Torture Then: When "Enhanced Interrogation" Started

You could be forgiven for thinking, amidst the deluge of revelations on the Bush Administration's authorisation of torture, that we only learned about the existence of "enhanced interrogation"  recently.

Actually, despite the secrecy of the Bushmen as they expanded (and rationalised) Executive power to pursue "enhanced interrogation", it was with us all along.

Researching the book on the early years of the Administration, I discovered this article from Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, dated 21 October 2001:

FBI and Justice Department investigators are increasingly frustrated by the silence of jailed suspected associates of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, and some are beginning to that say that traditional civil liberties may have to be cast aside if they are to extract information about the Sept. 11 attacks and terrorist plans.

According to Pincus, the four most significant suspects, were "Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Moroccan detained in August initially in Minnesota after he sought lessons on how to fly commercial jetliners but not how to take off or land them; Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan, Indians traveling with false passports who were detained the day after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks with box cutters, hair dye and $5,000 in cash; and Nabil Almarabh, a former Boston cabdriver with alleged links to al Qaeda". Moussaoui was later convicted as the "20th hijacker"; as far as I know, the other three were never charged with criminal offences.

At the time, however, a senior FBI official said, "Frustration has begun to appear" [because] "we're into this thing for 35 days and nobody is talking." Another agent put the quandary:

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 won't have a choice, and we are probably getting there.

US officials were considering "using drugs or pressure tactics, such as those employed occasionally by Israeli interrogators, to extract information". Then there was a concept called rendition:"extraditing the suspects to allied countries where security services sometimes employ threats to family members or resort to torture".

In the short term, the more extreme methods were not adopted; an FBI agent noted, "You could reach a point where they allow us to apply drugs to a guy....I don't think this country would ever permit torture, or beatings." He continued, "If there is another major attack on U.S. soil, the American public could let it happen."

He was wrong. It did not take another major attack; only the capture of Abu Zubaydah in spring 2002 and a demand by Bush Administration officials for the "right" intelligence, especially information linking Saddam Hussein to 9-11.

And so the closing words of the article, uttered by the former chief of the FBI's counterterrorism section, were despatched to history:

[Torture] goes against every grain in my body. Chances are you are going to get the wrong person and risk damage or killing them.