This is Democracy – Episode 119: Counterterrorism and Torture

intro 0:05
This is Democracy,

a podcast that explores the interracial intergenerational and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy.

Jeremi Suri 0:20
Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today’s episode will focus on one of the most complex and difficult challenges modern American democracy are confronted. And that’s the challenge of managing counterterrorism operations operations designed to thwart the actions of potential terrorists at home and abroad, while at the same time maintaining civil liberties and protecting basic democratic principles about human dignity. And we have with us I think, one of the most experienced, articulate and interesting people who has worked in this field and thought so deeply about it. Ali Soufan Ali is a former FBI special special agent and lead investigator on some of the world’s most complex inter international terrorism cases. He’s now the chairman and CEO of the Soufan group, founder of the Soufan center. And he’s been featured in many books and films, if you’ve seen films on 911. on Hulu and elsewhere, you’ve certainly seen his character depicted. He’s been in television series, he’s a Kaiser, frequent newspaper columnist, and he’s the author of two terrific books that I recommend to all of our listeners. The first is the anatomy of terror, from the depth of bin Laden to the rise of the Islamic State and the title is self explanatory, you gives you a real inside perspective. And then his second book, which was originally published in 2011, and now just republished with materials that had been formerly classified and held back by the CIA now finally available in the book. It’s really a thoughtful, insightful book, The Black banners, the inside story of 911 and the war against al Qaeda, and it’s available in paperback and its new form. Ali, thank you for joining us today. Oh, thank you for having me. Before we turn to our discussion with Ali, we have of course, Zachary’s scene setting poem. Zachary. What is the title of your poem today?

Zachary Suri 2:16
Do not turn from the bruises that we bear.

Jeremi Suri 2:20
Okay, well, let’s hear it.

Zachary Suri 2:22
Do not turn from the bruises that we bare for memory of love and leveled fields, you must remember them return their glare. There lies in the bottoms, the oceans tear the ones that could have killed and left a field. Do not turn from the bruises that we bear. Do not leave the dead and the tortured layer truth is not a body to be concealed. You must remember them return their glare. You will search earth for words she cannot spare cracks you cannot find stuck in her ideals. Do not turn from the bruises that we bear. Look through the eyes recall you did not care. See the bald ribs, the blood and the skin peels you must remember them return their glare. Please do not whistle here upon the air. Ignorance shall not make memories yield. Do not turn from the bruises that we ban, you must remember them return their glare.

Jeremi Suri 3:13
That’s fantastic. Exactly what is your poem about?

Zachary Suri 3:16
my poem is really about the importance of remembering all the times that we’ve transgressed on our democratic ideals and all the times that we have, in many ways violated our own principles when it comes to human rights. I think

Jeremi Suri 3:29
that’s a perfect spot to turn to ollie you you’ve lived this. How did you get involved in this area? You your family is from Lebanon. Just tell us your story. It’s in your book, but please share it with our listeners if you would as well.

Ali Soufan 3:44
Oh, well. Thank you. And thank you, Zack for the wonderful poem. Um, I never thought in a million years I will be working in national security or FBI. When I was in college, I wanted to basically stay in academia, I wanted to do my PhD and teach national security or international relations and the way that my life ended up for something that is not planned at all. A couple of my fraternity friends were applying for the FBI and as a joke, I applied with them just so we can see how long I will last in the process before they kick me out. And ironically, I was only one who was accepted. And at the time I was 25 years old, very young. Usually, you know, the FBI, you you’re in, you’re on your second career, you’re in your 30s so it was a pretty young age. And, and I was getting ready to go to England to Cambridge University, to do my dissertation and at The time the average age of for dissertation over there was 36 years old and I was 25 years old. I thought, you know what, why not? Let me go to the FBI for a couple of years. And then I can always go back to academia. And it was more a sense of adventure. You know, the, the, there was a TV show, I think the X Files at the time, which was very popular, and I was a big fan of the show. And the whole FBI for me was literally The X Files, nothing that has to do with terrorism or national security. And then my life took a totally different term. And here we are.

Jeremi Suri 5:37
And and you describe in in the black banner, so well, I how you sort of moved into counterterrorism? What was the what was the route into that? What What drew you into that?

