Torture Damages Terrorist Suspect Memories: Padilla Case Similar to Others

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No reporter or independent investigator will likely ever be able to obtain useful information from Jose Padilla, the accused "Dirty Bomb" plotter, a US Citizen held without charges as an "enemy combatant" for 22 months. His memories appear to have been scrambled by the extreme physical and psychological stress of his confinement and interrogation. According to a report in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/us/04detain.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=02ab7b458c838c22&hp=&ex=1165208400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of forensic psychiatry at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, N.Y., who examined Mr. Padilla for a total of 22 hours in June and September, said in an affidavit filed Friday that he “lacks the capacity to assist in his own defense.”

“It is my opinion that as the result of his experiences during his detention and interrogation, Mr. Padilla does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation,” Dr. Hegarty said in an affidavit for the defense.

Mr. Padilla is alleged to have been "damaged by his interrogations and prolonged isolation that he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to assist in his own defense. His interrogations, (his attorneys) say, included hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of “truth serums.”

The NYT report continues:

Mr. Padilla’s situation, as an American declared an enemy combatant and held without charges by his own government, was extraordinary and the conditions of his detention appear to have been unprecedented in the military justice system.

Philip D. Cave, a former judge advocate general for the Navy and now a lawyer specializing in military law, said, “There’s nothing comparable in terms of severity of confinement, in terms of how Padilla was held, especially considering that this was pretrial confinement.”

Memories Erased, Evidence Destroyed?

Like Padilla, a number of "enemy combatants", are unlikely ever to reveal much beyond the official record of their interrogations. Waterboarding cuts off oxygen to the brain, destroying memory, permanently. The same effect can, of course, be achieved by the abusive administration of psychoactive drugs.

For reporters and researchers, that cuts off an important line of post-conviction inquiry.

In the Padilla case, along with several UK terrorism plots, there's a line of evidence that leads us back to safehouses in Lahore, Pakistan and madrasas in Afghanistan:

Another group known to London officials is Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT). After the collapse of the Taliban, LJ members became active in aiding other terrorists with safehouses, false identities, and protection in Pakistani cities, including Karachi, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi. Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, is the armed wing of the Pakistan- based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa- wal-Irshad (MDI)--a Sunni anti-US missionary organization formed in 1989. Based in Muridke (near Lahore) and Muzaffarabad. 6 Accused Dirty Bomb terrorist Jose Padilla is known to have gone to Lahore, Pakistan to learn about bomb making. Benjamin Ahmed Mohammed, an accomplice of Padilla was taken into custody in Pakistan after Padilla left there on a flight where U.S. agents on board watched him closely before his arrest upon arrival in the U.S. 8 http://www.milnet.com/Pakistan-Mil-Jihad.html+Padilla+Afghanistan+madrasa&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&ie=UTF-8

A presistent theme through these terrorism cases, like Padilla's, is that the suspects appear to have been monitored by western intelligence agencies before they entered the U.S. or U.K. The Flight 77 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Midhar, were observed by the CIA as they left an al-Qaeda planning session in Kuala Lumpur and flew into LAX on January 15, 2000. A distinguishing feature of the post-9/11 conspiracies was that no one seriously believed they were capable of carrying out the terrorist operations they became involved in. Padilla was never trained to handle nuclear materials. In fact, the al-Qaeda figures who managed and financed Padilla's activities had concluded he was incapable of carrying out a plot to explode radiological dirty bombs. He was barely capable of carrying out conventional bombings. This is clear from the written statement of James Comey, the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case: http://www.usdoj.gov/dag/speech/2004/dag6104.htm+Lahore+Pakistan+Khalid+Sheikh+Mohammed&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&ie=UTF-8

Padilla admits that after this specialized explosives training, he spent much of September of 2001, including after the attacks of September 11th, staying with Mohammed Atef at Atef's safe house near Kandahar. That was the same safe house were Atef was killed by American forces after it was bombed in November of 2001 in a military raid. Padilla's life was spared only because he happened that night to be staying at the safe house run by his explosives teacher. But he returned and dug his mentor Atef's body out of the rubble.

And then, according to Padilla, a decision was made that all Arab fighters had to be moved out of Afghanistan because the Americans were coming. Padilla, armed with his assault rifle, joined many other armed al Qaeda fighters in moving to the Pakistan border to escape the American forces. At that border, Padilla met Abu Zubaydah. Abu Zubaydah, one of the most important and powerful members of al Qaeda, was in charge at that border of sorting the fighters into two groups: those who should continue on and be relocated to Pakistan, and those who should be sent back into Afghanistan.

Padilla admits that after crossing into Pakistan he met Zubaydah again at a safe house in Lahore, Pakistan, and then met with him yet again at another house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Padilla says it was at the place in Fasialabad that he and a new accomplice, a new partner, approached Abu Zubaydah with an operation in which they proposed to travel to the United States to detonate a nuclear improvised bomb that they had learned to make from research on the Internet. Padilla says that Zubaydah was skeptical about the idea of them building and deploying a nuclear bomb, but nonetheless, told them he would send them on to see Khalid Sheik Mohammed, also known as KSM, the operational leader of al Qaeda and the mastermind behind September the 11th.

We know separately that Zubaydah did think the nuclear bomb idea was not feasible, but he did think, as well, that another kind of radiological device was very feasible -- uranium wrapped with explosives to create a dirty bomb.

Zubaydah believed this was feasible, and encouraged Padilla and his accomplice to pursue it. He warned them, though, that it would not be as easy as they might think, but they seemed convinced that they could do it without getting caught.

