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September 30, 2006
New York Post piece on My Visit to Gitmo
A DEADLY KINDNESS
By RICHARD MINITER
September 15, 2006 -- GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA
ON the military plane back from America's most famous terrorist holding pen, the in-flight film was "V for Vendetta," a screed that tries to justify terrorism. It was a fitting end to a surreal, military-sponsored trip.
The Pentagon seemed to be hoping to disarm its critics by showing them how well it cares for captured terrorists. The trip was more alarming than disarming. I spent several hours with Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who heads the joint task force that houses and interrogates the detainees. (The military isn't allowed to call them "prisoners.")
Harris, a distinguished Navy veteran who was born in Japan and educated at Annapolis and Harvard, is a serious man trying to do a politically impossible job. I spoke with him at length, and with a dozen other officers and guards, and visited three different detention blocks.
The high-minded critics who complain about torture are wrong. We are far too soft on these guys - and, as a result, aren't getting the valuable intelligence we need to save American lives.
The politically correct regulations are unbelievable. Detainees are entitled to a full eight hours sleep and can't be woken up for interrogations. They enjoy three meals and five prayers per day, without interruption. They are entitled to a minimum of two hours of outdoor recreation per day.
Interrogations are limited to four hours, usually running two - and (of course) are interrupted for prayers. One interrogator actually bakes cookies for detainees, while another serves them Subway or McDonald's sandwiches. Both are available on base. (Filet o' Fish is an al Qaeda favorite.)
Interrogations are not video or audio taped, perhaps to preserve detainee privacy.
Call it excessive compassion by a nation devoted to therapy, but it's dangerous. Adm. Harris admitted to me that a multi-cell al Qaeda network has developed in the camp. Military intelligence can't yet identify their leaders, but notes that they have cells for monitoring the movements and identities of guards and doctors, cells dedicated to training, others for making weapons and so on.
And they can make weapons from almost anything. Guards have been attacked with springs taken from inside faucets, broken fluorescent light bulbs and fan blades. Some are more elaborate. "These folks are MacGyvers," Harris said.
Other cells pass messages from leaders in one camp to followers in others. How? Detainees use the envelopes sent to them by their attorneys to pass messages. (Some 1,000 lawyers represent 440 prisoners, all on a pro bono basis, with more than 18,500 letters in and out of Gitmo in the past year.) Guards are not allowed to look inside these envelopes because of "attorney-client privilege" - even if they know the document inside is an Arabic-language note written by a prisoner to another prisoner and not a letter to or from a lawyer.
That's right: Accidentally or not, American lawyers are helping al Qaeda prisoners continue to plot.
There is little doubt what this note-passing and weapons-making is used for. The military recorded 3,232 incidents of detainee misconduct from July 2005 to August 2006 - an average of more than eight incidents per day. Some are nonviolent, but the tally includes coordinated attacks involving everything from throwing bodily fluids on guards (432 times) to 90 stabbings with homemade knives.
One detainee slashed a doctor who was trying to save his life; the doctors wear body armor to treat their patients.
The kinder we are to terrorists, the harsher we are to their potential victims.
Striking the balance between these two goods (humane treatment, foreknowledge of deadly attacks) is difficult, but the Bush administration seems to lean too far in the direction of the detainees. No expense spared for al Qaeda health care: Some 5,000 dental operations (including teeth cleanings) and 5,000 vaccinations on a total of 550 detainees have been performed since 2002 - all at taxpayer expense. Eyeglasses? 174 pairs handed out. Twenty two detainees have taxpayer-paid prosthetic limbs. And so on.
What if a detainee confesses a weakness (like fear of the dark) to a doctor that might be useful to interrogators, I asked the doctor in charge, would he share that information with them? "My job is not to make interrogations more efficient," he said firmly. He cited doctor-patient privacy. (He also asked that his name not be printed, citing the potential for al Qaeda retaliation.)
Food is strictly halal and averages 4,200 calories per day. (The guards eat the same chow as the detainees, unless they venture to one of the on-base fast-food joints.) Most prisoners have gained weight.
Much has been written about the elaborate and unprecedented appeal process. Detainees have their cases reviewed once a year and get rights roughly equivalent to criminals held in domestic prisons. I asked a military legal adviser: In what previous war were captured enemy combatants eligible for review before the war ended? None, he said.
America has never faced an enemy who has so ruthlessly broken all of the rules of war - yet never has an enemy been treated so well.
Of Gitmo's several camps, military records show that the one with the most lenient rules is the one with the most incidents and vice versa. There is a lesson in this: We should worry less about detainee safety and more about our own.
Some 20 current detainees have direct personal knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and nearly everyone of the current 440 say they would be honored to attack America again. Let's take them at their word.