Ali Soufan 5:49
Well, I was always interested about the impact of non state actors on national security and on regional security. And that basically was supposed to be the topic of my dissertation. So I was monitoring a lot of the non state actors and their activities in the Middle East region, groups like Hezbollah groups like Hamas. And I was when I was doing my research, I kind of paid attention a little bit to this former Mujahideen guy, Osama bin Laden, he has been, you know, declaring jihad against the United States, putting some statements out there that is, you know, very anti American. And I think he was trying to create the Sunni version of Hezbollah in so many different ways. So I was really interested in knowing more about him. So when I joined the FBI, and I was appointed to, to a position in the New York field office, which is the largest field office to the FBI, and most of the terrorism cases at the time, would be worked from the New York office because of the World Trade Center bombing, the initial one, the first one and then the tour stop when Omar Abdul Rahman, the blind shake, was planning him and his followers to blow up tunnels and bridges and the 26 Federal Plaza and the UN building. So most of the terrorism cases concerning Jihad ease at the time were being worked from the news from the New York office. So I wrote this memo about Osama bin Laden and that I believe that he can create a lot of problems down the road for the United States that my mom made it all the way up the chain of command to the head of the National Security Division in the in the office, john O’Neill, the famous john O’Neill, who tragically was killed later at the World Trade Center attack and 911. And john asked me about the memo. And why do I think or some other lighting was dangerous and did not know at the time that we had two people from the office focusing on Osama bin Laden as a financier not necessarily as a terrorist. Later on, the East African embassy bombings in August of 1998, took place took place. And it was obvious that bin Laden was behind it. And so john, you know, took me under his wing, and he had me focus on Al Qaeda network. And since then, I’ve been working archive, even after I left the FBI, I continue to, you know, focus on these networks and how they operate and how they coordinate their activities across the world, and especially in the Muslim world, and write about them as you mentioned, for example, anatomy of terror was all about how this jihadi Salafi brand that bin Laden established to, you know, the, the middle east by storm, and remember, ISIS used to be the branch of al Qaeda in Iraq. So it is part of that of that narrative.

Jeremi Suri 9:15
And our our mutual friend, Lawrence Wright has written that that you were one of the few people who really anticipated 911 and might have been the last opportunity to stop this. Can you tell us more about that?

Ali Soufan 9:31
This is the tragic part of this whole thing. You know, if you look into the investigations that took place around 911 to include the 911 Commission Report, you will see that we had some opportunities that could have stopped possibly that tack. However, we miss these opportunities when I was in charge of the investigation, of the attack against the USS Cole in Yemen that took place in October of 2000. We found out that there was a meeting that took place in Southeast Asia and money was delivered from Saudi Arabia to Yemen to that meeting in Saudi Arabia, why people who were involved in the USS Cole and one of these individuals talked to me about, about delivering the money. So we were asking other entities and the US government for the longest time if they were aware of any meeting that took place over there and in the answer was no. And we continued our own investigation when we found out the identity of people who were involved in that meeting, and we continued to find out locations and phone numbers associated with that alleged meeting in Southeast Asia. And the answer was always now, we don’t know anything about it. On 912, all the questions that have been asking regarding that specific meeting in Southeast Asia, and the very first time we asked a question was November of 2000, a few weeks after the USCIS call attack, all the information was given to us all the answers were given to us on September 12. It turned out that we knew what was going on in Southeast Asia and two of the people who were involved in that, in that meeting, Khalid medora, North hasami have been in the United States since January of 2000. Unfortunately, none of this information was passed to us until after 911. And that’s why in the 911 Commission Report, you will see that passing the information about Southeast Asia to the FBI team investigating the US law school, you know, our team could have been one of the opportunities that possibly could have stopped 911 at its early stages and all these things or as you know, detailed in the black banners.

Jeremi Suri 12:07
Yes, yes. And and detailed in in in first, not just your recounting but also documented as well. So it’s very impressive the way you recount the story. I guess one of the questions that’s so significant here for us today, living through a pandemic is this question about anticipation. We failed to anticipate the 911 attacks just as we failed to anticipate and prepare for the pandemic. How do we do better? What what’s the lesson you’ve taken away from this?

