09/16/15 – Lauren Walker – The Scott Horton Show

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I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, Scott Horton Show, live here on the Liberty Radio Network, noon to two Eastern time, 11 to 1 Texas time.
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Our next guest on the show today is Lauren Walker, and she wrote this incredibly important piece.
We ran it in the news the other day on antiwar.com.
I hope that you saw it, how a botched translation landed Imad Hassan in Gitmo.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Lauren?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me.
Very happy to have you here.
A great piece of journalism you've put together for us.
So tell us, who is Imad Hassan, and how did he end up in Guantanamo Bay?
Well, it's a very complicated story how he wound up in Guantanamo Bay, as you read.
Imad Hassan is just one of the many people who fills the prison.
His story is remarkable, and it's not remarkable at the same time.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not remarkable just because it's been repeated so many times, and by people to his left and right and all around him in that same place.
But yeah, taken as an individual story, I'm glad you told it this way.
Here's this one guy, and you could, of course, like we're saying, multiply the same story over and over again.
But when you make it this way, it almost seems like he's a human being.
Like there but for the grace of God goes me myself kind of a deal, you know?
So now, it is kind of complicated, and you could see how they made their mistake in the first place, right?
Because he was, I think you reported in here, if I got it right, he was arrested in conjunction with the same sweep of arrests by the CIA and the Pakistani National Police that landed them Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and, you know, related actual terrorist targets, no?
No, Abu Zubaydah.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Zubaydah.
Okay.
So, they thought at the time, high-level terrorist targets.
Almost same group of sweeps there, but a different period of time.
Sorry.
Okay.
But anyway, Zubaydah, who they thought was al-Qaeda's number three, whatever.
So this guy was arrested in a house that had some association with Zubaydah, who of course did have some association with al-Qaeda, correct?
Right.
I believe that the piece that they had was they had been in electronic contact, meaning likely a phone call, between a house that Zubaydah was in and this house.
And that was it?
That was the only connection that they knew of, or thought they knew of, at least, between these two houses?
Well, they also had an anonymous tip from a foreign government, well, not an anonymous to me, but a tip from a foreign government saying one of their informants implicated it as a safe house.
But then you say that, well, he was there as a student and all kinds of people were coming and going through that house.
So even if Osama's best friend had been there, that didn't necessarily implicate anyone else in the house.
Yes.
His lawyers told me that before he even went to Pakistan, he had arranged to stay at this house.
He didn't know some of the other people who were there.
I mean, it was a large house, there was around 15 people.
So yeah, it could have been anyone, didn't necessarily mean he was associated with them.
And you know, I hate to say this, because I don't mean to make light of the situation, but only in a kind of contrast sort of way.
You could see what happened to this kid being like a Saturday Night Live skit, right?
You know, Al-Qaeda, Yemen.
This young kid says, hi, OK, mom and dad, I'm going off to Pakistan for my religious training and whatever.
I'm going to go learn to go to school or whatever it was.
And then later on, there he is admitting to the Americans under duress that, yes, I'm associated with Al-Qaeda, when all he meant was that's his hometown, really?
Yeah, I really grappled with that because, I mean, it's funny and it's tragic at the same time.
It's completely ridiculous.
And you could see, again, you could see why they made the mistake.
But then I guess you don't seem to leave much doubt in here that the American authorities have understood for a very long time, maybe even before they got him to Guantanamo.
But certainly for many years now, more than a decade, they have known that this guy really was not a terrorist, really, they don't have any other reason to believe that he was associated with the group Al-Qaeda at all.
And they understand the careless mistake that that's actually a town in Yemen.
Right.
I mean, something that has been repeated, also Kiriakou told me this, was that their policy was if you were Arab and you had no passport, which he did, Amad Hassan did, but if you were Arab and they didn't know who you were, you were being arrested.
And many of those people who were sent to Gitmo, they didn't have much information on.
And yes, he was cleared in 2009.
But there are many hurdles to getting prisoners out.
Well, they must have known they'd interrogated him plenty.
They knew long before 09.
That's just when the reviews, the Obama era reviews were instituted.
But I'm sure if we had all the paperwork, we'd see that they knew, you know, back in the era of Rumsfeld and all that, just how innocent he was.
Now, so, well, let me ask you as a devil's advocate thing, and maybe that's just his cheesy excuse that that's just the name of his town and maybe he really is a terrorist.
Is there any other real reason to believe that he is that maybe I'm overlooking for confirmation biases sake or whatever?
I mean, if you look through the paperwork that was released through WikiLeaks, there are little bits like his plane ticket was bought in conjunction with another person who they suspected.
