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Prosecute, don't torture Nujibullah Zazi
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Should he be waterboarded? (AP File Photo)
The arrest of a Denver airport shuttle driver, Najibullah Zazi, for obtaining chemicals to make a bomb is very unsettling. The New York Times makes it clear that Mr. Zazi was far more advanced in his plot than most terrorists have been—he had training in explosives, nine pages of instructions on how to create bombs with the chemicals he obtained (hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid). In contrast, many terrorists whom the FBI has arrested had very vague and fantastical terrorist plots.
This case begs the question, should he be tortured? Michael Crowley—a liberal and whose reporting and writing on foreign policy is nothing short of excellent—asks it at TNR’s The Plank:
Doesn't this seem like something approaching the "ticking time bomb" scenario that constantly bedevils debates about interrogation techniques? How hard are the feds working Zazi for information about possible would-be terrorists inside the U.S. right now? How hard should they be working him? I keep leaning towards one conclusion--then imagining how I would feel about that conclusion if a bomb kills someone I know on the New York subway next week.
The last sentence is frightening and refreshingly honest. But he assumes that “enhanced interrogation techniques” or torture could lead to Zazi giving up information.
It’s equally plausible that whatever “enhanced interrogation techniques” that would be used could lead to a false confessional. The military and the CIA used the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) program as a blueprint for enhanced interrogations. That program was originally designed to train US soldiers to survive enemy interrogations during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. But the blueprint for SERE was a journal article entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War.” So, the blueprint for “enhanced interrogation techniques” was to elicit false confessionals.
Unsurprisingly, there were many false confessionals in the War On Terror. Detainee Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi “revealed” a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda after he was waterboarded. Detainee Binyam Mohammed confessed to be part of a dirty-bomb plot after being repeatedly beaten and cut on his genitals.
Assume interrogators tortured Zazi and he confessed to a plot elsewhere in the US. While this was false, the FBI would have spent time and resources pursuing the plot. Moreover, this “evidence” that Zazi provided could never be admitted to a court of law and therefore hurt the case against him. Something similar happened when Jose Padilla--a US citizen--was convicted on lesser charges than his much reported dirty bomb plot after the government decided not to allow testimony from senior Al-Qaeda officials subjected to "harsh questioning." As it stands, the Justice Department seems to have a very good case against him already. Jeffrey Toobin, a former Prosecutor turned New Yorker writer, read the legal brief and called it “investigative gold.”
Moreover, legal interrogations against terrorists can work. Trained interrogators can develop rapport with their suspects and the suspects often will reveal information either unwittingly or out of narcissism. It just takes time. Jane Mayer outlined cases in the late 1990s where such approaches worked in her book, The Dark Side.
The case is also a good one for reaffirming that good old-fashioned police work can root out terrorism. The FBI asked beauty supply stores near Denver and in New York City if anyone had bought large quantities of hydrogen peroxide or acetone. The stores then provided surveillance tapes and receipts, and the FBI built case against him.
It’s reasonable that when a plot as unusually frightening as Zazi’s comes along that people would suggest methods--though illegal--that might save lives. But those methods have proven not to work—it’s best to let cooler heads prevail.
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