Richard Miniter (richardminiter.com) is a bestselling author and fellow at the Hudson Institute.
http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_deadly_kindness_opedcolumnists_richard_miniter.htm
Posted by Richard Miniter at 04:52 PM
Wall Street Journal Piece on Clinton's Record
What President Clinton Didn't Do . . .
By RICHARD MINITER
September 27, 2006; Page A18
Bill Clinton's outburst on Fox News was something of a public service, launching a debate about the antiterror policies of his administration. This is important because every George W. Bush policy that arouses the ire of Democrats -- the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, pre-emptive war -- is a departure from his predecessor. Where policies overlap -- air attacks on infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, freezing bank accounts, using police to arrest terror suspects -- there is little friction. The question, then, is whether America should return to Mr. Clinton's policies or soldier on with Mr. Bush's.
It is vital that this debate be honest, but so far this has not been the case. Both Mr. Clinton's outrage at Chris Wallace's questioning and the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" are attempts to polarize the nation's memory. While this divisiveness may be good for Mr. Clinton's reputation, it is ultimately unhealthy for the country. What we need, instead, is a cold-eyed look at what works against terrorists and what does not. The policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations ought to be put to the same iron test.
With that in mind, let us examine Mr. Clinton's war on terror. Some 38 days after he was sworn in, al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. He did not visit the twin towers that year, even though four days after the attack he was just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, talking about job training. He made no attempt to rally the public against terrorism. His only public speech on the bombing was a few paragraphs inserted into a radio address mostly devoted an economic stimulus package. Those stray paragraphs were limited to reassuring the public and thanking the rescuers, the kinds of things governors say after hurricanes. He did not even vow to bring the bombers to justice. Instead, he turned the first terrorist attack on American soil over to the FBI.
In his Fox interview, Mr. Clinton said "no one knew that al Qaeda existed" in October 1993, during the tragic events in Somalia. But his national security adviser, Tony Lake, told me that he first learned of bin Laden "sometime in 1993," when he was thought of as a terror financier. U.S. Army Capt. James Francis Yacone, a black hawk squadron commander in Somalia, later testified that radio intercepts of enemy mortar crews firing at Americans were in Arabic, not Somali, suggesting the work of bin Laden's agents (who spoke Arabic), not warlord Farah Aideed's men (who did not). CIA and DIA reports also placed al Qaeda operatives in Somalia at the time.
By the end of Mr. Clinton's first year, al Qaeda had apparently attacked twice. The attacks would continue for every one of the Clinton years.
• In 1994, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who would later plan the 9/11 attacks) launched "Operation Bojinka" to down 11 U.S. planes simultaneously over the Pacific. A sharp-eyed Filipina police officer foiled the plot. The sole American response: increased law-enforcement cooperation with the Philippines.
• In 1995, al Qaeda detonated a 220-pound car bomb outside the Office of Program Manager in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing five Americans and wounding 60 more. The FBI was sent in.
• In 1996, al Qaeda bombed the barracks of American pilots patrolling the "no-fly zones" over Iraq, killing 19. Again, the FBI responded.
• In 1997, al Qaeda consolidated its position in Afghanistan and bin Laden repeatedly declared war on the U.S. In February, bin Laden told an Arab TV network: "If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters." No response from the Clinton administration.
• In 1998, al Qaeda simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, including 12 U.S. diplomats. Mr. Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in response. Here Mr. Clinton's critics are wrong: The president was right to retaliate when America was attacked, irrespective of the Monica Lewinsky case.
Still, "Operation Infinite Reach" was weakened by Clintonian compromise. The State Department feared that Pakistan might spot the American missiles in its air space and misinterpret it as an Indian attack. So Mr. Clinton told Gen. Joe Ralston, vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, to notify Pakistan's army minutes before the Tomahawks passed over Pakistan. Given Pakistan's links to jihadis at the time, it is not surprising that bin Laden was tipped off, fleeing some 45 minutes before the missiles arrived.
• In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a NSC senior director who forced agencies to work together. But the Millennium approach was shortlived. Over Mr. Clarke's objections, policy reverted to the status quo.
• In January 2000, al Qaeda tried and failed to attack the U.S.S. The Sullivans off Yemen. (Their boat sank before they could reach their target.) But in October 2000, an al Qaeda bomb ripped a hole in the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39.
When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it. After the meeting, a State Department counterterrorism official, Michael Sheehan, sought out Mr. Clarke. Both told me that they were stunned. Mr. Sheehan asked Mr. Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"
There is much more to Mr. Clinton's record -- how Predator drones, which spotted bin Laden three times in 1999 and 2000, were grounded by bureaucratic infighting; how a petty dispute with an Arizona senator stopped the CIA from hiring more Arabic translators. While it is easy to look back in hindsight and blame Bill Clinton, the full scale and nature of the terrorist threat was not widely appreciated until 9/11. Still: Bill Clinton did not fully grasp that he was at war. Nor did he intuit that war requires overcoming bureaucratic objections and a democracy's natural reluctance to use force. That is a hard lesson. But it is better to learn it from studying the Clinton years than reliving them.
