Glenn Carle is an American writer and former intelligence officer. He is the author of The Interrogator: An Education (2011), [1] which describes his involvement in the interrogation of a man at the time believed to be one of the top members of al-Qa'ida.
Glenn Carle grew up in Brookline, a town part of greater Boston, in a house "where four generations of his family made their home". [2] Carle received a B.A. in Government at Harvard and in 1985 an M.A. in European Studies and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), [3] and completed further graduate work in Europe. He spent 20 years in clandestine field operations with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). [2] Carle retired as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Transnational Threats from the National Intelligence Council. [4]
Carle is the author of The Interrogator: An Education (2011), [5] a memoir which describes his involvement in the interrogation of a "high-value detainee" at a "black site" (off-the-books) prison. Carle tells the story of the brutal interrogation of a man who was believed to be a top al-Qaeda operative but later turned out to be innocent. [6] Carle determined that the suspect was not who he was supposed to be, found the rendition "stupid, bad tradecraft" and the operation to be "a house of cards, like so much of the war on terrorism. [7] Carle's superiors overruled him and sent the suspect to Hotel California, the CIA's most secret detention centre, to be tortured. [8] The suspect at the center of Carle's story is supposed to be Haji Pacha Wazir, an Emirati citizen. He was freed in February 2010, eight years after his capture. [9]
In Carle's words, the CIA made him rewrite The Interrogator "literally a dozen times over" and its objections were some legitimate concerns "amply mixed with ludicrous pettifoggery and ass-covering", causing him to leave in the redacted bits, complete with black bars, and add the occasional withering explanatory footnote, like one that reads: "Apparently the CIA fears that the redacted passage would either humiliate the organization for incompetence or expose its officers to ridicule; unless the Agency considers obtuse incompetence a secret intelligence method." [10]
Johns Hopkins Magazine has found The Interrogator to be "unusually candid in its portrayal of the CIA's internal workings—and the toll the agency's moral gray zones take on its operatives". [3] Carle's book was well received internationally and he was interviewed at the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2012. [11] Ali Soufan, a renowned FBI Special Agent who was involved in counter-terrorism cases, reviewed The Interrogator for The Wall Street Journal and remarked that it pulled back part of the curtain on the so-called enhanced-interrogation program of the CIA. [12]
Carle is regarded as a leading expert on al-Qaeda and assessed the threat the organization poses 10 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on C-SPAN. [13] Carle is a regular commentator for Al Jazeera and has appeared on Inside Story Americas . [14] He was interviewed on The Listening Post to comment on the 'Zero Dark Thirty' controversy. [15] In a 2011 interview with Democracy Now! Carle revealed how, in 2005, President George W. Bush's administration at least twice sought damaging personal information from the CIA on Juan Cole, an academic and prominent critic of the Iraq war. [16] A CIA spokesman said in response to queries, "We've thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the C.I.A. provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong." [17] In an interview with New Zealand's Sunday Star-Times , he talked about the curtailment of freedom of speech under the Espionage Act of 1917, designed for foreign spies, which he claimed was being employed to prosecute at least six American former spies. [18]
Carle has appeared on MSNBC in Hardball with Chris Matthews in a discussion titled "Does torture work?" [19] In an interview with Anderson Cooper 360° he made the point that "you don't define yourself by the practices and objectives of the enemy" but figure out who are we and what do we need to be?" [20] Carle has repeatedly stated that torture doesn't work, is morally wrong and is clearly illegal under both international and U.S. law. [21] He makes the point that the U.S. convicted many Japanese soldiers "for the express crime — the torture — of waterboarding" that it has euphemistically called waterboarding. [21] Carle also appeared on The Diane Rehm Show on NPR to comment on intelligence gains from Osama bin Laden's compound after U.S. Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaeda leader in Abbottabad, Pakistan. [22] He has also been interviewed on Hardtalk on the BBC. [23]
Before the presidential election of 2008, Carle argued in an influential Washington Post article that Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, had overstated the threat of "radical Islamic extremism." Carle wrote that jihadists are "small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents" and that "We do not face a global jihadist 'movement' but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda." [24] He went on to say, "Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears." [24]
Carle has spoken at many institutions, including the University of Ottawa, [25] the Delta State University, [26] Boston College, [27] the University of Sydney, and the United States Naval Academy. [28]
Carle has been critical of President Donald Trump, particularly after Trump began to disparage American intelligence agencies' assessment of Russian influence over the 2016 presidential election. [29] [30] He told Newsweek , in an article dated December 21, 2017, that he believed that President Donald Trump was "actually working directly for the Russians." [31]
Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was interrogated by American and Egyptian forces. The information he gave under torture to Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush Administration in the months preceding its 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration, although reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, often known by his initials KSM, is a Pakistani extremist terrorist held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-related charges. He was named as "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally, water is poured intermittently to prevent death. However, if the water is poured uninterruptedly it will lead to death by asphyxia, also called dry drowning. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, and lasting psychological damage. Adverse physical effects can last for months, and psychological effects for years. The term "water board torture" appeared in press reports as early as 1976.
Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
Joseph Cofer Black is an American former CIA officer who served as director of the Counterterrorism Center in the years surrounding the September 11th attacks, and was later appointed Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department by President George W. Bush, serving until his resignation in 2004. Prior to his roles combatting terrorism, Black served across the globe in a variety of roles with the Directorate of Operations at the CIA.
Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman is an Egyptian who was in United States custody in one of the CIA's "black sites". Also known as "Asadullah" Human Rights Watch reports he is the son of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who was convicted of involvement in the first al Qaeda bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993. Mohammed is alleged to have run a training camp, and to have had a role in operational planning.
Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. is an American former intelligence officer who served as Director of the National Clandestine Service of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was the final CIA deputy director for operations (DDO) before that position was expanded to D/NCS in December 2004. Rodriguez was a central figure in the 2005 CIA interrogation videotapes destruction, leading to The New York Times Editorial Board and Human Rights Watch to call for his prosecution.
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, by United States Navy SEALs of SEAL Team Six. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led operation, with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid. In addition to SEAL Team Six, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), also known as the "Night Stalkers," and the CIA's Special Activities Division, which recruits heavily from former JSOC Special Mission Units. The operation's success ended a nearly decade-long manhunt for bin Laden, who was accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation of food, drink, and medical care for wounds, as well as waterboarding, walling, sexual humiliation, rape, sexual assault, subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold, and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures, to which he himself was subjected, were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration", "rectal fluid resuscitation", and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees, there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children, and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Hassan Ghul, born Mustafa Hajji Muhammad Khan, was a Saudi-born Pakistani member of al-Qaeda who revealed the kunya of Osama bin Laden's messenger, which eventually led to Operation Neptune Spear and the death of Osama Bin Laden. Ghul was an ethnic Pashtun whose family was from Waziristan. He was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council in 2012.
John Chris Kiriakou is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio.
Ali H. Soufan is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 New Yorker article described Soufan as coming closer than anyone to preventing the September 11 attacks and implied that he would have succeeded had the CIA been willing to share information with him. He resigned from the FBI in 2005 after publicly chastising the CIA for not sharing intelligence with him which could have prevented the attacks.
Abu Zubaydah is a Saudi citizen who helped manage the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan. Captured in Pakistan on March 28, 2002, he has since been held by the United States as an enemy combatant. Beginning in August 2002, Abu Zubaydah was the first prisoner to undergo "enhanced interrogation techniques." Since the Spanish Inquisition, these practices have been characterized as torture by many familiar with the techniques. There is disagreement among government sources as to how effective these techniques were; some officials contend that Abu Zubaydah gave his most valuable information before they were used; CIA lawyer John Rizzo said he gave more material afterward.
Pakistan's role in the War on Terror is a widely discussed topic among policy-makers of various countries, political analysts and international delegates around the world. Pakistan has simultaneously received allegations of harbouring and aiding terrorists and commendation for its anti-terror efforts. Since 2001, the country has also hosted millions of Afghan refugees who fled the war in Afghanistan.
The Guantánamo Bay files leak began on 24 April 2011, when WikiLeaks, along with The New York Times, NPR and The Guardian and other independent news organizations, began publishing 779 formerly secret documents relating to detainees at the United States' Guantánamo Bay detention camp established in 2002 after its invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The documents consist of classified assessments, interviews, and internal memos about detainees, which were written by the Pentagon's Joint Task Force Guantanamo, headquartered at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The documents are marked "secret" and NOFORN.
Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid where bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011.
Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden is a 2013 documentary film directed by Greg Barker that explores the Central Intelligence Agency's investigation of Osama bin Laden, starting from 1995 until his death in 2011. It premiered on HBO on May 1, 2013, two years after the mission that killed bin Laden. The documentary features narratives by many of the CIA analysts and operatives who worked over a decade to understand and track bin Laden, and includes archival film footage from across Washington, D.C., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. It also features extensive and rarely seen footage of Al-Qaeda training and propaganda videos, including video suicide notes from various terrorists who later worked as suicide bombers.
Alfreda Frances Bikowsky is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who has headed the Bin Laden Issue Station and the Global Jihad unit. Bikowsky's identity is not publicly acknowledged by the CIA, but was deduced by independent investigative journalists in 2011. In January 2014, the Washington Post named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, released in December 2014, showed that Bikowsky was not only a key part of the torture program but also one of its chief apologists, resulting in the media's giving her the moniker "The Unidentified Queen of Torture."