been some physical hitting, slapping | 45:08 | |
some level of physical abuse that has occurred. | 45:13 | |
And at that point, literally | 45:18 | |
with probably not much more than that | 45:23 | |
and not a lot of specifics, | 45:26 | |
I went to see Alberto Mora, who was the General Counsel | 45:28 | |
of the Navy at the time. | 45:31 | |
That is the lead lawyer for the Department of Navy. | 45:32 | |
And I believe my first meeting with him | 45:35 | |
it was probably Mike Gelles and myself | 45:37 | |
who sat down with him and said, | 45:40 | |
"Look, I haven't gone much farther than what I've heard | 45:41 | |
which maybe second hand, maybe not | 45:47 | |
but I'm telling you upfront | 45:51 | |
that I'm gonna pull NCIS people out | 45:53 | |
and I'm gonna do it unilaterally. | 45:56 | |
So if I can't bring this to rest immediately, | 45:59 | |
then I'll just pull our people out. | 46:03 | |
Again, it's sort of a black and white thing for me. | 46:05 | |
I don't need to think about it. | 46:07 | |
I don't need to justify it. | 46:08 | |
I'm just gonna do it." | 46:10 | |
So he's my boss, he represents the secretary. | 46:12 | |
I said, "Look, I don't..." | 46:14 | |
Didn't even ask for his opinion at that point. | 46:17 | |
Didn't ask for his approval. | 46:19 | |
And honestly, I'd worked with him closely | 46:21 | |
and knew him well and respected him | 46:23 | |
but now we're getting into politically sensitive area | 46:25 | |
and I'm not sure exactly what his reaction is gonna be. | 46:28 | |
And I'll always have the highest respect | 46:32 | |
for Alberto and highest regard because | 46:35 | |
he immediately, immediately without hesitation | 46:39 | |
without questioning without, well, I don't know. | 46:42 | |
I mean, in essence said, do what you gotta do | 46:46 | |
because this is absolutely unacceptable. | 46:48 | |
Now I wanna caveat that with, it's not significant. | 46:50 | |
There's not a trusties, | 46:57 | |
there's not these horrendous beatings. | 46:58 | |
It's nothing that is headline grabbing | 47:00 | |
that would cause everyone to bristle with, oh my God. | 47:04 | |
It's a indicator that some of the behavior | 47:08 | |
during some of the interviews is over the line | 47:14 | |
and it's an indicator and information strong enough to me | 47:20 | |
that says I'm not gonna affiliate my people | 47:23 | |
and our organization in any way, shape or form | 47:26 | |
with a philosophy that even heads in that direction. | 47:29 | |
Because whether something has happened already | 47:31 | |
will happen being talked about it's going a direction | 47:34 | |
that we don't tolerate and that's that. | 47:37 | |
So the next thing, and he was 100% concurrence | 47:41 | |
whether that meeting or subsequent meetings, | 47:45 | |
Mr. Mora began to lay out that he would be briefing | 47:48 | |
and discussing the issue with seniors within DOD. | 47:51 | |
I found other information, gather other information. | 47:57 | |
I called the commander who led the effort | 48:01 | |
the Army General in charge and said to him the same thing. | 48:06 | |
Haven't established what's fact and what's rumor, | 48:11 | |
I will I tell you this, that if I can | 48:16 | |
I'm pulling our people out. | 48:19 | |
And of course that in itself represented a concern because | 48:21 | |
if I were to do that, that would indicate | 48:24 | |
that something's not right, which would create a focus | 48:27 | |
through the chain of command that would bring a lot | 48:34 | |
of attention to whatever that may or may not be. | 48:36 | |
So Gen. Ryder agreed in terms of let's figure out | 48:40 | |
what's happening and let's figure out | 48:44 | |
if there needs to be adjustments, et cetera. | 48:47 | |
Peter | Gen. Ryder is the-- | 48:50 |
- | He was the commander | 48:52 |
of Army Criminal Investigation Division. | 48:54 | |
And he was tasked by the secretary of defense | 48:58 | |
to oversee the entire Criminal Investigative Task Force. | 49:03 | |
So he was responsible for the effort. | 49:07 | |
As we've talked the other organizations | 49:11 | |
contributed resources | 49:12 | |
and were responsible just for their resources. | 49:14 | |
So that led to a number of discussions | 49:17 | |
a follow-up involving myself, General Counsel, Mora, | 49:23 | |
Dr. Gelles. | 49:30 | |
Dr. Gelles went down to GTMO had onsite discussions | 49:32 | |
subsequently Mr. Mora briefed up | 49:37 | |
through the chain of command within DOD | 49:42 | |
and I believe he visited there. | 49:44 | |
All of that which led to concerns and or validation | 49:49 | |
of some level of activity around the interrogations | 49:56 | |
had concern had either about to happen | 50:01 | |
or had happened that some would absolutely not tolerate. | 50:05 | |
And it led to memos being written | 50:10 | |
and the senior leadership within DOD getting involved | 50:13 | |
and looking closer at exactly what is the protocol | 50:17 | |
and what is the specific process | 50:21 | |