Mr. Miniter, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is author of "Losing Bin Laden”
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115931778776275048.html
Posted by Richard Miniter at 04:48 PM
September 28, 2006
No, Clinton's Outburst Wasn't Planned
My old friend, Tom Switzer, called from Australia last night to say that the Clinton controversy was raging down there too. Since he is the opinion editor of the Australian, that nation's largest daily, he should know. Here it is. something for him and it is available here. As far as I know, the Chris Wallace comments are a bit of a scoop.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:41 PM
September 27, 2006
Clinton and his record
Here is extended take on former President Clinton's sharp exchange with Chris Wallace, which appears in today's Wall Street Journal. You can read it at that link for free.
Here are some quick additional thoughts:I don't think that Clinton's rage was calculated or planned. Wallace said that off-camera Clinton threatened to fire his aides if he had to endure another television interview like that one. Also, his incoherent anger did not advance the positive case for his record (capturing Ramzi Youssef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in 1995, stopping the Millenium plots in 1999, arming the Predator spy drone plane in 2000 and so on).It was accusatory, contradictory and times flat wrong. I could make a better case for his Administration than he did. Still, his base wants to give him credit for his passion, not his pure reason. That is not a hopeful sign for them or the country.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:38 AM
September 26, 2006
The Clinton-Wallace exchange
I plan to write a longer entry on the fiery exchange between former President Clinton and Fox News host Chris Wallace, but for now, here is a link to what I told listeners of the Fox radio show "Brian and the Judge."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:29 PM
September 25, 2006
French Faux Pas
Okay, you probably don’t read L’est Republicain on a regular basis – but this weekend medialand was abuzz with the regional French newspaper report – based on a leaked French intelligence agency report – that Osama bin Laden had died of typhoid. Here are six reasons I think that the report is not credible:
1) To state the obvious, no one has produced bin Laden’s body or offered reliable eyewitness testimony of death. What we have instead is a fourth hand account: a French newspaper writing about a French intelligence report that is writing about a Saudi intelligence officer who said he heard from a colleague about bin Laden being dead.
2) The leaked French intelligence memo is based on a single Saudi intelligence source – neither the French nor CIA have been able to confirm that the Saudis actually believe bin Laden is dead, let alone is actually dead. And, of course, Saudi beliefs about bin Laden are meaningless – absent evidence.
3) Jihadi websites that post messages from al Qaeda figures have not even mentioned that bin Laden is ailing, let alone dead. Given al Qaeda’s proven desire manage the news about itself, it is extremely unlikely that there would be no sign of bin Laden’s passing on the web.
4) If bin Laden were dead, there would be an internal power struggle to see who runs al Qaeda. There is no sign of any such struggle. One obvious sign that has not appeared: Zawahiri issuing a tape that he is in control of al Qaeda.
5) This past week, Pakistan released some 2,500 al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. It is unlikely that it would have cut a deal with that terrorist network to release those prisoners if Pakistan intelligence service believed bin Laden was dancing with his 72 virgins. (The French newspaper story said bin Laden had died in Pakistan.)
6) The French newspaper that published the story is a regional daily, not one of the national Paris-based newspaper that usually gets leaks from French intelligence. As far as I am aware, this newspaper before has never received a leak from French intelligence. If this story was an “official leak”—a specialty of France’s intelligence apparatus -- then it would have been given to a major newspaper.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:21 PM
September 19, 2006
Miniter on C-Span
Here is my latest television appearance discussing torture at Gitmo: (video link )
Reader mail:
Great article, I'm printing and sending it to everyone I know. Thank you for your honesty. How about the comparison of how American Military "PRISONERS" (not detainees) are treated not only in the Middle East but unfortunately in America as well!! The "liberal thinker" is broken. It's men like you who I hope can help fix it or at least shed light on the TRUTH. I'm going to order your book.
- Linda Lovelace
Dear Mr Miniter,
I saw you this morning on Washington Journal. Well Done! I am especially amazed at the calm way you handled that ignorant, blame America first, sad excuse for a human from Louisiana, who called up to read a prepared anti George Bush diatribe. You noted the emotion in his voice. Clearly you & I went to different schools. My hope would be to meet him in person and twist his head off. Again - Well Done! - Ted Sahlin
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:28 PM
September 16, 2006
Club Gitmo
Do you get eight hours of uninterupted sleep, three square meals and a minimium of two hours of outdoor recreation per day? If not, the al Qaeda operatives in Gitmo live better than you do. Here's a link to an article I wrote for the New York Post on life at Gitmo.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:52 PM