Jose Rodriguez is the former head of CIA’s Clandestine Services, the organization responsible for conducting the interrogations of several key al Qaeda figures. He has recently published a new book, Hard Measures, in which he discusses how he fought for authority and latitude to use the now infamous ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.’
As part of the book promotion, Rodriguez has given a series of interviews, the most notorious of which was with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes. My purpose in linking that interview here isn’t to go back and rehash every aspect of the debate around EIT, but focus on a few aspects of the interview and the logic that Jose Rodriguez uses to justify the actions that he and his team took. Also, just to get this out-of-the-way up front, my personal belief is that, strategically, the use of EIT has been a net loss for US interests.
As a caveat, I have not yet read ‘Hard Measures.’ I also fully acknowledge that 60 Minutes has the ability to shape the ‘tone’ of interviews during the editing process, but I have no idea to what extent that may have happened in this case.
I would recommend that you watch the videos in their entirety, but no matter what you need to jump to 6:45 in Video 1 so that you can see the ‘Big Boy Pants’ reference.
<embedding these videos has proved…troublesome. If we can figure it out we will add them in later. Regardless, I promise they are worth watching>
A couple of things to note. First, Leslie Stahl does not come across as an unbiased journalist seeking to understand the motivations of Rodriguez. There are several places where she uses a specific type of language and question to frame the interview. She often appears more like a lawyer conducting a cross-examination. Stahl asks a question using specific unflattering language and then Rodriguez responds by offering a rationalization but also adopting the unflattering language and repeating it in his response. [bold emphasis added to transcript]
Lesley Stahl: You had no qualms? We used to consider some of them war crimes.
Jose Rodriguez: We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days. But we did the right thing for the right reason. And the right reason was to protect the homeland and to protect American lives. So yes, I had no qualms. [...]Lesley Stahl: So you were getting pressure from Congress and the White House to take the gloves off. Did you go to the dark side?
Jose Rodriguez: Well, the dark side, that’s what we do.
Lesley Stahl: You are the dark side.
Jose Rodriguez: We are the dark side. [...]Lesley Stahl: So sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation. I mean, this is Orwellian stuff. The United States doesn’t do that.
Jose Rodriguez: Well, we do.
It was disturbing to see that the man who was in charge of eliciting intelligence from America’s worst enemies did not realize that he was being manipulated into making statements that were against his own best interest.
Secondly, there are several places where Rodriguez appears to contradict himself over the course of the same interview.
Jose Rodriguez: We were flooded with intelligence about an imminent attack. That al Qaeda had an anthrax program, and that they were planning to use it against us. And that they were seeking nuclear materials to use in some type of nuclear weapon. So we were facing a ticking, time bomb situation and we were very concerned. [...]
Jose Rodriguez: You know, he had speculated that within 30 days we would probably be able to get the information that we wanted, yes.
The imagery most people associate with a “ticking, time bomb situation” is not something that allows you to wait 30 days for intelligence. When you have a ticking time bomb, Jack Bauer shoots the terrorist in the kneecap and you find out what you need to know. When Rodriguez uses this kind of language he is playing to ’24′ fantasy that is still, unfortunately held by large tracts of the American population, some even within the intelligence community.
Jose Rodriguez: The reason why we taped Abu Zubaydah was because we- he was very wounded when he was captured. And we feared that he was gonna die in captivity. So we wanted to show the world that we actually had nothing to do with his death. That you know, he died on his own.
Lesley Stahl: Well, that’s ironic. You wanted to have a video record that he was being well treated, but in the end they became- a video record that he had been subjected to these harsh techniques.
Jose Rodriguez: Yeah, we weren’t hiding anything.
Lesley Stahl: But you then ordered these tapes destroyed.
Jose Rodriguez: Correct. Ninety-two tapes.
Lesley Stahl: Ninety-two tapes. Why did you order that they be destroyed?
Jose Rodriguez: To protect the people who worked for me and who were at those black sites and whose faces were shown on the tape
Lesley Stahl: Protect them from what?
Jose Rodriguez: Protect them from al Qaeda ever getting their hands on these tapes and using them to go after them and their families.
Voice-over: He was also worried about the very survival of the CIA’s dark side, the Clandestine Service because of the so-called Abu Ghraib effect.