in place regarding the GTMO detainee interrogation profile. | 50:27 | |
And honestly, I was as the head of the organization, | 50:32 | |
NCIS again, as a contributor to the investigative task force | 50:36 | |
I reached at that point a comfort level with my folks | 50:41 | |
as the head of the agency, my special agents were | 50:46 | |
if you will walled off from and segregated from any activity | 50:49 | |
that I would question and they would question, | 50:55 | |
I was proud of the fact that there was zero indicator, | 50:58 | |
zero insight that any of the NCIS Special Agents there | 51:02 | |
had in any way shape or form done anything other | 51:06 | |
than professionally acceptable and the high quality work. | 51:08 | |
I felt like the issue of going outside of those boundaries | 51:14 | |
had been brought to the attention of those | 51:19 | |
who were the decision-makers | 51:20 | |
and I could monitor my own organization | 51:22 | |
and monitor on a larger scale, what was going on. | 51:24 | |
And to an extent I was done | 51:27 | |
with that particular piece of the issue. | 51:29 | |
Peter | When you said you spoke to Gen. Ryder, | 51:32 |
so I have two questions there. | 51:35 | |
One is, did he support your position | 51:36 | |
and also did you speak to anybody else | 51:40 | |
and what was their reaction? | 51:42 | |
- | He did. | 51:44 |
He was unaware of any specific allegations or any indicators | 51:45 | |
that there had been some sort of physical, emotional | 51:54 | |
or unacceptable interrogation method employed. | 51:58 | |
And we spoke, and I said, again | 52:03 | |
similar to what I just said, | 52:05 | |
that I was not going to standby long | 52:07 | |
if this couldn't be clarified and resolved | 52:13 | |
and some sort of specific here's where we are | 52:16 | |
and here's what we're doing status reach | 52:23 | |
that I would pull our folks out. | 52:26 | |
I told them I briefed and would continue to brief my chain | 52:28 | |
and the Department of Navy. | 52:31 | |
And he was supportive and said, | 52:33 | |
basically I'm gonna get on this | 52:36 | |
and do whatever it needs to be done | 52:38 | |
to make sure there's no issue here. | 52:40 | |
Within my chain of command, | 52:41 | |
and I'll go back to Alberto Mora, | 52:45 | |
he had a very, very aggressive reaction to any information | 52:49 | |
and the information that we initially talked about | 52:57 | |
which was there is a possibility here | 53:00 | |
that some of the behaviors outside, I'm not touching it | 53:02 | |
I'm not in any way, shape or form | 53:06 | |
putting our people in front of that, | 53:08 | |
he had an incredibly aggressive, this is unacceptable. | 53:11 | |
It goes against our basic premise as a country, | 53:15 | |
our moral standing, our moral fiber. | 53:17 | |
And honestly just went to his chain of command immediately. | 53:22 | |
As I said earlier, I have great respect for him | 53:29 | |
because candidly, practically he just put his career | 53:31 | |
on the line because it was incredibly sensitive topic. | 53:36 | |
It was vague enough in the world at that time | 53:41 | |
as to who was doing what and who had responsibilities | 53:44 | |
and what was going on that even from a back seat perspective | 53:47 | |
I could see that this issue that he had taken on | 53:53 | |
put him and was going to put him right in the middle | 53:58 | |
of a very, very volatile scenario. | 54:01 | |
And he did, and he did it | 54:06 | |
and he ran with it and he did the right thing. | 54:07 | |
And as I said earlier, he did the right thing | 54:08 | |
for the people who were working there, | 54:11 | |
the detainees who were held there, | 54:13 | |
my organization the Navy, | 54:15 | |
and ultimately, I think in a broad sense, | 54:17 | |
the country at the time to make | 54:20 | |
the kind of statement he made | 54:21 | |
to the people that he made them to. | 54:23 | |
Peter | My understanding is when he spoke | 54:25 |
to Jamie Hayne, Jamie Hayne says, he'll take care of it. | 54:26 | |
It's not a problem and then two weeks later, | 54:29 | |
you and Michael Gelles reported to Alberto Mora | 54:32 | |
that in fact it's still going on. | 54:34 | |
- | I was not part of the conversations, | 54:38 |
but yes, that's what I understand happened. | 54:41 | |
And I would just, again caveat that | 54:43 | |
with this effort is a big bureaucracy. | 54:46 | |
There are a lot of people involved. | 54:52 | |
When I say this effort I mean, the detainee, | 54:55 | |
both interrogation interview, | 54:58 | |
Investigative Intelligence Task Force. | 55:01 | |
There are a lot of moving parts | 55:03 | |
from a lot of different directions | 55:05 | |
with a lot of people's fingers involved. | 55:06 | |
So once this revelation if you will, | 55:10 | |
began to get some attention | 55:17 | |
my guess would have been quite frankly, | 55:20 | |
that as with many bureaucracies, | 55:22 | |
