Taxi to the Dark Side Page #10

[SPC. Glendale Walls, Interrogated Dilawar at Bagram] I was yelled at for being too nice to him by SGT. Loring.

That I needed to put more pressure on him.

As he liked to say, "I needed to take him out of his comfort zone."

[Tim Golden, New York Times Reporter] After a while, particularly in the fourth and fifth interrogations,

as the sleep deprivation that he was being subjected to really started to knock him out,

the interrogations got more intense.

SGT. Salcedo, who was an inexperienced interrogator but a kind of can-do soldier ...

Had this man who refused to look at her because she was a woman.

She said she got very frustrated by this, and grabbed him by the sides of the face,

And sort of turned him to face her and look at her, and take her seriously.

But, of course, he was an Afghan man from a tribal, conservative culture, who didn't look at strange women.

[SPC. Glendale Walls, Interrogated Dilawar at Bagram] SGT. Salcedo was getting a little aggravated.

So I kind of stepped in between them. And that's when I grabbed him by the shirt.

And I brought him over to the wall.

[Tim Golden, New York Times Reporter] They tried to make him stand up against the wall, and he was sliding down.

They pushed him back against the wall.

[SPC. Glendale Walls, Interrogated Dilawar at Bagram] He wasn't making any kind of sense. Most of it seemed to just be rambling.

The interpreter was telling me that his wife came to visit him in his cell.

Which, of course, didn't happen.

[PFC. Damien Corsetti, Mil-Intel, Bagram] If you've ever seen anybody sleep-depped,

ugh, past two days they begin to just be bumbling idiots.

Three days they are just worthless.

[SPC. Glendale Walls, Interrogated Dilawar at Bagram] I knew something was wrong.

And the next thing I heard was that he died.

[Tim Golden, New York Times Reporter] Not long after Dilawar was killed,

We learned that the Afghan guerilla commander, whose men had arrested Dilawar and the others,

had in fact been detained by the Americans himself.

And it turned out that he was rocketing their base,

And then picking up innocent Afghans and turning them over to the Americans.

Essentially to try and ingratiate himself with U.S. forces.

The three passengers were sent to Guantanamo. And they didn't get out until March of 2004,

Which was 15 months after they had been captured riding in the taxi.

It's hard to know what reason the Americans would have had to send these guys on

When they had quite clearly concluded that Dilawar, at least, was an innocent man when he was killed.

It certainly makes you wonder about whether they just sent these guys on to cover their butts.

Even assuming that Hamden is a dangerous individual who would cause great harm or death to innocent civilians given the opportunity,

the Executive nevertheless must comply with the prevailing rule of law in undertaking to try him and subject him to criminal punishment...

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 29, 2006

[Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense] "These" are not mere innocents. "These" are among the worst of the worst.

"These" are among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.

[Dick Cheney, Vice-President] "They" are terrorists. "They" are bombmakers.

"They" are facilitators of terror. "They" are members of al Qaeda, the Taliban.

[Ari Fleischer, Bush White House Press Secretary] And if "they" were free, they would engage in murder once again.

["President" George W. Bush] The only thing I know for certain is that "these" are bad people.

[Tom Wilner, Lawyer For 11 Kuwaitis in Guantanamo] Despite Rumsfeld's and Cheney's and President Bush's allegations

that "these guys" are the worst of the worst, that they were all captured on the battlefield,

Recent studies of the whole compendium of Government's documents show

that only five percent of these people were picked up by the United States.

Only 8% of them are accused of being members of the al Qaeda.

Over 90% of them were picked up by Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces in exchange for bounties.

[Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense] We have LARGE rewards out.

We have leaflets that are dropping like snowflakes in December in Chicago.

An analysis of declassified government documents revealed that only

7% of Guantanamo detainees were captured by U.S. and Coalition forces.

The other 93%, like Dilawar and his passengers, were turned over by Afghan warlords and Pakistanis.

Sometimes for cash payments of thousands of dollars.

[John Yoo, Office of Legal Counsel 2001-2003] You know, the Military is not interested in spending whatever it is...$40,000 a year

Detaining people who are not members of al Qaeda in Guantanamo Bay.

It has as much interest as everyone else does in making sure that people who are detained are actually members of al Qaeda,

rather than wasting resources and time detaining innocent people.

[Tom Wilner, Lawyer For 11 Kuwaitis in Guantanamo] I think it's natural in times of war to pick up people.

You want to pick up anyone you suspect of being dangerous.

What's different here is that the Government, for the first time in our history didn't follow its own regulations,

which require that a hearing be held, promptly after capture, if there is any doubt.

[Major Dan Mori, Military Defense Law for Guantanamo detainee David Hicks] In the war in Afgan, back in 2001,

the U.S. Military was prepared to follow the Geneva Conventions and conduct those tribunals.

Unfortunately, the civilian leadership within the Department of Defense, told them to stop.

Once somebody in Afgan might have said, "Okay, this person's a high-value target,"

for whatever reason. Whether it was based on some other Afghani who hated that person

and wanted him out so he could take over his opium crop.

Then that began the road to GTMO.

And there was no way for that person to challenge it. And there still hasn't been.

Moazzam Begg, a British subject suspected of ties to al Qaeda operatives,

was picked up by local intelligence agents in Pakistan.

[Moazzam Begg, Detained at Bagram and Guantanamo] I was in my house in Islamabad at the time that I was abducted.

A hood was placed over my head. My hands and legs were shackled.

And I was physically carried into the back of the vehicle.

I didn't see my family again after that point. I was sent to Kandahar, and then to Bagram.

And when I was put onto the transport plane to Guantanamo.

I'd already been covered from almost head to toe in some sort of a covering:

Face mask, ear muffs, blackened goggles.

And then, just in case I could see anything, a hood to cover it with.

Being seated in the aircraft was excruciatingly painful.

They'd already used now the three-piece suit, and that is the shackle

That goes around the waist and is padlocked to the back.

It was impossible to move. Impossible to breathe properly. Impossible to hear anything.

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