Ali Soufan 12:35
I think transparency and accountability. And I think, you know, this is probably what has been missing for so many years, so many decades, frankly. You know, I think as you know, when the black banners was face away, it was first published, lots of information was deleted was redacted from the book. They redacted significant portions that has to do with some of the techniques that we use to the US government used after 911. Two include torture, and he’s interrogation techniques. You know, the American people have been lied to, by their own government about not only the efficacy of these techniques, but the alleged information that was produced by torture. And now if you look at the black banners, and you will see all these redactions uplifted. And now you can read what’s going on, you will see that, you know, people who are really not truthful about how we get information that resulted in, you know, the arrest of Jose PD, the so called duty bomber or information that resulted in stopping plots. In New York or in LA or in other locations, you will see lines where you know, you can read half of the sentence that says after you know they applied, let’s say sleep deprivation and then you will have couple of lines redacted. You think that you know, he gave some information after sleep deprivation and now since the book has been unredacted, you will read that what they redacted was not a single piece of information was giving or something like this. So and you will see it again and again and again. You’ll see exactly how we get the information. So the unredacted version of the book goes hand in hand with with your question it could have not come at a more significant time in America. today. As we know the truth is an increasingly I always call it debase currency. But that thing has been going on for a while it did not start with the Trump administration. It actually was there when this administration took power. It went to its logical next step under this administration, where now we have a fact free culture. But now, you know, the fact that a lot of times truth is a swamp by by partisan talking points, or by alternative facts, this is not new. Now, we have also, under this fact free culture, under the this administration, you know, the truth is also being swamped by conspiracy theories and, and right emotions. And no wonder why our adversaries find it easy to divide us with this information. Because we fell for it before we’ve seen how the American people, at least more than 70% of the American public, on the eve of the Iraq War, believed that Saddam Hussein was working with al Qaeda. on developing w MDS, we’ve seen Secretary Powell going to the UN and talking about how they’ve been shaken, Libby provided intelligence that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were working together in developing dirty bombs to be you know, to be used in American cities. And unfortunately, all this information was based on lies that was produced by torture, even check a Libby was arrested was tortured. He gave them what they wanted to hear. And after the war in Iraq, we found out that all the things were allies. So they went back to check and they asked him, Why did you lie? He said, Well, I was being tortured. I told you what you wanted to hear. That is that is what. That’s what that’s where, why we are here today. We are here today, because we have been consistently ignoring transparency and consistently ignoring accountability. And this is the logical next step.

Jeremi Suri 17:20
And one of the most fascinating parts of your book, and really what what is worth the price of the book unto itself, or your chapters toward the end, the last third of the book, where you discuss your experiences, in particular, with Abu Zubaydah, who was a high level, Al Qaeda figure they’re not as high level as some people made him out to be. And the ways in which the use of torture undermined your long standing efforts and the efforts by others in the FBI to get good information from him. This is a case of people who really should have known better in the CIA and elsewhere, who you you describe in detail, lying about this? Why? I mean, assuming they like you wanted to find the bad guys. Sure. Why did they lie about this?

Ali Soufan 18:08
Sure. I think you know, you have to differentiate between the people who back in Washington trying to promote and support the torture program. And the one the men and women of the CIA in the field, I always differentiate with, you know, and a lot of people when it comes to torture, they make it vi versus CIA. It’s not AI versus AI. It’s, you know, officers and agents in the field versus bureaucrats and some other folks sitting in their cubicles in Washington. So I think you see in the book, step by step how we get information. Literally, I was Aveda, started to cooperate from Hello, literally, I asked him, what’s his name? He looked at me and he gave me an alias. He said that would meaning David in Arabic. And I said, What if I call you honey, and he was totally shocked that I actually asked him that now, honey is the name that his parents nicknamed him as a child. So he was shocked to know that I actually know that small little detail about him. You know, from the beginning, I asked him more. Why do you think you’re here today? Why do you think we we found you and in, we caught you. What mistake did you do? What Who were you talking to an individual that you didn’t know before, but you really wanted to do that operation? It was a bluff. It was a total bluff. And he was I was shocked that he looked at me and he basically started telling me about a terrorist plot that they were planning at the time and he was talking to person to do it in a third country. That’s a country that ally close ally to the United States.