it just got tamp down and go away. | 55:25 | |
It can't be that big of a deal. | 55:28 | |
I will again go back to Alberta Mora and say | 55:30 | |
he would not allow that to happen. | 55:33 | |
In the big picture at the time, | 55:37 | |
maybe to some it may not have been that big of a deal. | 55:42 | |
Maybe to some the fact that an individual | 55:47 | |
steps outside the bounds of what's in my view | 55:53 | |
the only right behavior, but doesn't cause any major damage | 55:58 | |
should be viewed as not a big deal | 56:05 | |
in some people's perspectives. | 56:07 | |
In Alberto's mine as well but in Alberto's analysis | 56:10 | |
this was a really, really, really big deal. | 56:16 | |
And he simply would not let it go away. | 56:19 | |
So I don't doubt that initial conversations | 56:21 | |
from those he talked with as he got deeper | 56:24 | |
into DOD were of the nature, just we'll handle it. | 56:27 | |
Don't worry about it. | 56:33 | |
Kind of go back and do your lawyer thing | 56:34 | |
and call me later kind of discussion. | 56:36 | |
He's not that type of person. | 56:41 | |
Peter | Well, what were you thinking | 56:43 |
'cause it sounds to me like | 56:45 | |
if somebody came back tomorrow and said, | 56:47 | |
look, it's still going on. | 56:50 | |
And so it was still going on | 56:52 | |
and it sounds like Gen. Ryder, did he come back to you? | 56:54 | |
Did he say we took care of it 'cause... | 56:57 | |
Who else did you talk to? | 57:00 | |
I mean, what was going on at that point | 57:02 | |
that it wasn't going away? | 57:04 | |
- | Well, what happened is, and I don't recall | 57:06 |
I probably did talk to Gen. Ryder again. | 57:09 | |
I don't recall exactly when or the specifics | 57:12 | |
but Gen. Ryder would have been as unaware, | 57:16 | |
and then ultimately as aware as I would have been | 57:23 | |
meaning he was here, he was not day-to-day | 57:27 | |
really the recipient of whether it was rumor or fact | 57:36 | |
just sort of the on the ground stuff. | 57:40 | |
The channel that the information came | 57:42 | |
through was the Mark Fallon, Britt Mallow channel. | 57:46 | |
And that came as a result of some of the investigators there | 57:53 | |
on the ground becoming concerned and seeing some activities | 57:57 | |
that they thought were unacceptable. | 58:03 | |
It took some time for all that to frame up and form up | 58:04 | |
and get to where it needed to get to. | 58:07 | |
What happened with me at that point, | 58:11 | |
and again, it's back to where Hyne | 58:13 | |
in some way, shape or form perhaps wasn't | 58:15 | |
as aggressive as he should have been. | 58:18 | |
What happened with me at that point was | 58:23 | |
I was absolutely 100% certain | 58:25 | |
that Alberto Mora was going to not let this go | 58:28 | |
in any way shape or form until it was resolved | 58:35 | |
in ethical the way it should be manner. | 58:37 | |
I supported him on by aligning Mike Gelles | 58:44 | |
with him to provide any support background | 58:49 | |
research insight he could provide. | 58:52 | |
In addition, I believe Alberto, at that point was talking | 58:54 | |
to Mark Fallon and the aggressive forceful | 58:57 | |
we are not gonna let this happen | 59:03 | |
whether it did again or people are still thinking | 59:06 | |
it's accepted behavior, that train was moving. | 59:10 | |
My people, if you will, and say as people on the ground | 59:13 | |
were absolutely sensitized beyond any doubt | 59:17 | |
that you are there simply for the role | 59:21 | |
that you know you have to play | 59:25 | |
and that's a professional, a 100% ethical | 59:27 | |
high integrity relationship-based interview. | 59:29 | |
If any of you have ideas otherwise | 59:32 | |
or you are asked to do something otherwise | 59:36 | |
you report that immediately. | 59:40 | |
None of that happened. | 59:41 | |
And we were getting regular reports that from perspective | 59:42 | |
of where my people were business was fine. | 59:45 | |
So I in a way stepped back because I saw | 59:50 | |
that the right thing was being done, | 59:54 | |
the attention that this was gonna-- | 59:58 | |
Peter | Right thing was being done by your people. | 59:59 |
- | By my people and now Alberta, | 1:00:00 |
and a combination of his staff. | 1:00:02 | |
I believe at that point, he may have even been | 1:00:06 | |
in touch with the Navy JAG or the Marine Corps JAG. | 1:00:08 | |
So there was the impetus to highlight and correct | 1:00:12 | |
and or identify unacceptable practice was in full force. | 1:00:22 | |
And I think the immediate if you will concern on my part | 1:00:29 | |
had been mitigated a bit regarding my specific role there. | 1:00:36 | |
Now, I didn't know how long this was gonna play out | 1:00:42 | |
and all the things that subsequently happened. | 1:00:44 | |
Peter | Well, I guess... | 1:00:47 |
Okay, do you want to ask a question? | 1:00:49 | |
Interviewer 1 | A couple of questions. | 1:00:50 |
- | Yeah. | 1:00:52 |
