The Other Abu Zubaidah: From Hopeful Immigrant to FBI Informant, A Truthout Reader

Zubaydah, though only 31, rose quickly from very low level mujahedin to third or fourth man in al Qaeda. In that capacity, he has managed a network of training camps.

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He has been instrumental in the training of operatives for al Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist elements inside Pakistan and Afghanistan. He acted as the Deputy Camp Commander for al Qaeda training camp sic in Afghanistan, personally approving entry and graduation of all trainees during From until , he approved all individuals going in and out of Afghanistan to the training camps. Further, no one went in and out of Peshawar, Pakistan without his knowledge and approval.

Zubaydah has been involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by al Qaeda. He was a planner of the Millennium plot to attack U. Two of the central figures in this plot who were arrested have identified Zubaydah as the supporter of their cell and the plot. He also served as a planner for the Paris Embassy plot in Moreover, he was one of the planners of the September 11 attacks. Prior to his capture, he was engaged in planning future terrorist attacks against U. What an incredible political embarrassment it would be for the world to discover that the torture and mistreatment of abu Zubaydah were pointless exercises in cruelty.

Vice President Cheney, CIA Director Michael Hayden, and many others all have claimed that the torture and mistreatment of abu Zubaydah led to the discovery of useful information. Vice President Cheney stated that: At he time of his apprehension he was plotting to use commercial airliners in suicide attacks on Heathrow Airport and other structures in London. Imagine the political and policy implications that would follow the revelation that no such information was obtained from visiting these abuses on him.

The torture policies are not the only programs that would be exposed during the military commission hearing. Obviously, statements about abu Zubaydah were not the only basis for the creation of the Global War on Terror apparatus. There were many other claims. However, he was the symbol constantly deployed to justify the creation of that apparatus.

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The numerous fabricated statements made about him constituted a key part of the foundation of that structure. He was one of the financiers of the September 11th attacks. He was a logistics chief of al Qaeda. We knew that he was close to bin Laden, although not co-located obviously He knew cell leaders.

He knew logistics people. He knew finance people. We knew that he was really one of the intellectual leaders of the group. He was interviewed on September 13, , about abu Zubaydah: But he basically was moralistically chief operating officer, made sure and facilitated the plan, the travel of various al Qaeda officials. So there was a lot of information derived from him on that score that I recall Subsequent investigations by the CIA inspector general and other independent bodies confirmed that there was valuable, actionable intelligence derived first from Abu Zubaydah and later from other high-value detainees that were subject to the enhanced techniques Abu Zubaydah has also been frequently used to justify the continued operation of Guantanamo.

I will just say up front that the issue of Guantanamo The government fears that a military commission hearing for abu Zubaydah will reveal that the facts upon which the American torture policy substantially rests were false and known to be false at the time. The military commission hearing will also reveal that many statements made by the highest officials about him were false and known to be false when made. The legal memo revealing the robust dissent to the very practices inflicted upon abu Zubaydah was not only concealed but extraordinary efforts were made to destroy all copies of the memo.

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The more accurate description of this conduct would be spoliation of evidence revealing the false factual and legal basis upon which abu Zubaydah was tortured. The spoliation efforts were revealed by Phillip Zelikow, a high ranking State Department lawyer and confidant of Secretary Condoleeza Rice, in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Zelikow explained that the memo caused senior figures in the Bush White House to become enraged, and that they actually sought to collect and destroy all the copies.

That a government concealed and destroyed documents evidencing dissent to its justification for torture speaks volumes about why that government would refuse to provide abu Zubaydah judicial process that would disclose an even more damning truth: The failure of the Office of Military Commissions to charge and try abu Zubaydah inevitably will be viewed as part of the lamentable pattern of conduct that began with the assertion of false facts to justify his torture in , and produced distorted, inaccurate and incomplete legal opinions as the government labored in vain to contrive the legality of his torture.

And that perception undermines the legitimacy of the entire military commission program. Abu Zubaydah asks only for what he was promised by the president of this nation: The reformed military commissions have been trumpeted as wholly consistent with basic American precepts of justice. If the military commissions are to be viewed as legitimate, they should not appear to be complicit in disguising the truth. Instead, military commissions should serve as a vehicle that reveals the truth. The failure to prosecute abu Zubaydah discredits not only American political practices but also the military commissions themselves.

Abu Zubaydah asks simply that he be allowed to have a legitimate hearing at which he may challenge the allegations and evidence leveled against him. But as time lingers on, what legitimacy will be found in a system that continues to delay the trial of a man the government once described as a high-ranking al Qaeda operative?

Abu Zubaydah is ready for the process to begin, and after ten years of detention and evidence gathering, the government ought to be too. After more than ten years of waiting, your prompt consideration of this request is appreciated. Posted by Valtin at 7: A Resistance Training Perspective.

