Word: terrorist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrived to interrogate him in the week after 9/11. Although there was already evidence that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks, American authorities needed conclusive proof, not least to satisfy skeptics like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose support was essential for any action against the terrorist organization. U.S. intelligence agencies also needed a better understanding of al-Qaeda's structure and leadership. Abu Jandal was the perfect source: the Yemeni who grew up in Saudi Arabia had been bin Laden's chief bodyguard, trusted not only to protect him but also to put a bullet...
...interrogation techniques and their effectiveness has intensified since President Barack Obama's decision to release Bush Administration memos authorizing the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods. Defenders of the Bush program, most notably Cheney, say the use of waterboarding produced actionable intelligence that helped the U.S. disrupt terrorist plots. But the experiences of officials like Soufan suggest that the utility of torture is limited at best and counterproductive at worst. Put simply, there's no definitive evidence that torture works...
...crucial question going forward is, What does? How does an interrogator break down a hardened terrorist without using violence? TIME spoke with several interrogators who have worked for the U.S. military as well as others who have recently retired from the intelligence services (the CIA and FBI turned down requests for interviews with current staffers). All agreed with Soufan: the best way to get intelligence from even the most recalcitrant subject is to apply the subtle arts of interrogation rather than the blunt instruments of torture. "There is nothing intelligent about torture," says Eric Maddox, an Army staff sergeant whose...
...tricks that are not part of the Army system but that every cop knows," says Alexander. "Like when you bring in two suspects, you take them to separate rooms and offer a deal to the first one who confesses." (Alexander, one of the authors of How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq, uses a pseudonym for security purposes...
...Ticking Time Bomb Proponents of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques say the noncoercive methods are useless in emergencies, when interrogators have just minutes, not days, to extract vital, lifesaving information. The worst-case scenario is often depicted in movies and TV series like 24: a captured terrorist knows where and when a bomb will go off (in a mall, in a school, on Capitol Hill), and his interrogators must make him talk at once or else risk thousands of innocent lives. It's not just fervid screenwriters who believe that such a scenario calls for the use of brute...