Jose Rodriguez: I was concerned that the distinction between a legally-authorized program as our enhanced interrogation program was, and illegal activity by a bunch of psychopaths would not be made.
Make no mistake, these tapes were primarily a CYA maneuver by Rodriguez to assure there could be no accusation that his team was crossing the line of what they were authorized to do. There is actually nothing unusual about this. On the contrary, if you are engaging in activities “at the border of legality” it is wise to document that you are not actually crossing that ‘border’. Law enforcement organizations routinely video interviews and interrogations to provide video evidence that verbal statements were made and that they were not obtained unlawfully (acknowledging the different standards of legality that exist between these situations). The part that demonstrates Rodriguez’s flawed logic, or outright deception is when he says “we wanted to show the world…” There is simply no conceivable situation where Rodriguez, or the US government would choose to show “the world” a video of a detainee being water-boarded. Rodriguez clearly taped the interrogations to protect himself from any kind of policy change.
Rodriguez also acknowledges taking several other steps in order to protect himself and his team from future reprisals. By forcing Agency leadership to repeatedly sign off whenever EIT techniques were used, he assured that he could never be ‘hung out to dry’ as he alleges CIA personnel have been in the past. I don’t think anyone that has ever worked within a dynamic, politically charged bureaucracy can fault Rodriguez on this one. There were indications early in the Obama Administration that they may consider prosecution. While I do not believe that this was ever likely, I can understand why he took this step. It should also be noted that Rodriguez’s destruction of the tapes certainly raised the question of whether they contained evidence of illegal activity. The destruction was a key aspect to the Justice Department conducting a review. Ultimately, neither Rodriguez or anyone from his team was prosecuted for any actions taken during this time.
Rodriguez also seems to contradict himself on the overall utility of EIT. While he claims that it directly led to the capture of several senior al Qaeda leaders, in the next breath he states that it was unreasonable to expect that it would lead to Osama bin Laden.
Lesley Stahl: Here’s something that was told to me. Abu Zubaydah’s stories sent the CIA around the globe. Not a single plot was foiled. We spent millions chasing phantoms.
Jose Rodriguez: Bullshit. He gave us a road map that allowed us to capture a bunch of Al Qaeda senior leaders. [...]Lesley Stahl: But the truth is about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, you really didn’t break him.
Jose Rodriguez: Why? Why do you say that?
Lesley Stahl: Well, he didn’t tell you about Osama bin Laden. He didn’t tell you how to get him. He didn’t tell you how to find him.
Jose Rodriguez: Some of these people were not going to tell us everything.
Lesley Stahl: So you don’t break ‘em.
Jose Rodriguez: There is a limit, there is a limit to what they will tell us.
Lesley Stahl (Voiceover): Actually KSM lied about the courier - whose identity finally led to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the terrorist leader he calls Sheikh bin Laden was hiding.
Lesley Stahl: Now, here’s what I heard: that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told you the courier had retired and threw you off the scent for a while.
Jose Rodriguez: That was the one secret he was going to take to the grave, and that was the protection of the Sheikh. He was not going to tell us.
The most bizarre theme in the interview that Rodriguez repeatedly tries to hit is that EIT is not that bad and that it is basically what normal people experience in a routine day.
Lesley Stahl: You also employed stress techniques?
Jose Rodriguez: Uh-huh. There was a technique where the detainee would sit on the floor and would raise his hands over his head.
Lesley Stahl: In other words, he had to hold his hands up there forever and ever, right?
Jose Rodriguez: Forever & ever? I was thinkin’ about this the other day. The objective was to induce muscle fatigue, and most people who work out do a lot more fatiguing of the muscles.
Lesley Stahl: Are you saying this was like going to the gym? Come on.
Jose Rodriguez: A little different.
Lesley Stahl: Yeah.
Central to the interrogation was sleep deprivation. Abu Zubaydah was also kept awake for three straight days.
Jose Rodriguez: Sleep deprivation works. I’m sure, Lesley, with all the traveling that you do, that you have suffered from jet lag. And you know, when you don’t get a good night’s sleep for two, three days, it’s very hard.
Lesley Stahl: Now, you don’t really mean to suggest that it’s like jet lag. I mean, you make it sound like it’s benign when you say stuff like that.
Jose Rodriguez: Well, I mean, the feeling-
Lesley Stahl: And you go into the gym and jet lag-
Jose Rodriguez: Well, the feeling that you get when you don’t sleep.