In a letter to me dated March 7, , the CIA responded that my appeal had been "accepted and arrangements will be made for its consideration by the appropriate members of the Agency Release Panel. The Acting Information and Privacy Coordinator for the agency noted that they didn't think they could respond within the 20 working days they were supposed to.

He was right, as I have not heard anything back yet. Nevertheless, I'm publishing the letter because it documents the ridiculousness of holding such documents secret. This letter constitutes an administrative appeal to the Agency Release Panel, such appeal being guaranteed by Section 3. Viscuso informed me the CIA determined the document could not be released in sanitized form, citing Section 1.

The following are my reasons for appeal: This was also covered in the worldwide press, as this quote from the UK Telegraph demonstrates: An example of such likely material can be found in the public release of the Al Qaeda Manchester Manual, which includes a chapter on Al Qaeda countermeasures to interrogation.

If the paper I have asked to be declassified includes a discussion of the Al Qaeda countermeasures of any descriptive sort, then I argue that at least some of this material, which could be segregable, should be released. The Manchester Manual itself can be accessed on the Internet at http: Once more, it appears more than likely that these countermeasures used in the interrogation of the operative Abu Zubaydah drew upon the initial analyses utilized in the first examination of Al Qaeda countermeasures written in December or January , for which I have requested declassification.

In other words, it seems highly likely that the substantive discussion of countermeasures in the contested document has already largely been a subject of public revelation and discourse. Human intelligence sources that might be identifiable could be redacted from the document, as is so often done. The source of the material, largely from the Manchester document, and the methods enumerated, either from the Manchester document, or from SERE methods of counter-resistance, are already well-established in the public record.

There remains only the possibility that this document is associated with some covert action that could cause damage to national security if revealed. However, I find it unlikely that such covert action is discussed in this particular document. Should a classified program of some sort be mentioned in the document, surely that could be segregated and redacted. It has been the subject of documentaries and newspaper editorials. It would provide information about relatively recent and controversial government policy decisions, in particular in relation to interrogation b.

It could potentially expose government wrong-doing or misconduct c. It would contribute to the ongoing national debate about torture and interrogation, a debate that includes both civil liberties organizations, such as the ACLU, and former administration high officials, such as former Vice President Cheney d.

I look forward to receiving your decision on this appeal in a timely fashion. If you have any questions, or believe discussion of this matter would be beneficial, please contact me directly at XXXX sbcglobal.

Posted by Valtin at 5: Originally posted at Truthout. Robert Bales may have been under the influence of the controversial antimalarial drug mefloquine also known as Lariam when he allegedly killed 17 men, women and children in two villages outside Kandahar last March. Using false information; faulty interpretation of documents and innuendo; and in one case, withholding key disclosures regarding their background, these authors took a serious issue - the dangerous psychiatric and neurotoxic effects of mefloquine on some people and the history of the use of this drug by the military - and twisted it to further an agenda that just happened to match US interests in limiting speculation about the Kandahar massacre to Bales.

The other author, a former top Army psychiatrist, Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, has written three articles for Time's Battleland that have strongly suggested Bales' alleged crime was linked to mefloquine use. She recently also gave an interview on the topic to Nina Shapiro at Seattle Weekly. Ritchie's background in certain aspects is not well known and certainly is surprising, given the mefloquine issue. But back in , she was Lieutenant Colonel Ritchie, program director for mental health policy for the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs and consultant on suicidal detainees at Guantanamo.

Interestingly, this was at the same time all incoming detainees were forced to take large treatment doses of mefloquine, even as she likely had access to their medical records. In addition, at an unspecified time between and , she trained psychiatrists for Behavioral Science Consultation Teams BSCT that worked closely with Guantanamo interrogators.

While the UN and numerous human rights groups have decried the use of health professionals in interrogations, Ritchie continues to defend the policy. An "Emergency" Review of Mefloquine? When it was first leaked that a single soldier, part of an Army Stryker Brigade, was in custody for the March 11 killings of up to 17 men, women and children in two villages near a counterinsurgency-inspired "Village Stability Platform" [VSP] , the horror of the massacre made it difficult to understand how the soldier - later identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales - could have done the killings.

Accordingly, a slew of news media reports focused on Bales' family life, his police record, his associates, the history of his duty postings and the possibility of his having post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD , even while the Department of Defense DoD was quickly pulling off the Internet as many references to and pictures of Bales from military sources that it could.

It is not surprising that some of the speculation surrounding the DoD's account of Bales as a lone shooter should focus upon what drugs he had been taking. One of the drugs discussed, mefloquine, is a controversial antimalarial drug known to have possible psychiatric and neurotoxic side effects. The reason for the heightened interest was Benjamin's contention that nine days after the killings, "a top-level Pentagon official ordered a widespread, emergency review" of how the drug was administered to troops. The implication was that a mefloquine-induced psychosis in Bales was possibly connected to the murders.

