Policy Changes: A Pesticide for the "Bad Apples" in the Military?

Essentially since World War II, the US has been a sort of “defender of right and wrong”. There are plenty of examples where the US has stepped-in and stopped an injustice. However, in the age of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) I believe the US has taken a step back, making decisions that may have the best intentions, but have actually given America a black-eye. For example, the decision to allow torture tactics, has broadly offended the international community, especially those committed to the Geneva Conventions. Recent policies seem to highlight a realist decision maker, doing whatever it takes to protect the state.

Distanced from the policy makers, atrocities such as the use of excessive force against combatants and non-combatants as well as improper behavior against detainees by the US military has further added to the growing “black-eye” of American. I am not a soldier but I know that all US military personnel have some training regarding the rules of war and specific rules of engagement. So, despite training, some US military personnel still allow themselves to treat prisoners poorly, or get a little trigger happy.

What policy changes can decrease atrocities in conflict situations?

Based on class lectures, several readings, and the film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, I propose the following changes that may or may not directly impact US military doctrine, but also offer a guide to decrease poor behavior.

One – Roll-back the DoD memorandum signed by Donald Rumsfeld that effectively granted permission to use creative ways to “interrogate” detainees.

While the memo does not specifically grant permission to torture detainees, it created a feeling or “do whatever it takes” throughout the US military. This assertion is backed by several statements of military personnel at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib.

Two – Improve communication through every level of the Armed Services, specifically changes in military policy and the rules of engagement.

One of the problems noted by several of the personnel that committed atrocities in Iraq was the lack of understanding down the chain of command. One soldier said that the policies changed so many times that he did not remember what rules they were operating under from day-to-day. Furthermore, rules of engagement are important for nearly every person in the military, and yet the specific rules are largely classified, out of the reach of some soldiers on the ground. In addition, there should be regular meetings and/or drill “role playing” so commanding officers can test their soldiers with hypothetical situations and fine-tune their response.

Three – Clearly define acceptable and unacceptable means of aggressive interrogation.

As evident in the Rumsfeld memo, some activities are clearly defined and noted as “acceptable” but the other proposed strategies are not outright condemned. This leaves some uncertainty in the minds of those on the ground. Furthermore, the comments from the DoD seem to suggest that more aggressive interrogation that violates the Geneva Conventions may be used at some point.

Four – Maintain the organizational expertise structure of specific military commands or create new commands with proper training to effectively complete the mission.

One of the major problems with Abu Ghraib may have stemmed from the fact that the guards were actually Marine MPs, not correction officers. Trained for combat, the group was thrown off-guard when they arrived at the prison and were told to put away their weapons. Also, the organizational structure was changed; the MPs began reporting to military intelligence and civilian intelligence personnel rather than their designated superior, General Karpinski. Essentially, there was “mission creep” within the MPs stationed at Abu Ghraib.

Torture: an effective tool?

Former CIA Officer: Waterboarding Is Wrong, But It Worked

J.J. Green, WTOPNews.com, 20 March 2008

WASHINGTON -- It was 2 a.m. on the dot on March 28, 2002 when the Punjab Elite Force accompanied by CIA officers and FBI agents broke down the door to a two-story safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

A struggle ensued: Shots were fired and people were hit; knives were wielded and people were stabbed.

When the smoke cleared and the shouting stopped, a member of the Punjabi SWAT team had a severe knife wound, and more than a dozen al Qaida operatives were down -- some with severe gunshot wounds.

A man named Abu Zubayda was among the injured. Zubayda was No. 3 in the al Qaida power structure, and a close associate of Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaida documents indicate Zubayda was the organization's main logistics operative. His own statements later revealed he was the keeper of secrets of al Qaida's plans to bring the U.S. to its knees for the second time in six months - after Sept. 11, 2001.

The CIA had a vested interest in keeping him alive.

"Al Qaida had released statements indicating that there was another attack coming. It was going to be more spectacular than the attacks we saw on Sept. 11, and even said that al Qaida wouldn't rest until the green flag of Islam flew over the White House," former CIA Officer John Kiriakou says.

