Former Top Interrogators Back Wide-Ranging Criminal Probe Into Torture

By GottaLaff

(cartoon via, and Jamiol’s World)

My new bff, Jason Leopold, has a terrific post that you can find here. Please read the whole thing. I didn't do it justice (no pun):

Three of the country’s former top counterterrorism interrogators and intelligence experts, are speaking out publicly in support of a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the Bush administration’s use of torture against “war on terror” detainees, and have also urged Congress to launch a separate probe to review how the policies that lead to torture were created.

Jack Cloonan, a former FBI security and counterterrorism expert who was assigned to the agency’s elite Bin Laden Unit, Col. Steve Kleinman, a career military intelligence officer recognized as one of the Defense Department’s most prolific interrogators, and Matthew Alexander, a senior interrogator for a special operations task force in Iraq whose team captured down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, said ignoring clear-cut evidence of interrogation-related crimes would only lead to further law breaking in the future. Alexander uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

In an interview, Cloonan and Kleinman, both of who conducted interrogations of terror suspects after 9/11, also sharply disputed recent claims by former CIA Director Michael Hayden and Republican lawmakers that a criminal investigation would have a grave impact on intelligence gathering and may lead to another 9/11-type attack on the homeland.

At a panel discussion held at the National Press Club Thursday on outsourcing intelligence, Hayden said an investigation, “no matter how narrowly defined” will “start pulling threads." [...]

“What this is really about is cover your ass,” Cloonan said about the senators’ letter. “To suggest [intelligence gathering] will come to a screeching halt if there were an investigation is not accurate.”

Kleinman, who most recently served as a senior adviser on a Director of National Intelligence-commissioned study on strategic interrogation, agreed.

“I respectfully disagree profoundly with the assessment that any effort to look back would make us more vulnerable, Kleinman said. “In fact, we have to look back to show our utmost vulnerabilities.

“I’ve had the honor of testifying before four committees of Congress and I am always astounded at the profound political partisan politics that surround this issue. I’m a professional interrogator I have 25 years of experience in this and I don’t have any concern whatsoever that an investigation into how we conducted ourselves since 9/11 would in any way undermine our ability to continue gathering intelligence.”

Furthermore, Kleinman and Cloonan believe their colleagues in the intelligence community share their views. But many are unable to speak out publicly. [...]

Kleinman and Cloonan added that the outside contractors and the interrogators who lacked the training and experience are the ones who saw the use of torture as a means to gain valuable information. Moreover, they are likely the ones who fear an investigation.

“The people who are true professionals don’t see anything wrong with an investigation,” Kleinman said. “I conducted interrogations in three separate military campaigns. I can look back if they called me in tomorrow and I would not even be thinking about getting liability insurance.

I simply can't wrap my mind around ignoring crimes like ordering/committing torture and convoluting our legal system in order to justify it, especially after reading Jason's post.

Setting a terrible precedent is just one of the consequences of inaction. The many, many posts I've written (see below) help to explain why I feel so strongly.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.