NEWSLETTER Volume 3, Issue 1
Preventing Torture Framing the Issue
January 2009
within the fight against terrorism Inside this issue: Co-operation inside
Co-operation inside cramped, plywood walled rooms by Matthew Alexander
During my tour in Iraq as an interrogator, I often found myself face-to-face in the interrogation booth, a cramped plywood-walled room, with men who were in the upper-echelon of Al Qaida. I conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. Most of these men had supported in some fashion Abu Musab Al Zarqawi’s campaign of suicide bombings that pushed Iraq into a civil war between Sunni and Shia. In fact, one such man, a Sunni Imam named Abu Ali, told me, “If I had a knife, I’d cut your throat.” Three days later, Abu Ali was telling me the location of an Al Qaida safehouse used for suicide operations where we picked up the man who led us to Zarqawi. Why the sudden change? Interrogation, I found, puts a spotlight on the fundamentals of the human condition. It is in that cramped plywood-walled room that words become giants, tears flow like rivers, and emotions rage like wild fires. This is partially because the stakes of an interrogation are extremely high – lives are in the balance. But also, there is a deep connection
that occurs between the detainee and the interrogator. These are, after all, two human beings, both wanting and needing something from the other. The interrogator controls the destiny, and the very lifeblood, of the detainee. The detainee controls information. But it is the interrogator, because of his position of authority, that bears the greatest responsibility to act ethically. It is incumbent upon the interrogator to never forget his duty to act in accordance with the Geneva Conventions – that sacred document that lays out the most
typical extremist. This was, after all, a man with a family. A man that had joined Al Qaida out of a need for protection from the Shia militia that had killed his best friend and forced him from his home. During those three long days of repeated interrogations, I came to understand Abu Ali as a man filled with hate, but also filled with hope. He hated America for having put him in the situation where he had to choose Al Qaida, but he also maintained a hope that America would eventually reverse its path and reach out to Sunnis.
It is incumbent upon the interrogator to never forget his duty to act in accordance with the Geneva Conventions—that sacred document that lays out the most basic of human rights afforded in the interrogator-detainee relationship. basic of human rights afforded in the interrogatordetainee relationship. What was it that stirred the humanity within Abu Ali and convinced him to change course from the cause that he had served just 72 hours prior? His son. For three days my partner and I strove to understand Abu Ali, as an individual, not as a demigod or a stereo-
During these long, frustrating hours I reminded Abu Ali that the future of Iraq lay in the hands of its sons and daughters. To achieve peace, the next generation would have to find a path towards reconciliation. I said to him, “Look, we Americans made plenty of mistakes…but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to fix it now.”
cramped, plywood walled rooms Colombian media and the fight against terrorism
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My partner asked, “Abu Ali, do you want your son to grow up in this cycle of violence?” “I want my son to grow up in peace,” he responded. It was then that he made the decision to reject Zarqawi’s extreme ideology of intolerance. He decided to accept our olive branch of friendship and provided us important intelligence information – information that helped lead us to Zarqawi, the Preacher of Hate. This would not have been possible had we decided to use torture or harsh methods of interrogation. That would only have reinforced Abu Ali’s assumptions about Americans. It was our show of respect and understanding that convinced Abu Ali that Americans and Sunnis could work together towards a peaceful Iraq. A year later the U.S. military received political backing to engage in what many of us from within had been advocating – reconciliation with Sunnis in Iraq. In the sum-