ALEX ABDO (AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION) INTERVIEW - 30th August 2009
Teddy Kennedy's death this week marked the passing of an American
politician who devoted his time to a seemingly endless range of liberal
causes. Barack Obama will definitely miss him as he tries to steer his
controversial health reform bill through the Congress. In fact, Obama
has a raft of prickly issues to deal with right now, including this
week's announcement by the Attorney-General of an inquiry into the
CIA's abuse of terrorist suspects - secret techniques like
waterboarding, or simulated drowning - authorised at the highest levels
of the Bush administration. The American Civil Liberties Union has
fought hard in the courts to get information on the public record on
the CIA torture issue, and George Negus spoke with ACLU lawyer Alex
Abdo.
GEORGE NEGUS: Alex, thanks for talking with us. The debate on
this
whole CIA issue is obviously raging in the US at the moment. Barack
Obama said some time back that the US should be looking forward on this
sort of issue, not backwards. Do you think he's wrong and, if you do,
why?
ALEX ABDO, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION: Well, we do think he's
wrong. It's important when you're talking about violations of the law,
you do look backward because, of course, all violations of the law
occur in the past, and this is a particular important one. We're
talking about very, very high level authorisations within the Bush
administration to use interrogation techniques that clearly violated
domestic and international prohibitions. So, it is important that we
stay true to a very principled American policy of no-one being above
the law.
GEORGE NEGUS: He, of course, says he doesn't want his agenda -
which is
much, much broader than this issue, as important as it is - to be
consumed, as he said, by a witch hunt against those from the Bush
administration, if you like, who were a ultimately responsible for
those regrettable acts. Now, he has got a point, hasn't he?
ALEX ABDO: Well, it's the President's job to lead the country forward,
that's true. And that's why, in this country, we have a Department of
Justice that acts independently of the President, and it is the
Attorney-General's job, in this case, Eric Holder, to investigate all
apparent violations of the law. So, it shouldn't get bogged down in
politics. Unfortunately, it will.
GEORGE NEGUS: Yes, it will. In fact, on at that very point,
Eric
Holder, the Attorney-General, is an Obama appointee. Are you confident
- he has said that he will prosecute people if he feels that the
American law has been broken, and you obviously think it has, do you
think, are you confident that he will conduct an independent enquiry,
that his approach will be independent? Or will he be influenced by
Realpolitik and his relationship with Barack Obama?
ALEX ABDO: Well, so far, it's too early to tell. The signs are good
that he has at least started the process. He has, unfortunately,
limited the investigation unnecessarily at the beginning.
GEORGE NEGUS: In what way? In what way, Alex?
ALEX ABDO: He has limited it to be a preliminary investigation into
whether a handful of CIA interrogators abused a handful of detainees.
And, based on the publicly available evidence, it's fairly clear, so
far, that not only were individual detainees abused at the hands of
individual interrogators, but that very senior officials within the
Bush administration were involved as the architects of the
interrogation programme and as policy pushers behind the programme.
GEORGE NEGUS: Should Eric Holder, or Barack Obama, the current
administration, or whomsoever, be looking at particular CIA operatives
in places like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, etc, etc, with this
so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, as they euphemistically
call it. Are they are the people we should be looking, or should it be
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld? These are the guys who
were calling the political shots, who either ordered this behaviour or
least knew it was going on, and didn't worry about it.
ALEX ABDO: Well, the criminal investigation should proceed as any
criminal investigation does. A prosecutor should be allowed to follow
the facts. Undoubtedly, an easy place to begin would be those who went
beyond the guidance, the legal guidance, given by the Department of
Justice to the CIA, and are the low-level interrogators that the
Attorney-General has, so far, focused on. But, you will find very
quickly that once you start looking at where the authorisation came for
these techniques, you work your way pretty quickly up the ladder, and
that will include lawyers within the Department of Justice, who
provided the legal cover for the techniques used by the CIA, as well as
the higher political authors, such as those working potentially within
the White House or the Office of the Vice-President, who provided the
policy behind the enhanced interrogation techniques.
