Dan Coleman of the FBI, a resolutely old-school
interrogator who worked on al-Qaeda cases before 9/11, and
secured convictions without the use of torture, has made some
of the most eloquent observations about torture. In 2006,
he told
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker that “people don’t do
anything unless they’re rewarded.” He explained that if the
FBI – which refused to implement “enhanced interrogation techniques”
– had beaten confessions out of suspects, it would have been
self-defeating. “Brutality may yield a timely scrap of information,”
he conceded, but in the longer fight against terrorism, such
an approach was “completely insufficient.” He added, “You
need to talk to people for weeks. Years.”
Al-istiqamah: What
was the hardest part of the book to write?
Andy Worthington: All of it, to be honest.
I’ve never worked as hard in my life as I did for the 14 months
that I spent researching and writing the book. But to give
you a more honed answer, it was hard dealing with the specifics
of torture that appear in four different places in the book:
in the chapters on Kandahar and Bagram, in the chapter on
torture in Guantánamo, and in the chapter on “extraordinary
rendition.”
Al-istiqamah: You
were recently in the States. Did you get any hassle at the
airports on either side of the Atlantic?
Andy Worthington: Fortunately not, though
some friends in the States had suggested to me that I would.
What I actually found as I passed through US immigration was
that those responsible for processing visitors – who are probably
not the best-paid workers around – were for the most part
just doing their job and ticking the right bureaucratic boxes:
Do you need a visa? Have you got one? Where are you staying?
How long are you staying?
Al-istiqamah: What
was the response to the US public to your lectures? Are they
as brainwashed by CNN and Fox as the British public imagines?
Andy Worthington: Not if
my experience was anything to go by. Now obviously I only
visited New York and Washington D.C., and stayed for the most
part not only with liberals but with liberals who care about
the gross injustices perpetrated by their government as part
of the “War on Terror,” but I have to say that I was astonished
by the level of political discourse. Obviously it helps that
it’s an election year – and that either a woman or a black
man might conceivably become President – but I was impressed
at how much discussion there was about how jettisoning the
Geneva Conventions, embracing “extraordinary rendition” and
secret prisons, and holding prisoners without charge or trial
were not only damaging America’s reputation abroad, but were
also fundamentally undermining the values on which Americans
pride themselves, and on which this great nation of immigrants
was founded.
Al-istiqamah: The
Guantánamo Files
is dedicated to your son Tyler “in the hope that he will grow
up to see a more just and less brutal world, to the children
of the prisoners and to the prisoners themselves.” Have you
met any of the families of the British detainees, or any of
the ex-detainees?
Andy Worthington: I’ve met some of the British
prisoners who’ve been released, and have spoken on a few occasions
with Moazzam Begg, who kindly agreed to come and speak at
my book launch in London last November. I’d like to meet more
ex-prisoners, if I get the opportunity, but my focus remains
on those who are still imprisoned in Guantánamo, many
of whom I’ve now been writing about for over two years.
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