Interviewer 1 | Were your folks on the ground instructed? | 1:00:52 |
Were they told that if they were in a situation | 1:00:56 | |
in which somebody else in the room cross the line, | 1:00:59 | |
what were the instructed to do? | 1:01:03 | |
Were they instructed to stop that person? | 1:01:04 | |
Or were they instructed to just inform you | 1:01:07 | |
or what were they told to do. | 1:01:11 | |
- | Yeah, and I'll be candid. | 1:01:12 |
I don't think that needs to be... | 1:01:14 | |
There was no instruction necessary. | 1:01:17 | |
I was confident and remained confident throughout. | 1:01:20 | |
Had no indicators, otherwise that the NCIS folks there | 1:01:24 | |
would on their own and did on their own | 1:01:29 | |
refuse, decline, report and work totally understanding | 1:01:33 | |
of what their boundaries were. | 1:01:39 | |
And we had zero indicators, zero insight that they had done | 1:01:42 | |
or even conceived of doing anything other than that. | 1:01:47 | |
And again, our whole philosophy not to make... | 1:01:50 | |
Keep going? (laughs) | 1:01:57 | |
Peter | I'm trying to turn this off. | 1:01:58 |
Johnny | Actually, as you talk if you could look at Peter. | 1:01:59 |
- | Okay. Sorry. | 1:02:02 |
Our whole philosophy, which was instilled from the onset | 1:02:03 | |
and I mentioned it earlier, was the relationship based. | 1:02:09 | |
The only way we're gonna achieve success | 1:02:13 | |
and success is really measured | 1:02:18 | |
in terms of obtaining the truth. | 1:02:19 | |
It's not a bias towards this happened or it didn't happen. | 1:02:21 | |
It's a bias towards the truth. | 1:02:26 | |
So the only thing in a tough environment like this | 1:02:27 | |
our folks had it instilled | 1:02:31 | |
and I think really in their fabric | 1:02:33 | |
that this is a relationship based literally | 1:02:36 | |
your challenge is to get to know this person. | 1:02:39 | |
And honestly it may sound a little bit odd | 1:02:43 | |
for those who haven't experienced this, | 1:02:46 | |
understand what they were thinking, their history, | 1:02:49 | |
their family, their environment, all the kinds of things | 1:02:51 | |
that you would think are perhaps counterintuitive | 1:02:55 | |
to sitting in front of someone | 1:02:58 | |
who's potentially suspected of killing a fellow countrymen. | 1:02:59 | |
But in reality, our people truly believe that | 1:03:04 | |
and they truly saw success from that. | 1:03:07 | |
And truly saw where they actually got to know this person | 1:03:09 | |
even though sometimes this person, wasn't a very nice person | 1:03:14 | |
and in fact had done some horrible things. | 1:03:17 | |
But any variance from that, | 1:03:19 | |
our folks just wouldn't participate | 1:03:22 | |
and they didn't participate. | 1:03:24 | |
They didn't partner with others | 1:03:26 | |
who didn't have those kinds of skills in the interrogations. | 1:03:29 | |
Interviewer 1 | And the second question | 1:03:32 |
the now famous Torture Memo, | 1:03:33 | |
where did that play out in this scenario and how? | 1:03:37 | |
- | Give me some other, the definition of the Torture Memo | 1:03:47 |
and how that evidenced itself as you have it. | 1:03:51 | |
Interviewer 2 | Well, the John Yoo Memo | 1:03:55 |
in which they defined torture | 1:03:56 | |
and gave a lot of latitude about what that entailed | 1:03:59 | |
which seems to indicate there was a philosophy | 1:04:07 | |
outside your agency to allow that stuff. | 1:04:10 | |
- | So here is where it'll get, | 1:04:13 |
you'll have to talk to lawyers and others | 1:04:15 | |
because again, as I said about myself | 1:04:18 | |
and probably Alberto Mora was very | 1:04:20 | |
what this started was an entire review analysis | 1:04:23 | |
legal, ethical, integrity, all aspects thrown | 1:04:28 | |
into the bucket discussion on | 1:04:37 | |
what do you do to get information? | 1:04:39 | |
What's acceptable? | 1:04:42 | |
I would go back to the basic and tell you | 1:04:45 | |
at our point in time, | 1:04:47 | |
when I say our, the Investigative Task Force | 1:04:49 | |
these individuals without categorizing them as anything | 1:04:52 | |
were at the point we had access to them. | 1:04:58 | |
In essence harmless, whatever value they had | 1:05:03 | |
to an immediate threat on that battlefield in Afghanistan | 1:05:08 | |
had been mitigated extensively. | 1:05:12 | |
Extensive interviews, contacts. | 1:05:15 | |
They were basically held X amount of time | 1:05:17 | |
by other elements to try to figure out | 1:05:21 | |
are you connected to something that's about to happen? | 1:05:24 | |
Do you know a target that's gonna get hit? | 1:05:26 | |
Once it got to the investigative aspect, | 1:05:29 | |
and we're literally going back through the history | 1:05:33 | |
of the individual and how they started | 1:05:36 | |
and where they were at, et cetera, | 1:05:38 | |
it was just incredibly clear | 1:05:40 | |
that the only success effort was gonna come | 1:05:44 | |