Zubaydah's plan was to use Padilla and his accomplice for Zubaydah's own operations in the future. But they were so eager, so intent on carrying out an operation in the United States that in March of 2002 he sent them to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, even going so far as to write a reference letter to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed about Padilla, giving Padilla and his accomplice money, and urging them to seek out KSM about the dirty bomb plot. Zubaydah separately called Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, told him about the dirty bomb project, and also told him he didn't think it was practical, but he wanted Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to check it out himself and to evaluate it. He told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that he was free to use Padilla in his operations in the United States if he wished.

Mohammed did meet with Padilla and his accomplice, and he was, as Zubaydah was, skeptical about the dirty bomb plot. Instead, he suggested to Padilla and his accomplice that they undertake the apartment building operation that had originally been conceived by the now-dead Mohammed Atef, the former military leader of al Qaeda. KSM suggested that they enter the United States by way of Mexico or by way of Puerto Rico, and that once in the country they locate high-rise apartment buildings that had natural gas supplied to all floors, that they rent two apartments in each building, seal those apartments, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate and destroy the buildings simultaneously at a later time. This was precisely the mission that Padilla and Jafar had trained for, and now Padilla had a new accomplice.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave Padilla full authority to conduct an operation if he and his partner succeeded in entering the United States. I should note that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not himself sure which operation Padilla intended to carry out. By that I mean in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's mind, it was still possible that Padilla was going to pursue the dirty bomb plot. What KSM knew for sure, however, was that he had authorized this explosives-trained al Qaeda operative to mount an attack in the United States.

Many of the same figures who planned 9/11 are also central to the alleged plot in which Jose Padilla is implicated. Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (KSM)is commonly considered to have been the mastermind for the 9/11 attacks. A recently released videotape showed Mohamed Atef present at a meeting at which which Osama bin Laden and Ramzi bin al-Shibh discuss plans for the 9/11 attack. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/07/alqaeda.911/index.html

According to reports, KSM and Ramzi al-Shibh -- the two surviving 9/11 principal conspirators -- were tortured, including the use of waterboarding: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0700almihdharreports

Mid-July 2000: Almihdhar Reports to KSM; Claims He and Alhazmi Were Followed to US According to a post-9/11 confession obtained from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), al-Qaeda operative Khallad bin Attash persuades hijacker Khalid Almihdhar to return to Afghanistan to meet with KSM. At the meeting, Almihdhar complains about life in the US but says he is confident he will be able to obtain another visa, as he left the US before his first one expired. He also tells Mohammed about the problems he and Nawaf Alhazmi have had enrolling in language schools and says they believe they were monitored when they flew from Bangkok to the US in January 2000 (see January 15, 2000) (it is not clear who may have monitored them). Supposedly, KSM is angry that Almihdhar left the US without permission and wishes to exclude Almihdhar from the mission, but bin Laden himself intervenes and keeps Almihdhar involved. (9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 237, 269; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/3/2006, pp. 20-21 ) Doubts have been raised about the reliability of KSM’s confession, as it was obtained using torture (see June 16, 2004). According to author Ron Suskind, at one point interrogators even threaten to hurt KSM’s children, a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, unless he provides more information. (Suskind, 2006, pp. 230)

June 16, 2004: 9/11 Commission Gives Account of Prisoner Interrogations The 9/11 Commission releases a new report on how the 9/11 plot developed. Most of their information appears to come from interrogations of prisoners Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), the 9/11 mastermind, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a key member of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell. In this account, the idea for the attacks appears to have originated with KSM. In mid-1996, he met bin Laden and al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan. He presented several ideas for attacking the US, including a version of the 9/11 plot using ten planes (presumably an update of Operation Bojinka’s second phase plot (see February-Early May1995)). Bin Laden does not commit himself. In 1999, bin Laden approves a scaled-back version of the idea, and provides four operatives to carry it out: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Khallad bin Attash, and Abu Bara al Taizi. Attash and al Taizi drop out when they fail to get US visas. Alhazmi and Almihdhar prove to be incompetent pilots, but the recruitment of Mohamed Atta and the others in the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell solves that problem. Bin Laden wants the attacks to take place between May and July 2001, but the attacks are ultimately delayed until September. (9/11 Commission, 6/16/2004) However, information such as these accounts resulting from prisoner interrogations is seriously doubted by some experts, because it appears they only began cooperating after being coerced or tortured. For instance, it is said that KSM was “waterboarded” (see September 11, 2002) a technique in which his head is pushed under water until he nearly drowns. Information gained under such duress often is unreliable. Additionally, there is a serious risk that the prisoners might try to intentionally deceive. (New York Times, 6/17/2004) For instance, one CIA report of his interrogations is called, “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s Threat Reporting—Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies.” (Los Angeles Times, 6/23/2004) The commission itself expresses worry that KSM could be trying to exaggerate the role of bin Laden in the plot to boost bin Laden’s reputation in the Muslim world. (9/11 Commission, 6/16/2004) Most of what these prisoners have said is uncorroborated from other sources. (New York Times, 6/17/2004)

Like the Padilla case, the so-called UK Liquid Bomb Plot this past summer features a conspiracy involving naive western Muslims who travelled to Pakistan, one or more double-agents who directed their actions, and a post-9/11 plot that involved terrorist devices that most experts determined would never have worked. See, www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/17/174059/211

Because of the damage to the memories of those who have been tortures as enemy combatants, we may never learn the full details.