Zubayda supposedly knew the names, dates and details about those planned "spectacular" attacks, but he was dying.

He had been shot three times, and suffered wounds to the groin, thigh and stomach. After Pakistani doctors treated him, Zubayda was reportedly moved to a secret location -- on orders from a top intelligence official -- and was treated by an American trauma specialist dispatched from the U.S.

Six weeks later, when Zubayda had recovered enough to talk, he did -- but "he wanted to talk about poetry or his family or Islam. He didn't want to talk about anything that was truly important to us," Kiriakou says

Zubayda changed his mind after being introduced to the centuries-old technique of waterboarding.

"After [Zubayda] was waterboarded, he said God had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate. And so he did. It was almost like flipping a switch, where one day he was not cooperative and the next day he was very cooperative," Kiriakou says.

Kiriakou did not witness the transformation in person. However, in his first interview since being threatened with legal action in December for discussing the destruction of waterboarding tapes, Kiriakou tells WTOP, "by the time waterboarding was being used, I had returned to a position at [CIA] headquarters from South Asia, but I was in a job at headquarters that afforded me access to that information."

Intelligence sources say Zubayda eventually gave up key information about Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was captured almost a year later. Authorities also say he divulged information that prevented other terror attacks inside the U.S.

There have been questions about whether Zubayda suffers from mental illness and whether his information was worth anything.

Kiriakou refutes those questions.

"The reason we went after Abu Zubayda in the first place was because he was al Qaida's logistics chief. He was one of the guys who was instrumental in getting the hijackers in the U.S.; in making sure they had appropriate training; in making sure they had money and they had places to live. This isn't someone who was mentally challenged or mentally ill in any way. This guy had to have a mind for detail. He knew exactly what he was doing."

The 9/11 Commission agreed with Kiriakou in its conclusion. "KSM [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubayda each played key roles in facilitating travel for al Qaida operatives. In addition al Qaida had an office of passports and host country issues under its security committee."

But waterboarding apparently has its failings, Kiriakou says.

"It's my understanding - this is not first-person information. I have heard this from others - that another prisoner who was waterboarded, ended up just saying what he though his interrogator wanted to hear and the information was not reliable," Kiriakou says.

A fierce debate is raging across the country over the waterboarding. Accounts from Kiriakou and many others detail the usefulness of waterboarding, but others say pouring water up a person's nostrils to extract information is cruel and inhumane.

The GOP's presumptive nominee for President Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said recently, "I think that waterboarding is torture and illegal, but I will not restrict the CIA to only the Army Field Manual."

Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) supported a failed effort to ban the technique.

House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, "failing to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh torture techniques undermines our nation's moral authority, puts American military and diplomatic personnel at-risk, and undermines the quality of intelligence."

The firestorm is exactly what Kiriakou wanted.

"We really needed to have a true national debate about whether or not waterboarding was something we wanted to use as a matter of policy when interrogating al Qaida prisoners who were not cooperative and who we thought had actionable intelligence about impending terrorist attacks," Kiriakou says.

When asked about his own view, Kiriakou says, "waterboarding is probably wrong. I believe that it's torture. I believe that at this point, so many years after Sept. 11, we ought not to be doing it. But with that said, when it was used on Abu Zubayda in 2002, it actually worked."

Kiriakou, like many, is conflicted about whether to use waterboarding as an interrogation method.

"Are we willing to lose 100 people, 1,000 people in a terrorist attack and then maintain the moral high road and not waterboard? I'm not sure," Kiriakou says.

Al Qaida's low-level young fighters are "a little more than uneducated illiterate teens from the countryside and small villages in the Middle East and south and central Asia," he says.

While uncertain about waterboarding, Kiriakou says there are other methods of defending against al Qaida.

"I believe if those people had access to jobs, to educations and had something hope for, to look forward to, al Qaida wouldn't be attractive to them," Kiriakou says.

Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.

A bit of the interview on The Daily Show between host Jon Stewart and Ronald Kessler, author of the book "The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race To Stop the Next Attack." I cut some of the interview and left the parts where Kessler specifically discusses waterboarding and torture (or dances around the issues).