GEORGE NEGUS: Dick Cheney, of course, is well and truly on the
front
foot, as you'd expect him to be. He is no shrinking violet when it
comes to this issue. He, in fact, is saying that without of these
so-called - and I have to check the note every time because it is such
a strange phrase - 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. Without that,
without torture and waterboarding, etc, a lot of terrorist attacks that
were planned against the United States and other countries in the
world, wouldn't have been stopped. They would have gone ahead and there
would have been more September 11s, if you like. Do you believe him?
ALEX ABDO: No, we don't, and we think the documents that just came out
disprove his point. If you look at them carefully, they say that those
who were tortured gave information. What they expressly say they cannot
say is that those particular enhanced interrogation techniques, they
cannot make a determination as to whether those techniques were what
was responsible for the releases and information. This is consistent
with what the FBI has been saying all along, which is that traditional
rapport-building interrogation techniques worked initially. These are
the techniques that resulted in initial breakthroughs. For example, in
terms of identifying the alleged mastermind of 9/11 and in providing
other important intelligence.
GEORGE NEGUS: Not torture?
ALEX ABDO: No, that's exactly right. The FBI used traditional
rapport-building techniques. Rapport?
GEORGE NEGUS: Can I you just stop there. Rapport-building
technique?
Can you explain that for us?
ALEX ABDO: Well, the FBI uses techniques based on their expertise, so
they base their techniques on out-smarting the detainees, using
information they have to deceive the detainees, or prisoners, or
whoever it is they are interrogating, to get useful, actionable
intelligence quickly.
GEORGE NEGUS: I guess what I have to ask a civil libertarian
like
yourself is that sounds all very well but terrorism and, therefore,
terrorists are a particular kind of enemy - almost invisible, people
you can't actually get a hand on. Would this rapport-building technique
really, really work with obsessed, monomaniacal, homicidal, terrorists
hell-bent on causing your country and others trouble?
ALEX ABDO: The FBI certainly thinks so. The FBI were some of the first
agents to begin complaining about the CIA's enhanced interrogation
programme. But it's important also to look at effectiveness more
broadly. It's not simply about whether you get intelligence. It's about
whether you get reliable intelligence, whether you get it quickly, and
whether you do so without damaging the reputation of the United States
throughout the world in a way that makes it harder for the United
States to combat terrorism abroad.
GEORGE NEGUS: Right. I guess what you're saying is that, under
that
sort of torture that we are now aware of, you are saying that people
will say anything under those circumstances to please their captors
and, therefore, there is no way in the world we can know whether the
information, as you say, is reliable.
ALEX ABDO: That's exactly right. The reports make clear that
information was gotten as a result of all forms of interrogation. But
the real question is not did someone say something? Was did they say
something accurate and actionable at that time?
GEORGE NEGUS: Where does this leave that the CIA though? Let's
assume,
from your point of view at least, that Eric Holder's actions are worth
making. That Barack Obama doesn't interfere, and he does let these
things have - including rendition, by the way, which he sounds a little
bit wobbly on - but, where does this leave the CIA? Are they going to
have their wings clipped to such an extent that when the United States
really needs them, nobody is going to take them seriously - if they are
prosecuted and called to brook on all of this?
ALEX ABDO: We don't think so. It's been the case in this country that
the CIA, throughout its history, has always been required to operate
under the law, and we don't think that we have to sacrifice that
bedrock principle to have an effective intelligence agency.
GEORGE NEGUS: Would you like to think that, the way and number
of us
do, that the hand that Barack Obama is extending to the Islamic world,
hopefully, will isolate the extremists and terrorists and maybe this
argument will ultimately unnecessary, because it is currently dividing
America.
ALEX ABDO: We can only hope and we certainly know from the President's
speech from the National Archives, and a few of his other speeches,
that he views the war on terror very holistically. And, in his view,
and in ours as well, using enhanced interrogation techniques, or other
types of methods that cause distrust around the world, can only serve
to embolden our enemies and give them fodder to recruit more to their
cause.
GEORGE NEGUS: Alex, good to talk to you. Thanks very much for
that. I
guess you have to use a terrible, terrible platitude. Only time will
tell how this thing will work out but, at the moment, it's getting in
the way of a lot of things in your country.
ALEX ABDO: Well, that's right, but thanks so much for having me on the
show.
GEORGE NEGUS: Thanks for talking to us.