from longer term discussion analysis | 1:05:48 | |
finding contradictions in what the person was saying | 1:05:53 | |
talking about why he did what he did when he did it | 1:05:56 | |
tied to his family concerns, what he hoped to achieve | 1:06:00 | |
and again, these are not necessarily very educated folks | 1:06:03 | |
and all that kind of stuff. | 1:06:06 | |
There was no latitude for any level | 1:06:07 | |
of physical or emotional, if you will torture. | 1:06:11 | |
There was none. | 1:06:19 | |
There was no whether it was... | 1:06:20 | |
And so Alberto Mora and I would talk about that | 1:06:23 | |
that whether it was loud music | 1:06:25 | |
or whether it was a backslap | 1:06:28 | |
or whether it was something | 1:06:29 | |
that most would find relatively benign | 1:06:31 | |
in terms of long-term damage to someone, | 1:06:34 | |
absolutely no tolerance for it. | 1:06:38 | |
Zero. | 1:06:39 | |
Now, as it went through the question that you asked | 1:06:40 | |
others had quite different opinions. | 1:06:43 | |
And to the Torture Memo | 1:06:45 | |
how that was framed and who had input | 1:06:48 | |
and what the thinking was then as it is today, | 1:06:52 | |
you know as well as I do | 1:06:55 | |
the opinions were all over the board. | 1:06:56 | |
I will tell you, FBI, for instance, shared our philosophy. | 1:06:57 | |
FBI had significant success with the same philosophy | 1:07:02 | |
in terms of obtaining the truth | 1:07:08 | |
and really identifying who's a bad guy | 1:07:09 | |
and who's a guy who just got caught up | 1:07:12 | |
in a situation where they had no choice | 1:07:14 | |
or they didn't know what they were doing. | 1:07:17 | |
So my point there is even a slight variance | 1:07:19 | |
from a professional, high integrity, | 1:07:25 | |
ethics focused interview I had a problem with it. | 1:07:29 | |
Alberto Mora had a problem with it. | 1:07:34 | |
As you moved a bit away from that | 1:07:37 | |
different people had a different take. | 1:07:40 | |
Peter | So I guess what you're describing is that | 1:07:41 |
it sounds like at one point you said to yourself | 1:07:46 | |
you might quit if things don't go your way. | 1:07:48 | |
But it sounds like you ultimately, with more support decided | 1:07:51 | |
that the NCIS would continue at Guantanamo | 1:07:55 | |
and you would do it your way | 1:07:58 | |
and if other agencies did it their way, | 1:07:59 | |
which might not be the way you would believe | 1:08:02 | |
should have been done, you would just leave them alone | 1:08:08 | |
and not let them continue. | 1:08:10 | |
- | Not let them continue. | 1:08:13 |
I would say report and advise | 1:08:14 | |
and hope that the decision makers | 1:08:17 | |
and those wouldn't authority | 1:08:21 | |
would cease and desist anything | 1:08:22 | |
Peter | What were you thinking when they didn't? | 1:08:24 |
- | Well, I would say things did stop. | 1:08:26 |
Things stopped that I was aware of | 1:08:29 | |
within a relatively short period of time. | 1:08:33 | |
Again, I apologize I'm not sure of the timeframe | 1:08:36 | |
at this point but I wanna make one of the point | 1:08:38 | |
to your comment and that is that | 1:08:40 | |
I thought the organization which I led at the time NCIS | 1:08:46 | |
and the people that were there representing us | 1:08:49 | |
had an opportunity to do things the right way. | 1:08:51 | |
Do things the right way | 1:08:55 | |
and actually contribute valuable information | 1:08:56 | |
to a critically important task, which is | 1:09:00 | |
if these guys generically are killing Americans or allies | 1:09:04 | |
they need to be prosecuted and brought to justice | 1:09:09 | |
and or any other information connected to those | 1:09:13 | |
that are still on the battlefront attempting to bring harm. | 1:09:16 | |
So I felt very comfortable that honestly our piece | 1:09:21 | |
of the effort was producing information and evidence | 1:09:26 | |
and potentially prosecutable data that was important. | 1:09:31 | |
So it was important to stay there. | 1:09:36 | |
It was important to do the mission and contribute | 1:09:37 | |
in a way that certainly made the organization proud | 1:09:41 | |
but also was a value to the overall effort | 1:09:44 | |
to defeat a terrorist for. | 1:09:47 | |
At one point, and again, I'll be general | 1:09:51 | |
I felt the threat, if you will, for actions outside of that | 1:09:56 | |
to be defeating, a purpose had stopped. | 1:10:04 | |
And this issue had become so visible | 1:10:08 | |
within the circles that I saw at GTMO | 1:10:13 | |
that it wasn't gonna happen again. | 1:10:17 | |
Now, framing again, my visibility was only | 1:10:19 | |
within the Investigative Task Force. | 1:10:23 | |
The intelligence piece, I had no insight, | 1:10:26 | |
no real connect there. | 1:10:29 | |
But I felt pretty comfortable that | 1:10:31 | |
on the investigative side, that what needed to be done | 1:10:33 | |
had been done and we could continue. | 1:10:38 | |