Lesley Stahl: But I mean, these were enhanced interrogation techniques. Other people call it torture.This was- this wasn’t benign in any- any sense of the word. [...]Jose Rodriguez: No. He [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] gets a good night’s sleep. He gets his Ensure. By the way, he was very heavy when he came to us and he lost 50 pounds. So- [I really wish Stahl wouldn't have cut him off here because it sounds like he is going to explain how EIT is just like a diet program. -JSG]
Lesley Stahl: What his Ensure? You mean like people in the hospital who drink that stuff?
Jose Rodriguez: Yes. Dietary manipulation was part of these- our techniques.
In these examples, Rodriguez seems to say, “We didn’t do anything to hurt these guys, basically we sent them to the gym, made them stay up a little bit past their bedtime and we put them on the Atkins diet.” These are ridiculous defenses of EIT, but they are tame compared to the last one.
Jose Rodriguez: Can I say something about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? He’s the one that was responsible for the death of Danny Pearl, the Wall Street reporter. He slit his throat in front of a camera. I don’t know what type of man it takes to cut the throat of someone in front of you like that, but I can tell you that this is an individual who probably didn’t give a rat’s ass about having water poured on his face.
Regardless of your opinions on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in general or water-boarding in particular, this statement should send a chill down your spine. Apart from the unconscionable comparison of water-boarding to something as mundane-sounding as taking a shower, Rodriguez essentially states that if a detainee has done something horrific enough, it becomes impossible to torture them. What is implicit in that statement is that because KSM brutally killed Danny Pearl he has somehow ceased to become human and therefore no action we take against him could possibly be considered torture.
The issues surrounding the authorization and utilization of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in 2002 and beyond are complex. There will assuredly never be a full accounting on either the positive or negative aspects. That complexity is what I wanted to see in this interview. I was prepared to give Jose Rodriquez the benefit of the doubt on several aspects. I reminded myself that there was a very different political tone in the country immediately post-9/11. I hoped to hear a rational defense of the CIA utilizing harsh tactics to elicit information for the greater good. I wanted to identify with someone who recognized the great weight and responsibility that his position held. Instead, I got Jose Rodriguez. A man who comes across as being in no way troubled with the actions that he took or concern for the way those actions reflected on his country. If he ever did have any concerns, he has rationalized them away over the last decade. Now, he literally has “no qualms.”
This is my concern with the logic that went into the development and utilization of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. Somebody, somewhere needed to have qualms. When we chose to go down this path, we should have recognized the impacts that this would have on our character and our identity as a nation. We should have been mindful and vigilant and perpetually troubled by our decision. Instead of just asking the legal question of ‘Can we do it?’ we also should have asked, and continued asking the question of ‘Should we do it?’
You should really read the book, it is a good read and it lays out much of what “everyone knows” about the EIT program as just being false. It goes into great depth to actually explain what the EITs were and weren’t (again much of what everyone knows is false), how few people got them and what the intent (mechanism for effectiveness) actually was. Interestingly, it also lays out how much of what the government put out as CYA was actually false information because the people who wrote the info papers or talking points didn’t have the background information on them.
I too was bothered by this interview, but for different reasons.
I do not have comprehensive information to accurately judge whether EIT
“has been a net loss”, but I’ve heard enough to disagree with you, and to know we can’t know much that would support it.
I was troubled that Rodriguez, obviously intelligent in other ways, surprisingly let himself get manipulated by an agenda-driven pro interviewer, and also failed to get get a signed legal agreement to approve final cut before air use.
I posted comments about Stahl’s fringe left disgust with all things US military, and linked to the portion of video where she almost cries and vomits that we “tortured” KSM with Ensure™
Every person who clicked thru and viewed it, including the far left followers who troll me, all ‘refudiated’ her yellow journalism, and even those who historically reject EIT as US citizens, commented that she removed credibility from 60Minutes and their argument.
Please, consider what he couldn’t say, having to filter as he spoke, and more importantly, imagine what’s on the cutting room floor.
The lines between Hollywood production values in storytelling and much main stream “news” media, have been effectively erased.
You may laugh that the EIT discussions on MSNBC for example, are too unsophisticated to matter. Untrue; the point is that a tremendous volume of shaping has taken control of this, and many other narratives, of national importance.
Respectfully,
Ed