The Daily Show -- Comedy Central
12 March 2008

STEWART: What do you think of the more coercive stuff, the waterboarding and such?

KESSLER: I think it was fine in that particular situation. Most of the time, the CIA does not want to use waterboarding. They want to use cooperation. But in that case, there was a threat that there would be a second wave of attacks. These guys were not talking. They had to get information, and they did. And they stopped plots that killed, or would have killed people.

STEWART: Does that hurt or help us in the long run?

KESSLER: I think, in the long run, if we protected ourselves from another attack, that's the most important thing. You know, it's true that the Iraq war has contributed to the hatred...you know, it's used as a propaganda tool.

.....

STEWART: You are...you're getting...but the thing about waterboarding that always struck me is, even if it saved some lives, do we give up too much of our soul to do that? Because isn't the measure of a country how it handles itself in difficult times, not in easy times? It's very easy to say, "We abide by the Geneva Convention," until we found out somebody wants to hurt us and then, hey man, everybody for themselves.

KESSLER: Well, actually the Geneva Conventions allow this, because these people are not regular military people in uniforms...

STEWART: The Geneva Conventions allow you to waterboard people who don't wear uniforms?

KESSLER: Yeah, because they're not...these are people who behead people, they don't abide by...

STEWART: That may be a technicality. I'm not sure that the spirit of the Geneva Conventions is, like, "Hey look, if they don't have a hat, do whatever you want. ((laughter))

KESSLER: Our own Special Operations forces are, in fact, subjected to waterboarding as part of their training, so....

STEWART: Because they might have it done to them.

KESSLER: Exactly. And it's not torture in the sense that it's painful. That's what torture is defined as...It's harsh...

STEWART: That's an argument that's tough to make, that it's not actually....drowning someone is torture. ((laughter)) The only point I was going to make was we prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding our soldiers in World War II.

KESSLER: It was a different kind of waterboarding. ((laughter)) It actually involved...

STEWART: What did we waterboard on [Temperapedics]? ((laughter)) What do you mean? How different? What kind of water?

KESSLER: Using real water, as opposed to just covering them with cellophane and giving the impression, but...the important thing is...

STEWART: This is like the mock apple pie of waterboarding, that we do. ((laughter)) It's not a real-type waterboarding thing.

KESSLER: And actually, it was only used three times, and not since 2003. Now, they are not going to use it anymore. So it really is moot. The important thing is....

STEWART: We learned our lesson.

KESSLER: OK. ((laughter)) I'm agreeable. But the important thing is, we have not been attacked, it's because of these measures, it's because of the Patriot Act even though that's demonized.

STEWART: But it's hard to point to causation because they're so secretive. I mean, what they're saying is, "Trust us, it's because of this," even though a lot of the other things you found about us have turned out to be less than credible.

KESSLER: Well, we know that these terrorists are being rolled up all the time. We know they are being rolled up because of these measures, including the Patriot Act. You know, the librarian thing....

Gitmo: How Detainees Love the Freedom of America Experienced from Cuba

This article is a bit of a dove-tail off of the Omar Khadr post I made a few weeks ago, yet the Khadr case and this case seem to be drastically different. While a military trial by the US is much different than a domestic criminal trial, there are some concerns regarding the case of Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi. According to the chief defense counsel, Army Col. Steve David, he has not been given the personnel or resources to adequately defend Qosi. He has only 9 assistants while the prosecution has 4 times as many. Disregarding Qosi’s guilt or innocence this article highlights some institutional flaws as well as the political football this could turn into upon the change in office. I’ll be interested to see if anything does change such as the author’s suggestion that some of these cases move to a civil or criminal court inside the US versus offshore. I feel like this would be a good question for the presidential contenders. Anyone want to make a guess on what the candidates would do?

Disclaimer: I am a registered Democrat and consider myself to be moderate. Right now the order of my selection for the next President goes (1) Obama, (2) McCain, and (3) Clinton. This may explain my predictions below which are mainly supposed to be a little funny more than reflect my personal political views.

My Guess (with some sarcasm):

Clinton – “I’ve always supported the right to a fair and speedy trial… and I promise to shut down Gitmo the day I come into office… I have the experience! You can’t trust the Republican part right now and Obama is just a baby.”