And then

that information was written and sent to Washington. And that’s why, you know, we were immediately told when I was a beta became sick. The death is not an option because the leadership in Washington in you that he is providing actionable intelligence that was extremely important. During that time period when he was in the hospital, as you will see from the details in the book and the narrative and the timeline. He identified KSM Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the mastermind of 911. And he identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed because we showed him the wrong photo, we he was telling me about another plot in another country. And, you know, that he was aware of, and he told me that the mastermind of that a plot is a person known as a yet we also know as a as Mohammed masuri. Currently, he is number three, in Al Qaeda. And also at the same time he, he was involved in the East Africa embassy bombings, actually, he was a mastermind of the twin bombings in Nairobi, in Tanzania. And so at the time, at the hospital, we did not have any photobook. The only thing we had is the poster of the most wanted jihadi terrorists that the FBI put out in the aftermath of 911. That included everyone who was involved in in plots or in terrorist attacks against the United States to include members of al Qaeda or to include people who were involved in other terrorists or terrorist Ops, even even if they are Hezbollah members, and so forth. So, you know, my partner clicked on the wrong photo when he was trying to click on About Mohammed and Missouri’s image. And, and basically, always, Aveda just said, Oh, no, that’s not him. That is a matar. That is the mastermind of the plains operations. And I was shocked to look at the picture and to see that this is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at the time, we did not know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was even a member of al Qaeda. He was his picture was on the poster because of the Manila airport, the bushong couplet, and he was wanted, because of his involvement in that specific plot him and his relative Rumsey use of so we continue to get actionable intelligence from the hospital. And about 10 days later, the CDC that Counterterrorism Center team came, the officers and the analysts were really amazing, but they had a contractor with them. And it was clear that, you know, some people back in, and Washington and Langley wanted to do some different program when it comes to the detainees. And that a program does not include anything that we’ve done before as you as government, and this is where the so called and his interrogation techniques started to, to, to shape to take shape.

Jeremi Suri 23:23
And and these enhanced interrogation techniques, you show I think, pretty definitively what we already knew, which is actually that they don’t work, they create despondence. And they created a situation where the person being interrogated simply tells the torturer what they want.

Ali Soufan 23:41
Sure, because there’s a huge difference between compliance and cooperation. You know, when you’re doing an interrogation, you want cooperation, you don’t want compliance. I don’t want the person to tell me what I want to hear. I want the person to tell me the truth. You know, a case of compliance is the case we just talked about Jeremy just a little bit ago, even shake olivi You know, he was tortured. And he gave information linking al Qaeda to 911 to Saddam Hussein to W MDS. And that was used to basically justify a war in Iraq. Now, imagine all the things happened, basically was based on a lie that people you got because of torture. Now try to be me convincing people in Washington torture doesn’t work when the folks in the White House and in the Pentagon get exactly what they wanted the justification to go to war in Iraq. So it was very difficult to say that it does not work. However, by the time they knew it is not worth it was too late. We already went to Iraq. We already started a war where, you know, was was it was disasterous not only to the region but also to the United States. You know, national security interest Both in the Middle East and and frankly here. So yeah, there’s a big difference between compliance and cooperation and a good interrogation results cooperation does not, you know, I don’t want people to tell me what I want to hear, I want the truth. Right.

Jeremi Suri 25:18
And your book really had me thinking Ollie about what the alternative is, clearly, you show that there are bad actors out there, who, for whatever reason, want to harm American citizens. So we didn’t pretend that this is not the case. But one reads the black banners and sees how, in many ways, what we did made things far, far worse. So So what’s the alternative?

Ali Soufan 25:43
Well, the alternative is to have our strategy in sync with our values and our laws. When our strategies are not in sync with our values and our lives, we’re going to end up, you know, finding ourselves in quagmires and disasters situations. And that’s exactly what happened on the war and terror during the war and terror. I’ll give you an example. A we, you know, after we went to Iraq, and you know, the images of Abu Ghraib, for example, the had so much created so much damage to the reputation of the United States all over the world. And because of our grade, more and more Jihad ease, went to Iraq, to join the insurgency than any other reason. And this is according to the Pentagon. This is according to the many generals who testified in Congress about this, you know, kind on the eve of 911, had about 400 pledged members, people who took an oath to to al Qaeda network and an oath gave an oath to some of enlighten. Today, Al Qaeda has more than 40,000 members across the Muslim world, Al Qaeda operated only in, in Afghanistan in Kandahar a little bit in Kabul. Now they have control of areas, large areas in Yemen, areas the size of Texas, in the Sahel region, areas in Somalia, they are still in Afghanistan, they are in so many different regions to include Southeast Asia. And this is after we spend, what five $6 trillion in fighting them. So that gives you an idea why it is extremely important to fight. Like we live, fight for our values for our principles. We have a lot of people who are very aware on how to deal with groups like Al Qaeda, unlike ISIS, and like any terrorist organizations. And, and I think unfortunately, we totally disregard the golden rule of warfare. I always like to mention sanzu, when he said, If you know your enemy, and know yourself, you will win 100 times and 100 battles. So imagine if you did not take take the time to learn anything about your enemy. And you totally forget about who you are and forget about yourself. And that’s why we are where we are today, unfortunately. So I think the alternative was clear, do it right? Do it by the book, have the experts lead the field, don’t just give politicians what they want to hear. Give them the truth. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened now with COVID. You know, we’re not listening to the scientists, we’re live listening to partisan talking points. We’re giving politicians what they want to hear, regardless to the fact. And that’s why we are find ourself in another disaster. So it’s basically unfortunately, it’s the same, the same factors that led us to these two disasters.

