Detainees
Two stories in the past week have taken us deep inside the war against terrorism to show us the people, places and techniques that the U.S. government has tried to keep hidden. In Sunday's New York Times, "Inside a 9/11 Mastermind's Interrogation" by Scott Shane introduces us to the CIA interrogator who was in charge of getting the truth out of Al Qaeda's "engineer of mass murder," Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Shane's story is a fascinating look at how CIA interrogations work and the improvised nature of the spy agency's handling of terrorism suspects. Shane does a masterful job of sourcing this story to get information that is rarely disclosed. But it is sure to ignite controversy because it names the CIA interrogator. What do you think? nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Last week McClatchy Newspapers' D.C. bureau presented "Guantanamo: Beyond the Law," the most comprehensive investigation I've seen about what America does with terrorism suspects. The series concludes that the U.S. has held and abused dozens and perhaps hundreds of innocent men at Guantanamo, bases in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. Reporters Tom Lasseter and Matthew Schofield reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and traveled to eleven countries to interview former detainees and local officials. They also talked with Guantanamo guards, detainee lawyers, and White House and Pentagon officials. Lasseter and Schofield found that U.S. policy often backfired by making the prisoners more militant:
Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan. He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.
U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantanamo the next year, however — after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers — he'd made connections to high-level militants.
In fact, he'd become a Taliban leader.
In addition to a dozen stories, the project comes with photo galleries and data bases of the detainees, links to documents from the investigation and video interviews. Travis Heying of The Wichita Eagle contributed photos and Darren Abrecht was the lead Web producer. www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/