Peter | And if the intelligence side | 1:10:41 |
was not following the rules as you understood them, | 1:10:43 | |
you pretty much just put that aside? | 1:10:47 | |
- | Well, I didn't have any insight into it. | 1:10:50 |
And you got to remember, | 1:10:52 | |
it was a pretty compartmented environment down there. | 1:10:52 | |
You didn't have... | 1:10:56 | |
Well, I'm not there, obviously | 1:10:58 | |
and a lot of our people who were there did not have access | 1:10:59 | |
to others doing other types of interviews. | 1:11:05 | |
And again, in all fairness | 1:11:09 | |
there's a lot of rumor, there's a lot of it | 1:11:14 | |
and you can imagine in an environment like that | 1:11:16 | |
there are different elements coming together | 1:11:17 | |
different people talking to different people | 1:11:19 | |
at different times. | 1:11:21 | |
I certainly want to be judicious and cautious in relaying | 1:11:22 | |
or creating rumor-based concerns without any foundation. | 1:11:32 | |
And that's why, as I said | 1:11:40 | |
what I had access to through my people | 1:11:43 | |
what they had visibility over, I took it immediately | 1:11:45 | |
to the people that I felt needed to know | 1:11:49 | |
and the actions that needed to take place did. | 1:11:51 | |
Beyond that I just didn't have me personally | 1:11:54 | |
and actually most of our people | 1:11:59 | |
didn't have the access to know much. | 1:12:00 | |
Peter | So other than speaking to a Gen. Ryder | 1:12:06 |
do you know if he spoke to other people? | 1:12:08 | |
- | Do I know that he did? | 1:12:10 |
- | He did or you did? | 1:12:12 |
- | I'm sure he did. | 1:12:14 |
I don't know. | 1:12:15 | |
Things began and again, I'll refer back to Mr. Mora. | 1:12:19 | |
Things moved fast from the first discussion | 1:12:22 | |
that I had with him. | 1:12:28 | |
Things moved rapidly in terms of senior level, | 1:12:32 | |
executive level involvement in looking | 1:12:38 | |
at potential behavior and ramifications of that behavior. | 1:12:42 | |
And to the comments earlier, as you know | 1:12:47 | |
there's raging debate today as to what constitutes torture. | 1:12:51 | |
So in the middle of all of this | 1:12:56 | |
people other than me, I'm guessing we're saying, | 1:13:03 | |
so what, I don't see that that "Is a big deal" | 1:13:07 | |
if someone gets slapped or if someone hits someone | 1:13:12 | |
or does something to create some physical discomfort. | 1:13:17 | |
What's the big deal. | 1:13:20 | |
Now, again, those are discussions that continue. | 1:13:21 | |
They were probably ongoing in in multiple circles | 1:13:27 | |
outside of my access. | 1:13:30 | |
I can only control what I could control | 1:13:33 | |
which was a really, if you will, tiny slice | 1:13:36 | |
of one piece of this event and this effort | 1:13:39 | |
that I could say not up to me | 1:13:44 | |
to discuss the broader, bigger longterm | 1:13:47 | |
all aspects of this event, legally, ethically, | 1:13:54 | |
integrity, morally. | 1:13:57 | |
I can just tell you right now | 1:13:58 | |
we are not gonna be involved | 1:14:00 | |
at this point outside of this program. | 1:14:04 | |
Period. | 1:14:07 | |
Peter | Did the NCIS have a separate unit | 1:14:08 |
or camp down there that they worked in | 1:14:12 | |
that was independent of everyone else? | 1:14:15 | |
- | Yeah, I don't know that it was independent in the way. | 1:14:17 |
Well, it depends on what you mean. | 1:14:23 | |
So it was pretty the, again, as I think I've touched on. | 1:14:24 | |
The Investigative Task Force did what they could | 1:14:30 | |
if you will, to ensure that the intelligence group | 1:14:36 | |
which would have consisted of all the intelligence agencies | 1:14:40 | |
have some representation did not taint potential evidence | 1:14:42 | |
by either disregarding evidence | 1:14:48 | |
or not advising someone properly of their rights, | 1:14:53 | |
not taking into consideration that a particular method | 1:15:01 | |
or a particular act would compromise | 1:15:06 | |
ultimately introduction into court. | 1:15:10 | |
I can only tell you that my guesses and my feeling is | 1:15:15 | |
that the two worlds were a bit apart when this effort began. | 1:15:18 | |
Intelligence folks looking for information immediate, | 1:15:24 | |
how I need to get it, i get it. | 1:15:27 | |
Investigative folks X amount of time later, | 1:15:30 | |
okay, what do we sort of have to recover from? | 1:15:33 | |
What's the status of the detainee? | 1:15:36 | |
Is he ever gonna talk to anybody again? | 1:15:40 | |
Has he told so many lies that we'll never get to the truth? | 1:15:42 | |
Have we lost the opportunity? | 1:15:45 | |
So they were separate in that | 1:15:46 | |
I think their focus was different. | 1:15:49 | |
One was immediate, one was longer term. | 1:15:51 | |
Peter | Had you heard of somebody called Camp no? | 1:15:53 |
- | No, I had not. | 1:15:55 |
Peter | Or the General's cottage-- | 1:15:57 |