Benjamin had mistaken a March 20 "tasker" memo by a regional US medical command for the original order, which had been given by the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs ASD-HA back on January In his article, Benjamin quoted a March 20 Battleland post by Ritchie where she first raised the Bales-mefloquine link: Ritchie asked "whether mefloquine or other toxic exposures - to licit or illicit drugs - might have been a contributing factor in the Afghan massacre. According to CENTCOM rules, the antibiotic doxycycline, not mefloquine, is to be used for all malaria prophylaxis in Afghanistan, unless specifically medically contraindicated.

For soldiers deploying to Afghanistan, that medication has been overwhelmingly doxycycline, not mefloquine. There is no evidence that Bales was ever prescribed mefloquine, and while the Army's January review was prompted by known failures to prescribe the drug correctly, there is no evidence that this happened to Bales.

According to prescription figures provided to Truthout by DoD officials, mefloquine prescriptions have been declining for some time. In , the Army gave out , scripts for doxycycline to , soldiers. The DoD could not say if all of these were for malaria, or for other antibiotic use. At the same time, only 1, soldiers utilizing 1, scripts were prescribed mefloquine, down approximately one-third from levels. In , there were 6, scripts written for I Corps personnel and only for mefloquine.

On December 2, , right around the time of Bales' actual deployment, the Army's policy changed again and mefloquine was downgraded from a second-line to a third-line malaria prophylactic drug. While none of the above proves Bales did or did not take mefloquine in Afghanistan, it makes the likelihood quite small.

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The official added, "within theater they certainly have visibility as to what is being dispensed and to who. Hence, assuming Bales correctly was prescribed doxycycline upon deployment, one would have to posit that Bales somehow lost his medication and then wrongly was prescribed mefloquine by some doctor in theater. There is no evidence or claim to date that this ever happened, though anecdotal reports have suggested that some events like this have occurred from time to time.

In October , Ritchie indicated she first went to Guantanamo in order to "review all the suicidal gestures among the detainees. Warren Neary, is quoted as saying that in the "18 months since the detention camp opened," there had been 28 suicide attempts by 18 individuals. As a physician, Ritchie likely reviewed the medical records for some or many of the detainees under her review. The treatment dose is a single 1, mg dose, versus the weekly mg dose given for malaria prophylaxis, and what Bales would have taken if he had taken mefloquine upon arrival in Afghanistan.

Both treatment and prophylaxis dosages of mefloquine can cause serious side effects, according to medical reports. An April 16, , meeting of the Interagency Working Group for Antimalarial Chemotherapy, which included DoD officials, the Working Group warned, "other treatment regimes should be carefully considered before mefloquine is used at the doses required for treatment. Monica Parise, noted that the group specifically looked at the neuropsychiatric side effects of mefloquine. But I don't really think we have a good explanation of what that is. I mean, as I mentioned, at the meeting there was discussion -- and we did have a psychiatrist there -- of, well, are people susceptible, are they susceptible to these problems and this drug has brought that out?

Ritchie has never spoken out on the detainees' mefloquine dosing, which continued at least through She did not return a request for comment for this article. In one high-profile evaluation, of Salim Hamden - whose case ultimately led to the Hamden v. Rumsfeld Supreme Court case in , which threw out the first version of the military commissions as violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions - Ritchie disagreed with the defense psychiatrist that Hamden, who had been tortured, suffered from PTSD and found him "manipulative.

Given Ritchie's interest in suicide and her history of consulting on suicides at Guantanamo, one wonders if she were aware of the toxicology results for reported Guantanamo "suicide" Abdul Rahman Al Amri, which made special note of looking for mefloquine in his blood. Both James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen have said they relied on the theory in their construction of a torture program for the CIA that same year. The article focused on the interrogation of Mohammad Al Qahtani in late , an interrogation the Guantanamo military commissions convening authority admitted amounted to torture.

In the Psychiatric News article, Ritchie defended the use of psychiatrists in interrogations, claiming, "Psychologists and psychiatrists are experts at enhancing rapport They also can counteract behavioral drift, the spiraling down of interrogation into a culture of coercion. NPR said Ritchie contended "at the beginning of the war on terror, there was misunderstanding of 'what the rules were' for interrogations.

In the book " Women in Psychiatry: Personal Perspectives ," Ritchie wrote, "Although controversial in the American Psychiatric Association and the media, I continue to believe that psychologists and forensic psychiatrists can contribute in a very positive way to legal, safe and effective interrogation.

Ritchie mentioned, as if in passing, her presentation in an April 4 article at Battleland two days after this author informed an anti-Lariam activist of its existence. There followed a flood of anecdotal information and articles in the media, but rigorous scientific literature was limited. Indeed, a review article on antimalarial drug toxicity in the journal Drug Safety listed dozens of peer-reviewed articles on mefloquine, its efficacy as a drug and its potential side effects.

