Glenn Carle, fmr. CIA: Enhanced interrogation techniques are wrong, do not work, and illegal

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Glenn Carle, who retired from the CIA in March 2007 after 23 years of service.

In his new non-fiction memoir, "The Interrogator: An Education," Carle describes the inside story of a high-level interrogation of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist and his discovery that almost every CIA assessment and action about the case–and the War on Terror–was wrong.

You are sent to a country to help as a linguist during the interrogation of a detainee and end up taking over the questioning. How did you ascertain that the U.S. had captured the wrong person—that he wasn’t a high-level operative or jihadist or a member of al Qaeda?

CAPTUS—that is the code name I have had to invent for the detainee I interrogated—answered most of my questions in a reasonably straightforward way.  I was able to verify some of his answers; some of which he could not know I would know about. 

He was, on the whole, truthful.  His associations with al Qaeda were, in my view, showed him not to be a member, or even an ideological supporter, of al Qaeda.  More importantly, I was able to assess the man directly; that was my job for over two decades.  I assessed him, first-hand, not to be a jihadist, or supporter of jihad.

What happened when you reported to the CIA what you had discovered?

Well, of course, one starts by reporting what he says.  Then, by noting that the answers appear to be substantiated independently—there are various ways to do this.  Then, to note that the substantiated answers challenged the previous assessment of CAPTUS, which was that he was a dedicated, conscious, active, and senior member of al Qaeda. 

The reaction from Headquarters was, of course, to caution against being duped or manipulated by a liar, who was trying to hide his true actions and motivations. 

Then, I was urged to press him more, harder, so that he would reveal his true activities and motivations. 

The Kafkaesque dynamic was that when I reported CAPTUS was unable to answer certain questions, and that I assessed him to be responding honestly, that Headquarters replied that his inability to answer actually proved that he was lying—not that his inability to answer indicated innocence; rather that not providing the answer Headquarters wanted proved that he was hiding what he knew! 

It did not matter what CAPTUS answered in this situation:  a factual answer proved his “guilt,” and an inability to answer “proved” that he was hiding information—which brought calls to pressure him more.  

And what happened to the prisoner?

As I described, Headquarters took his inability to answer as lying, or manipulation, or as proof that I was not being hard enough on him.  So, Headquarters wanted me to pressure him more. 

Eventually he was moved from the first facility, which was relatively benign—relatively—to the Hotel California, which was our harshest interrogation facility.  This was a dark place, where enhanced measures were used as a matter of course.

The controversy over the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques still continues. Would you define what those techniques are and in your point of view, are they ever useful?

“Enhanced interrogation techniques” consist of psychological and physical measures, designed to “psychologically dislocate” a detainee.  These measures seek primarily to disrupt an individual’s circadian rhythms—one’s body clock, dietary schedule, sleep schedule, sensory perceptions, one’s way of situating one’s individuality with reference to one’s surrounding environment. 

There is no real controversy about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques.  They do not work.  They are wrong.  And they are illegal. 

The only people who advocate them are those former policymakers in the Bush administration who put them in place and justified them at the time.  To my knowledge, none of these individuals knows what he or she is talking about—they haven’t used them, were never FBI or police interrogators, or CIA case officers, or military interrogators. 

They are armchair interrogators, talking theory and justifying ex post facto their policy choices—which, one must state clearly, undermined American laws.  And which advocate practices which do not work. 

Did you ever take part in an enhanced interrogation or witness one?

The use of enhanced measures was standard at what I called Hotel California– environmental ones like varying temperature, noise, diet, light, etc.  That was simply the environment in which detainees existed. 

More direct physical measures I would never use, never saw, and the only times the possibility arose I stopped it.   

When you were in the intelligence community, what was the reaction to an employee who might question or criticize coercive techniques?

I can only speak of my experience.  One did not discuss the program, not in my experience, except with those involved in it with you. 

In one meeting a psychologist with whom I was working spoke out forcefully against a facile use use of enhanced measures.  I was grateful to have found an ally at that moment.  But, I can say that colleagues were all, in my experience, very conscious about the need to act legally and only to do what had been authorized. 

It is true, nonetheless, that at the beginning of my involvement in the CAPTUS case, when I challenged the legality or appropriateness of what came to be called enhanced interrogation techniques, my questions were viewed as challenging what had been approved and ordered from the highest bodies in the land—the President and Department of Justice.

You begin your book by revealing, "I was a spy. I broke laws. I stole. I lied every day, about almost everything: to my family, to my friends, to my colleagues, to everyone around me. I almost never was who I said I was, or did what I claimed to be doing.” How can we trust what you’ve told us in this interview and what you’ve written in your book?

Ha!  Well, this is the classic Liar’s paradox, which men have been troubling over since the ancient Greeks:  A Cretan said “all Cretans are liars.”  But, if that is true, then the statement is also false.  And so on and so on. 

But, I can reassure you:  as I describe in my book, ironically the CIA seeks men and women of high principle and integrity—honest men and women—in order to entrust them with lying for the state, not for themselves.  The facts in my book, everything in my book, is true.      

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CLICK HERE to read the preface from Carle's new book, "The Interrogator: An Education."

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Here’s our interview with Glenn Carle from June 17, 2011.

Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer–who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush–said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, who writes an influential blog that criticized the Iraq war. Cole is a professor of Middle Eastern History, University of Michigan, and author of blog, Informed Comment.

Carle tells Eliot that in 2005, the White House wanted "to get" Prof. Cole by discovering information of a personal nature. Carle says, "I was flabbergasted by the request."