- | No, I've not. | 1:15:59 |
Peter | Did you ever know about doctors | 1:16:00 |
participating in any mistreatment? | 1:16:03 | |
- | No. Did not. | 1:16:06 |
Peter | You never heard of any doctors | 1:16:07 |
from the reports that you've got? | 1:16:08 | |
- | No. | 1:16:10 |
The doctor exposure for me was as you will meet him | 1:16:14 | |
is Dr. Gelles who's a forensic psychologist. | 1:16:17 | |
And Dr. Gelles's role was really | 1:16:20 | |
to advise, prepare and educate our interrogators | 1:16:25 | |
as well as other agency interrogators on | 1:16:31 | |
if you will, the mind of the jihadist from the perspective | 1:16:34 | |
of how do you establish a relationship | 1:16:38 | |
where you can have a shot at establishing some level | 1:16:41 | |
of fact versus complete fabrication and how to go about that | 1:16:45 | |
and how to understand that the perspectives | 1:16:49 | |
are gonna be night and day perspective. | 1:16:56 | |
So how do you try to bridge that gap. | 1:16:57 | |
And you have unlimited time, by the way. | 1:17:00 | |
You have weeks, months to figure out | 1:17:02 | |
how to get to that point where you actually | 1:17:07 | |
may achieve some fact, but that's honestly, the only insight | 1:17:09 | |
that I had from that perspective. | 1:17:16 | |
Peter | Did anyone try to influence you | 1:17:17 |
in your thinking-- | 1:17:19 | |
- | No. Not at all. | 1:17:20 |
Peter | And did you ever meet with higher ups | 1:17:23 |
beyond MO? | 1:17:26 | |
- | No, did not. | 1:17:27 |
Peter | And no one ever contacted you in-- | 1:17:28 |
- | No, did not. | 1:17:30 |
Interviewer 1 | Did you ever suffer | 1:17:33 |
any negative consequences? | 1:17:34 | |
- | No, I did not. | 1:17:37 |
I did not. | 1:17:38 | |
And on that question, I will say this | 1:17:40 | |
I may have said it earlier | 1:17:42 | |
and I don't know if it was intentional on his part or not. | 1:17:47 | |
You'll have to ask Alberto. | 1:17:49 | |
I don't wanna say he shielded me. | 1:17:53 | |
I certainly would have been willing to have | 1:17:58 | |
had any discussion with anybody at the time | 1:18:00 | |
that wanted to have the discussion | 1:18:02 | |
but his career definitely was at risk. | 1:18:05 | |
And I think he did pay some level of professional price | 1:18:08 | |
for his stand and aggressiveness on the issue. | 1:18:12 | |
I just went back, did my job candidly. | 1:18:19 | |
I had an agency to run, talk to Alberto on a regular basis | 1:18:22 | |
on a variety of things, but this where he sat | 1:18:28 | |
and what he had brought forward became | 1:18:33 | |
he was really the front to make sure | 1:18:37 | |
the right actions were taken. | 1:18:39 | |
Peter | When did you leave the NCIS? | 1:18:42 |
- | I left in NCIS in December, 2005. | 1:18:44 |
Peter | And did you leave | 1:18:49 |
because you just saw things weren't gonna change | 1:18:51 | |
or was it-- | 1:18:53 | |
- | No, absolutely not. | 1:18:54 |
Again, although it became an obviously still is | 1:18:56 | |
the whole Guantanamo Bay detainee treatment tied | 1:19:01 | |
to the interrogation techniques and torture | 1:19:08 | |
and all the things that came after | 1:19:10 | |
became certainly a national discussion point, | 1:19:12 | |
for me, it became and it was one point in time | 1:19:16 | |
that I had to do what I needed to do | 1:19:23 | |
for the organization and what we were tasked to do | 1:19:24 | |
which I think I did and I think others took it forward. | 1:19:29 | |
Like Alberto Mora. | 1:19:32 | |
I went back and ran the organization and I'm very proud | 1:19:33 | |
of NCIS and the work we've done then and continued to do | 1:19:39 | |
and then what they do today. | 1:19:43 | |
So I'm not minimizing in any way shape or form | 1:19:44 | |
the impact of this little slice | 1:19:49 | |
but it was in some ways, a black and white thing for me. | 1:19:51 | |
And once I was comfortable that I was either not needed | 1:19:55 | |
or our people were in the roles they should be in | 1:19:59 | |
and doing what they should do, | 1:20:02 | |
I was there to support if asked to | 1:20:04 | |
and have since talked about it quite a bit. | 1:20:08 | |
Interviewer 1 | When the pictures | 1:20:11 |
about the break came out | 1:20:12 | |
what was your personal reaction to that? | 1:20:14 | |
- | Well, it was discussed | 1:20:17 |
and a certain level of shock and horror. | 1:20:20 | |
I think I would tie that a bit | 1:20:25 | |
and I will emphasize this is a stretch | 1:20:30 | |
but if you tie that to the discussion we've just had, | 1:20:33 | |
I could see the potential | 1:20:39 | |
in that you have a lot of people coming together | 1:20:42 | |
with very, very different backgrounds, | 1:20:46 | |
training, perspectives, motivators | 1:20:48 | |
all wanting to do the right thing | 1:20:55 | |
and wanting to protect our country and our people | 1:20:57 | |
but how they got to that point | 1:21:02 | |
and what they would do to get there using GTMO | 1:21:04 | |