McCain – “First of all I don’t believe in torture, and I think we should close Gitmo… however, I can’t look soft on national security so I will order the immediate trial of all Gitmo detainees under the current rules and close Gitmo by the end of my 4 years in office as President. Clinton and Obama will just release all of these terrorists back into the world where they can attack America and spread hate, so I’m here to create fear so that you vote for me.”

Obama – “I never supported the illegal war in Iraq so we wouldn’t be in this position to begin with if anyone had listened to me! If we had simply concentrated on Afghanistan maybe we would have properly collected the evidence needed to properly place these detainees on trial. Clinton and McCain will just lead us down the same path… I am the necessary change, trust me… (wink).”

Another Guantanamo prisoner charged with war crimes

An alleged former aide to Osama bin Laden is the 13th detainee at the U.S. military prison to be indicted.
Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times, 6 March 2008, Inside "A" Section

MIAMI -- The Pentagon served war crimes charges on a 13th prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp Wednesday, signaling the Bush administration's intent to step up prosecution of terrorism suspects before the architects of the controversial military tribunals leave office.

The charges allege that Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan provided material support for terrorism and conspired with Osama bin Laden. The case is the latest in a series of recent indictments against detainees who had been held without charge for years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo.

Al Qosi, 47, is accused of having worked as a driver, bodyguard, supply clerk and cook for the Al Qaeda leader at the "Star of Jihad" compound near Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

He is one of about 40 Al Qaeda aides captured by Pakistani forces in December 2001 near the Afghan region of Tora Bora, where Bin Laden survived weeks of bombardment by U.S. warplanes.

Al Qosi is accused of helping Bin Laden and his family escape to Tora Bora, a remote, rugged and naturally defended stronghold on the Pakistani border. He could face life in prison if convicted by a panel of U.S. military officers who will convene to act as a jury.

The military commissions have two courtrooms at the Expeditionary Legal Complex, a maze of tents, portable offices and one high-security building that sprawls across an unused airfield on the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba.

The limited courtroom space had been expected to slow the pace of indictments because once charged, a prisoner must be brought before a judge within 30 days and his trial begun within four months.

Cases initiated last year against another Bin Laden aide, Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, and Canadian Omar Khadr, who was 15 at the time of his alleged crimes, have stalled repeatedly as military jurists wade through uncharted legal territory.

Dozens of motions are pending in the cases, and the 30-day clock for arraignment is running on three others.

By filling the trial calendar, the Pentagon appeared to be setting up dry runs of the untested legal process that will be used to prosecute self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other "high-value" prisoners later this year.

Charges carrying the death penalty were filed last month against Mohammed and the others, but those trials are unlikely to begin for months because of procedural delays and a dearth of defense resources. Only one of the six suspects charged in the Sept. 11 attacks -- the so-called 20th hijacker, Mohammed Qahtani -- has a military lawyer.

The chief defense counsel, Army Col. Steve David, has complained to the Office of Military Commissions in Washington that he has insufficient staff to properly defend the prisoners under indictment. Only nine military defense lawyers have so far been assigned to David's team, whereas the chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, has four times that many attorneys at work preparing trials.

"The entire system of the military commissions is founded on the concept of defense by military defense counsel, and insufficiency in that defense is a serious institutional flaw," said Miles Fischer, an attorney who has attended Guantanamo sessions for the New York City Bar Assn., whose members represent prisoners trying to get civilian court review of their detention.

Some observers say the stepped-up pace of prosecutions could be a way of ensuring that some defendants are tried by the commissions before the end of President Bush's term.

"They may be attempting to get these cases to progress to a point where it would make it harder for the next president to move them to civilian courts, where they belong," said Shayana Kadidal, senior attorney with the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

Al Qosi, Hamdan, Khadr and seven others were charged with war crimes in 2003 and 2004, but their trials had not begun before the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions unconstitutional in June 2006.

The Republican-controlled Congress at the time passed the Military Commissions Act three months after the high court decision, resurrecting the offshore tribunal.

Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times