Jeremi Suri 29:02
We like to close our podcast every week, I’ll leave with something hopeful you’ve given us really a detailed and compelling history of, of, in a sense, our fall into a world without enough attention to facts with the misuse of power at many levels. What can young people do to change this? Many of our listeners care deeply about American society and democracy? our podcast is built around the notion that every generation has to rebuild and reinvent democracy. So what is your advice to our listeners who care about these issues? To help this process of doing it right and reversing many of these dynamics that you describe?

Ali Soufan 29:43
Look, you know what, there’s still a lot of positive things in America and I’m not ready to give up yet. That’s why I fought for nine years on redact the black banners, because the black banner is extremely important. Torture was one of these devices that became a partisan issue. in American politics, remember, as of 2016, candidate Trump was saying you want to bring back waterboarding and wars and waterboarding. And he was getting a lot of cheers because it became a divisive, it became part of the cultural wars in America. And a lot of these things was based on a lie. And that’s why I fought for nine years for this book to be unredacted. So people can know the truth of what happened about one of these wedge issues. And then they can make up their mind about these kind of things. Always fight for transparency, always fight for accountability. After nine years, and even under this administration, we were able to have a win and we were able to have a success in in in declassifying something that has been classified for years and years and years, about the lies regarding the efficacy of torture and put for the world how we actually got information. So I think that gives you an idea that, you know, if you participated in the process, if you worked from within the system, if you fought hard enough, and if you fought smart enough, sorry, if you if you fight hard enough, and if you fight long enough, and smart enough, you will win, and you will, you know tooth always win in America. But in the same time, I like to use the title of the poem, don’t turn from the Brutus, from the bruises that we bear. You know, let’s let’s face our past our mistakes, acknowledge them, correct them, and turn the page and try to write a better one.

Jeremi Suri 31:53
Well, and Ali your your career is a model of standing up for truth. And also working between it seems to me these false extremes that were given you, you believe in the role of an organization like the FBI, but also want to hold it to the highest standards. And I think we all as citizens, have an obligation to do that. And your references sun zoo is spot on, because that’s showing that we have knowledge, not just of the threats, but knowledge of who we are and what we look like we’re standing up for Zachary, I wanted to bring you in on on our closing here. One of the points Ali just made was using your poem as as an inspiration to stand up for the truth. Do you think that your generation is ready to stand up for the truth, even when surrounded by all the pressures to to lie that Ali describes in his experiences?

Zachary Suri 32:45
I think in some ways, my generation is is much more dissatisfied than most at the line that goes on in politics. I think it’s not a question of we try and stop such such lying and such such a few station. But I think it’s a question of will we get in? Will we get in the arena? Will we actually decide to get involved in politics and in government and public service?

Jeremi Suri 33:06
Well, we certainly hope you will. And I hope that for all of our listeners, at least, who finds a new book, The Black banners with the declassified materials that he fought to get declassified from the CIA. This book will inspire us all to see the possibilities that each of us can can play in our society, to bring out more truth and to defend our values while also defending the other purposes of our society and security and prosperity. Ali, thank you so much for joining us to sharing sharing with us.

Ali Soufan 33:37
Thank you, I really appreciate it. And to all your listeners, please. Nothing matters if you don’t vote, so be sure to vote.

Jeremi Suri 33:46
That’s exactly right. You took the words out of my mouth that we all have to vote and we all have to remain engaged after we vote. Thank you for joining us. In this week’s episode of This is Democracy.

outro 34:05
This podcast is produced by the liberal arts development studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lemke. You can find his music at Harrison lemke.com.

subscribe and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday featuring new perspectives on democracy

Transcribed by https://otter.ai