as an example, was concerning. | 1:21:08 | |
If the right checks weren't in place | 1:21:11 | |
and the right leadership wasn't there. | 1:21:13 | |
And if you look beyond that dramatically | 1:21:15 | |
which Alberto certainly was | 1:21:20 | |
as shocking as it was in terms of the images | 1:21:24 | |
and the activity, I wasn't totally stunned that it happened. | 1:21:29 | |
Peter | Did you know Gen. Miller? | 1:21:35 |
- | I did not know him, I met him. | 1:21:38 |
Peter | There was a rumor | 1:21:42 |
that he pretty much brought some | 1:21:43 | |
of that mistreatment from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib (mumbles) | 1:21:46 | |
- | Can't speak to that. | 1:21:51 |
Philosophically I think there were those who were concerned | 1:21:52 | |
but I can't speak to where I would have | 1:21:56 | |
any real direct sense of that. | 1:21:59 | |
Peter | And going forward | 1:22:03 |
do you think Obama should be looking back | 1:22:04 | |
on what happened there or do you think just curiously is | 1:22:09 | |
how you think from Obama's treated? | 1:22:13 | |
- | Well, I think that the facility | 1:22:15 |
if you talk about the close it, open it, leave it as is | 1:22:17 | |
the facility itself is not the issue. | 1:22:22 | |
The infrastructure, the treatment | 1:22:28 | |
in terms of day-to-day care and feeding | 1:22:30 | |
I think given the circumstance as it was | 1:22:35 | |
there wasn't a problem with that. | 1:22:41 | |
If you transported that same infrastructure | 1:22:43 | |
and placed it somewhere in the States, | 1:22:46 | |
you and essence gonna have | 1:22:49 | |
to have the same security safeguards, | 1:22:50 | |
the same level of just providing the basics | 1:22:52 | |
to the detainees. | 1:22:57 | |
That wasn't as much of a, it wasn't any concern to me. | 1:22:59 | |
I thought still think we as a country did pretty well | 1:23:03 | |
in just maintaining the standards needed to hold people | 1:23:07 | |
in a position that's kind of unprecedented. | 1:23:13 | |
The atmosphere of trying to get information | 1:23:16 | |
and or prevent a tragedy from happening or American lives | 1:23:22 | |
or allied lives being killed in a war-like atmosphere | 1:23:30 | |
a war-like setting, the checks and balances | 1:23:37 | |
that need to be in place still concern me a bit. | 1:23:42 | |
And how you do this in a country where there are | 1:23:46 | |
multiple, multiple players involved in that process | 1:23:52 | |
all with different philosophies, histories, training | 1:23:56 | |
perspectives you hear today | 1:23:59 | |
people will defend waterboarding as people say | 1:24:04 | |
we should have done more rather than less. | 1:24:08 | |
So how you get through that divide in a real life situation | 1:24:11 | |
where you can conceivably have | 1:24:15 | |
two different philosophies in place, | 1:24:17 | |
and you've got a potential lives at risk scenario, | 1:24:20 | |
it's always gonna be a challenge, | 1:24:24 | |
always gonna be a challenge. | 1:24:25 | |
I don't know that there is a right way | 1:24:26 | |
to figure out resolution. | 1:24:29 | |
Peter | Is there something that I didn't ask | 1:24:34 |
that you wanted to just address before we close? | 1:24:36 | |
- | No, I would, and I've said this throughout, | 1:24:39 |
and again, I would just summarize by saying | 1:24:41 | |
it was pretty clear to me at the set of facts | 1:24:46 | |
that I had in front of me, the set of information | 1:24:48 | |
that at that time in my role as a head of an agency | 1:24:53 | |
with a role or a place in a mission associated | 1:24:56 | |
with the detainees, | 1:25:00 | |
I had a pretty clear path with what I needed to do. | 1:25:02 | |
Never really had much hesitation or at least start. | 1:25:05 | |
What I would repeat is the actions that Alberto Mora took. | 1:25:09 | |
I was uncertain going into that discussion | 1:25:21 | |
what he would do, | 1:25:25 | |
even though I had high regard and respect for him | 1:25:26 | |
because I knew the potential was this was gonna bounce | 1:25:29 | |
into a level of attention that was gonna bring | 1:25:33 | |
great intensity and scrutiny. | 1:25:38 | |
And the fact that he, from the first 10 minutes | 1:25:42 | |
of the discussion exhibited zero, | 1:25:46 | |
I emphasize zero hesitation | 1:25:51 | |
about we're gonna do the right thing here | 1:25:54 | |
no matter what it takes, left an indelible impression on me | 1:25:55 | |
that it's great to have that type of person work with. | 1:26:01 | |
Peter | Well, I really wanna thank you-- | 1:26:05 |
- | My pleasure. | 1:26:07 |
Peter | We need 20 seconds a room tone. | 1:26:08 |
Johnny needs to do just-- | 1:26:11 | |
- | Okay. | 1:26:13 |
Johnny | Begin of room tone. | 1:26:15 |
End room tone. | 1:26:30 | |
David | Okay. | 1:26:31 |
Peter | Thanks so much. | |
Johnny | Get ready. | 1:26:32 |
I hope you got a lot of... | 1:26:33 |
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