For full disclosure sake, she should release her paper or notes pertaining to that presentation. Why Push a Bales-Mefloquine Link? Both Benjamin and Ritchie appear to have had an agenda: None of their articles ever considers that Bales may not have acted alone, or that indeed, is not proven to have killed anyone in those hamlets where 17 died.

Lacking such balanced reporting, it would seem the anti-torture journalist Benjamin and the former trainer for Guantanamo interrogation consultants have joined up to help promote the mainstream narrative of Bales as a single and possibly deranged killer. Together, they were quite successful in spreading the idea that Bales might have gone crazy from mefloquine.

Deranged Bales may have been, but whether his actions, if proven, were taken alone or as part of a larger US military or Special Forces operation that dark March night are matters for full investigation. An article in the July-Sept. Except, in , the AFM was an earlier version. By September , the newer version included less restrictive controls on a number of questionable interrogation techniques, and had seriously lightened the restriction on the use of drugs in interrogations.

It also included an annex to the manual, Appendix M, that was meant strictly for detainees not covered by Geneva POW protections, i. Appendix M allowed for the use of isolation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation as a "field expedient" method , and anticipated at least some use of environmental and diet "manipulations. We can't, of course, know what drafts the JAG officials had seen in We don't know, for instance, whether or to what degree the techniques that ended up in the final document's Appendix M were then included in the earlier drafts.

Speaking of all those references to specific paragraphs of Appendix M, note that Bradbury wrote this memo on April 13, Appendix M was not finalized and released until September 6, The documents showed the areas the Navy was prepared to utilize, without the mandatory risk assessments, medical plans, surveys of training areas and coordinating their activities with local, state and federal law enforcement officials.

The release of these documents forced the Navy to postpone this training for at least 2 years. In , Truthout journalist Mike Ludwig unearthed with a Freedom of Information Act request with the Interior Department revealed that fracking technology was being used on offshore oil rigs in the ecologically sensitive Santa Barbara Channel.

At one point, lawsuits filed by environmental groups forced federal officials to place a moratorium [8] on offshore fracking in the Channel while regulators reviewed the practice and their rules for making it safe. In , the EPA issued a new rules requiring offshore drillers to disclose fracking chemicals they dump into the ocean off the California coast. In , a Truthout investigation revealed commonplace fracking in the Gulf of Mexico , where offshore oil and gas drillers used fracking technology to maximize oil and gas production in aging undersea wells.

A story broken by journalist Mike Ludwig revealed that the Obama administration had rubber-stamped 1, permit modifications to allow fracking in the Gulf of Mexico [10] [11] and had routinely excluded the practice from in-depth environmental reviews—even during the initial days of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

That investigation shined a critical light on industry's practice of mixing toxic fracking chemicals with drilling wastewater and dumping it directly into shallow waters of the Gulf. In September , Truthout broke a story that exposed a new policy forbidding visitors to Virginia prisons that are run by the Department of Corrections from using tampons or feminine hygiene cups. Marissa Alexander was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—for firing a warning shot in what many argue was self-defense against her abusive ex-husband.

An appeals court overturned her conviction, and Alexander agreed to a plea bargain that included time served for the 1, days she had already spent behind bars, another 65 days in jail and two years of house arrest. When her period of electronic ankle monitoring ended, and she was finally truly free, Alexander spoke to Truthout about her experience and her commitment to fight for other criminalized survivors of domestic violence. Integrity Management", cited an investigative report by Truthout as a document for the committee's investigation. Truthout has closely followed issues affecting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Coverage has especially focused on veteran health care and post-traumatic stress disorder. Truthout has published reporting both on the fine print details of the proposed legislation and the groups who are fighting back. Dahr Jamail was awarded the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for his reporting on climate change and other environmental issues. On May 13, , after Jason Leopold posted on Truthout that Karl Rove had been indicted by the grand jury investigating the Plame affair , Rove spokesman Mark Corallo denied the story, calling it "a complete fabrication".

Rove writes that Leopold is a "nut with Internet access" and that "thirty-five reporters called [Rove's defense attorney] Luskin or Corallo to ask about the Truthout report. Jason Leopold no longer works at Truthout.

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He is now a senior investigative reporter at BuzzFeed. Giroux , policy director Robert Naiman , and Lewis R. The site also held what it called the first-ever "virtual card check ", whereby paid writers faxed PDFs of their individual signatures to members of the site's organizing committee who were based in New York, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Chicago respectively in order to verify their unionizing authorization cards and establish a bargaining unit of the writers.

Maya Schenwar and Matt Renner stated in their article on the event that the organization was "the first online-only news site to successfully unionize". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Truthout Type of site.