Thanks to Captain’s Quarters, I’ve become aware of the Simplicius Redivivus blog, which is publishing a Die Zeit interview with former CIA operative Michael Scheuer. The Captain says Simplicius’ author told him the DZ interview provides a significantly different view of the rendition program than has been reported by the American media. The German-English translation is being posted in five installments: parts I and II are available here and here.

PART I

ZEIT: You helped develop the system of renditions at the CIA . . . Were these “extraordinary renditions” a success from the point of view of the CIA?

Scheuer: Absolutely. For a decade it was the United States’ most successful anti-terrorism program.

ZEIT: Why?

Scheuer: Because the goals were so clearly defined. First, we wanted to identify the members and contacts of the terror-group al-Qaida and put them in jail. Those in fact who had either taken part in an attack on the United States or who were possibly planning an attack. Second, papers and electronics were to be confiscated. It is being claimed in the media that we had apprehended and hauled off people on the basis of some suspicions, in order to interrogate them. But that isn’t right.

ZEIT: You didn’t want to interrogate?

Scheuer: If it was possible to interrogate, we considered that the icing on the cake. We just wanted the man and his documents.

ZEIT: Why?

Scheuer: We knew from experience that aggressive interrogations that border on torture don’t work . . .

ZEIT: Who invented the system of “extraordinary renditions”?

Scheuer: President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: what should we do with the people we’ve apprehended? Clinton: that’s your concern. The CIA objected: we aren’t prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.

ZEIT: How did you decide who should be apprehended?

Scheuer: We had to present a huge amount of incriminating evidece to a group of lawyers.

ZEIT: Lawyers? In the intelligence services?

Scheuer: Yes, lawyers everywhere. In the CIA, in the Justice Department, in the National Security Council. We developed our list of targets under their supervision. Then we had to catch the person in a country that was prepared to cooperate with us. Finally, the person had to come from a country that was prepared to take him back. A terribly cumbersome process for a very limited group of targets.

ZEIT: Why did countries want to cooperate with you on their own territory? Couldn’t they have dealt with it themselves?

Scheuer: They believed that only America was threatened. And that they would themselves only become targets of terror if they arrested suspects . . .

ZEIT: Your partner countries wanted the CIA to do the work for them?

Scheuer: Yes, but they had no interest in holding these people in their own country. The CIA itself didn’t apprehend or imprison anyone.

ZEIT: Excuse me?

Scheuer: That was done by the local police or the local intelligence service. We always remained in the background . . .

ZEIT: Did the interrogations take place in the destination countries?

Scheuer: We always submitted our questions in writing.

ZEIT: The CIA was never present at the interrogations?

Scheuer: Not that I ever heard. The lawyers forbade us from that.

PART II


ZEIT: Didn’t you have concerns about torture in these countries?

Scheuer: No my job was to protect American citizens by taking Al-Qaida people off the street . . . This operation was 90% a huge success and only 10% a disaster.

ZEIT: In what did the disaster consist?

Scheuer: Everything was made public. Now the Europeans will help us a great deal less, because they have to fear that everything will be in the Washington Post. And then there is this blowhard in the Senate, John McCain, who almost concedes that the CIA tortures. All completely false. But that’s how the whole program was destroyed.

ZEIT: Why did you take these people to their home countries instead of the the U.S.? Couldn’t you have kept these people more safely under lock and key?

Scheuer: It was always a case of violent crime. We had little doubt that these countries would not let anyone go. And we didn’t bring them to the U.S. because President Clinton didn’t want us to.

ZEIT: Why not?

Scheuer: Our leadership didn’t want to treat them like prisoners of war, but rather as criminals. At the same time they feared that it wouldn’t be possible to gather enough evidence to hold up in court.

ZEIT: Is that so difficult?

Scheuer: In order to convict someone in the United States, an American officer of the law has to read him his rights when he is arrested. In foreign countries that is impossible. Second, the agents have to certify in court that none of the confiscated documents was modified. If no-one can swear to that, the court automatically refuses to accept them. Thus it becomes almost impossible to get a verdict.

ZEIT: On the other hand: How can have insufficient evidence for a court but at the same time feel certain enough to apprehend someone in a foreign country? Doesn’t the operation become illegal and illegitimate for that reason alone?

Scheuer: No, there are arrest warrants in their home countries for most of these people . . . We were simply helping to return people to their home countries, so that they could be punished for crimes they committed abroad.

ZEIT: The CIA sees itself as a global police force?

Scheuer: No, we are an arm of the U.S. government that has as its mission the protection of Americans. We would have preferred to bring these people to America as prisoners of war . . . But President Clinton simply didn’t [want] that. Nor did Präsident Bush. Both assumed that we would legitimize members of Al-Qaida if we treated them as prisoners of war. But that’s nonsense. Bin Laden and his fighters are heros in the Islamic world. Nothing that we could do would confer greater legitimacy than they already had. Anyway, it is simpler to make the Egyptians and Jordanians do the dirty work.

ZEIT: Human rights played no role in the Clinton administration?

Scheuer: The CIA raised this question . . . The Clinton administration asked us: Do you believe that the prisoners will be treated according to the standards of the local laws? And we said: yes, [we are] fairly certain.

ZEIT: So the Clinton administration didn’t want to know that precisely what went on there?

Scheuer: Exactly. The CIA officials in charge were pretty certain from the that in the end we would take the blame. And you yourself notice: in this debate we hear not a word from Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, or Richard Clarke.

ZEIT: What laws were broken?

Scheuer: I really don’t know. No American laws in any case . . .

ZEIT: CIA anti-terror boss Cofer Black said after the 9/11 attack that now “the gloves are coming off”. What did that mean internally in the CIA?

Scheuer: A great deal more pressure for results. And we began to house the people in our own facilities—in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Guantanamo. The Bush administration wanted to hold these people themselves, but they made the same mistakes as the Clinton administration in that they didn’t treat them like prisoners of war.

ZEIT: How many people did you catch?

Scheuer: I don’t know exactly. Shortly before the attack in September 2001 CIA director George Tenet told Congress that it had been approximately 100 up to that time. The operations that I lead personally got barely 40 persons. One hundred seems far to high to me.

Stay tuned for Parts III, IV, and V.