Related
Stories
A former
FBI agent who worked at the heart of America's battle against al-Qaeda has told
the BBC he is being prevented from telling the truth as he challenges the back
story of 9/11 and what has happened since.
 |
| Ali Soufan says techniques like water boarding were ineffective against terrorists |
Mr Soufan
also argues against the effectiveness of interrogation techniques used by the
CIA, such as water boarding.
Ali Soufan
has not appeared on camera before, but he has now decided to speak out to
counter what he sees as a misleading narrative about the last 10 years.
Mr Soufan
has direct, first-hand experience of some of the most heated controversies of
the past decade: whether 9/11 could have been prevented and whether tactics
like the water boarding of al-Qaeda suspects were effective and justified.
Born in
Lebanon, Mr Soufan came to America as a teenager and joined the FBI in the
1990s. As one of the only Arabic speakers he was assigned to early
investigations on al-Qaeda.
'I threw
up'
When the
9/11 attacks occurred, he was in Yemen investigating the bombing of the USS
Cole.
The day
after the attacks, he met a CIA officer at the US embassy in Yemen. The officer
passed him an envelope.
Inside was
a report detailing links between people Mr Soufan had been investigating for
the warship bombing and two of the hijackers - who had been living in the US
for months.
Mr Soufan
says that written requests for this kind of information had been made three
times before without any result.
"I
think it was probably the worst feeling I have ever experienced in my
life," he told the BBC in an interview.
"It
was a combination of frustration, anger, sadness, betrayal. The only thing I
recall is I left the office, went across the hall to the bathroom and I just
threw up."
He believes
the material would have made a difference.
"We
were looking for them overseas. They were here. People in our government knew
that they were here. We were not told," he says.
The CIA
denies that it failed to share the intelligence.
"Any
suggestion that the CIA purposely refused to share critical lead information on
the 9/11 plots with FBI is baseless," a CIA spokesperson told the BBC in a
statement.
Interrogator
as God
The first
senior figure linked to al-Qaeda to be arrested was Abu Zubaydah. He was taken
to a secret CIA site. Mr Soufan was told to go out and interrogate him.
He still
cannot disclose the site's location, but the BBC believes it to be Thailand.
Zubaydah was still in pain from being shot during his capture.
Mr Soufan
says he was able to extract valuable intelligence with traditional
interrogation techniques. This included the first identification of Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
But some in
Washington believed Abu Zubaydah knew more. They sent out a CIA contractor to
test out his theories.
Zubaydah
would become the guinea pig for what the CIA called "enhanced
interrogation techniques".
 |
| Mr Soufan says his more orthodox interrogation of Zubaydah (pictured) gained useful information |
The
techniques began with nudity, sleep deprivation and loud noise.
"The
idea was the detainee has to look at the interrogator as if he is his God. He
is the one who determines if his life is going to be better or worse," Mr
Soufan says of the CIA contractor's ideas.
Mr Soufan's
objections to the techniques are primarily about their effectiveness.
"I'm
not going to lose any sleep if a terrorist is nude," he says. "These
things don't work.
"It's
not going to work on a top-notch terrorist. My experience is you can catch way
more flies with honey than vinegar."
Mr Soufan
stood back as the CIA tested out its theories. He says it soon became clear
that the techniques employed by the CIA contractor were not working.
The
pressure was on to go further.
Mr Soufan
became increasingly concerned - witnessing techniques he believed would be
criminal in the US. He told the FBI he would arrest the contractor if he
stayed.
The FBI
told him to come home, and withdrew itself from the interrogation process.
Zubaydah was then water boarded 83 times.
Former
Vice-President Dick Cheney has argued these techniques were "legal,
essential, justified, successful".
Mr Soufan
challenges this view.
"Everything
the proponents of enhanced interrogation techniques claim was obtained because
of enhanced interrogation techniques and water boarding on Abu Zubaydah, we got
when we were there on the ground before even enhanced interrogations existed,"
he says.
In response
to his story, a US counter-terrorism official told the BBC that the CIA and FBI
had different roles.
"Mr
Soufan and his colleague were part of the initial questioning, when Abu
Zubaydah was hospitalised, and Mr Soufan was trying to build a rapport,"
said the official.
"Later
when Abu Zubaydah recovered, he stopped any pretence of co-operation.
"The
CIA claim that after the FBI pulled its officers from the debriefings, and the
decision was made to focus the debriefings on collection of intelligence and on
pending attacks, he became very co-operative. "
Major
redactions
Mr Soufan -
who left the FBI in 2005 - believes that his attempts to challenge the
narrative of 9/11 and what came afterwards is being deliberately blocked by the
authorities.
His book,
The Black Banners, is published in the US and UK on Monday.
The FBI did
not object to the manuscript, but the CIA demanded major redactions.
In some
cases, entire pages of the book have been redacted, including parts of Mr Soufan's
testimony before the US Senate.
In certain
passages, the words "I" and "me" have been redacted where
Mr Soufan is relating his own eyewitness account of events.
"The
suggestion that the Central Intelligence Agency has requested redactions on
this publication because it doesn't like the content is ridiculous," a CIA
spokesperson told the BBC.
"The
CIA's pre-publication review process looks solely at the issue of whether
information is classified... just because something is in the public domain
doesn't mean it's been officially released or declassified."
Mr Soufan
believes that the process has not been about what is or is not classified.
"People
over there are redacting narrative; they are not redacting national security
information," he told the BBC.
"They
are trying to stop me and others from telling the world what really
happened."
FIND OUT
MORE: Watch Gordon Corera's full report on Newsnight on Monday 12 September at
22:35 BST on BBC Two
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.