As a senior interrogator in Iraq (and a former criminal investigator), there was a lesson I learned that served me well: there's more to be learned from what someone doesn't say than from what they do say. Let me dissect former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on National Security using this model and my interrogation skills.
First, VP Cheney said, "This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately... it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do." He further stated, "It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so." That is simply untrue. Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq. What the former vice president didn't say is the fact that the dislike of our policies in the Middle East were not enough to make thousands of Muslim men pick up arms against us before these revelations. Torture and abuse became Al Qaida's number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives.
Secondly, the former vice president, in saying that waterboarding is not torture, never mentions the fact that it was the United States and its Allies, during the Tokyo Trials, that helped convict a Japanese soldier for war crimes for waterboarding one of Jimmie Doolittle's Raiders. Have our morals and values changed in fifty years? He also did not mention that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both prohibited their troops from torturing prisoners of war. Washington specifically used the term "injure" -- no mention of severe mental or physical pain.
Thirdly, the former vice president never mentioned the Senate testimony of Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who successfully interrogated Abu Zubaydah and learned the identity of Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber, and the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was the mastermind behind 9/11. We'll never know what more we could have discovered from Abu Zubaydah had not CIA contractors taken over the interrogations and used waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Also, glaringly absent from the former vice president's speech was any mention of the fact that the former administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.
In addition, in his continued defense of harsh interrogation techniques (aka torture and abuse), VP Cheney forgets that harsh techniques have ensured that future detainees will be less likely to cooperate because they see us as hypocrites. They are less willing to trust us when we fail to live up to our principles. I experienced this firsthand in Iraq when interrogating high-ranking members of Al Qaida, some of whom decided to cooperate simply because I treated them with respect and civility.
The former vice president is confusing harshness with effectiveness. An effective interrogation is one that yields useful, accurate intelligence, not one that is harsh. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of interrogations, the goal of which is not to coerce information from a prisoner, but to convince a prisoner to cooperate.
Finally, the point that is most absent is that our greatest success in this conflict was achieved without torture or abuse. My interrogation team found Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq and murderer of tens of thousands. We did this using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques. These worked to great effect on the most hardened members of Al Qaida -- spiritual leaders who had been behind the waves of suicide bombers and, hence, the sectarian violence that swept across Iraq. We convinced them to cooperate by applying our intellect. In essence, we worked smarter, not harsher.
Follow Matthew Alexander on Twitter: www.twitter.com/htbat
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There is one point that may call for more detail--wa
Cheney is the dark side. 9/11 happened on his watch- lets never forget that fact.
Yes, you might be able to win a campaign on sound bites and entertaini
We fell for his nonsense and now he needs to stand for it- in a court of law.
Thankfully
Are you really suggesting that someone who has been changed by direct action has a more viable opinion than an American leader who I never voted for?
Ridiculous
I was somehow led to believe this article was going to give me an insight into Dick Cheney's motivation
Some of us saw all of this: the lies, the rush to war without cause, from the beginning - albeit without evidence. What we've never been able to fathom is "How the rest didn't". Was it naivety, foolishnes
I think we still must get to the bottom of this - despite the perils. Though I agree with Obama - that releasing the torture pictures would probably only advance the causes of al Qaida. I don't know how they wouldn't help us. Perhaps - if I understand Alexander correctly - we should prosecute Cheney. Now that's a slam dunk! He's already confessed, so we wouldn't have to prosecute lesserling
I am also inclined to believe Matthew when he says that it is does not yield useful informatio
However, equating the actions of our troops with those of Japanese war criminals is misleading
1) Japanese war criminals were not convicted for waterboard
They subjected our troops to gruesome torture. Waterboard
I don't know of any war criminal whose sole crime was waterboard
2) There was a Japanese guy officer who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for waterboard
3)Combatan
The terrorists are not the members of an army. They enjoy no more protection than mercenarie
The only remining question seems to be what are we going to do about it.
And Cheney is also not doing anything to keep the common American citizen safer from terrorists
1. Cheney is absolutely aware of the facts with regard to what is torture and what is not torture. He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that waterboard
2. Cheney's intention appears to be that he wanted to unequivoca
So, what can we say about these two facts? We can say that Cheney not only has no moral center, he is a warmonger of the First Order. Indeed, he gains monetarily when the war continues. He gains big time.
For Cheney, this was about money.