But at the end of the day, if there was all of this evidence against him, they should try him.
All right.
And now so then the other thing is, I'm not sure I'd need a real expert.
And maybe, you know, all of the different reasons that have been invoked by the military, by the White House and others for who gets released and when.
But obviously, the big one is if you're from Yemen, you can't go because we have a terror war against Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Well, we're fighting for them and against them at the same time now.
But anyway, under the rubric of fighting against them, Obama can't take the political risk of a Yemeni from Guantanamo going home and joining up with AQAP.
So they have to stay.
Right.
There was a there have been a few blocks on sending people from Yemen out.
And then in terms of other reasons why one person leaves versus another, there's been very little transparency on that.
But countries do come in and do interviews and there is a whole long process for getting countries to agree to take detainees.
So there are many factors, I think, that we're not even aware of as to why one leaves and one doesn't.
His lawyers speculated that maybe his disciplinary infractions while he was at Gitmo contributed, such as leading hunger strikes or being part of a hunger strike.
Things like that.
All right.
And now, yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, because I probably imply that he's still there.
But that is kind of the big news here is they did eventually let him go.
They made a deal to send him to Oman.
But how many more Yemenis are still there just because they're Yemenis?
Do you know?
I don't know the exact number, but it's a large chunk are from Yemen.
And and, yeah, like Kyriakou, you're quoting Kyriakou, the CIA officer who was involved in that raid on Zubaydah, et cetera, saying that basically any, quote unquote, Arab Afghan were to be considered al Qaeda and nabbed.
That's it.
If you're Arab, what the hell are you doing here?
And that was enough.
And never mind all the, you know, Afghan sheep herders and whoever that got rounded up just, you know, because somebody got paid to point a finger at them.
But but certainly basically any Arab that they could get was enough.
You know, well, really, from the beginning, it was a public relations stunt to make it look like there were armies of these guys when back then al Qaeda was no more than a couple of hundred guys.
And most of them had been killed by the CIA and the Air Force in the early or the late part of 2001 there.
So they had to try to make it look like there was an actual enemy.
So they just rounded up as many people as they could.
There used to be seven hundred and fifty something people there.
And it was Bush who let more than 500, I think maybe even more than 600 of them go, because even under his lawyers, they had to admit that, you know, these people are just too innocent to hold.
We got to let them go.
Right.
And something that was interesting that one of Imad's lawyers told me was that the countries that had political pull were getting their detainees from their country out faster.
And some of his clients were telling him that they were even scared of some of the people that were leaving.
All right.
Now.
Yeah.
Boy, that just says a lot right there, doesn't it?
Just like, you know, murderers getting out of prison while people in pot charges rot.
We'll be right back with Lauren Walker in just a second, y'all.
Newsweek dot com.
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All right, y'all.
We're talking with Lauren Walker.
She's a reporter writing at Newsweek dot com.
This one is called How a Botched Translation Landed Imad Hassan in Gitmo.
And you got to read it.
It's just one of those mind blowing sort of squeegee third eye kind of deals, man.
Get you living right in the real world.
All right, so there's so much stuff I want to ask you here, Lauren.
I guess, first of all, for this segment, was he tortured at all or can you describe what you know of the worst of the treatment that he ever suffered?
Sure.
And so he has been or he was on consistent hunger strike from 2007 on.
And because of that, it provoked the the guards and medical staff to force feed him.
And so that is considered to be torture by groups like the Red Cross.
And his lawyers estimate that that happened to him over 5000 times.
So he's developed.
2007, you said, huh?
Yeah.
Wow.
He's developed some chronic issues from that.
He has chronic pancreatitis.
He one of his nostrils is swelled shut.
I mean, he weighs less than 90 pounds.
So that's something that he definitely dealt with.
He's been beaten.
He I mean, it's something that he doesn't really like talking about.
So his lawyers haven't haven't prodded him.
But if you read if you read Guantanamo Diary, those are some of the things that many have had to deal with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But so no indication that he was beaten within an inch of his life by the military holding him in Afghanistan or put through all this stress position routines and experiments under Rumsfeld down there and that stuff.
No, he was held in stress positions.
I know that.
I know he got the facial slap.
Oh, OK.
So, yeah, they put him through.
Do we know whether that was CIA or military that was doing that to him?
It's military.
He wasn't in CIA custody.
Oh, they never did.
OK.
Yeah.
All right.
So, yeah, that's important.
Important point to stop and make there.
And then.
So now as far as the hunger strike from from 2007, it seems like he would be in terrible shape.
I mean, even if they're forcing insured on his throat, it seems like his health would be severely compromised.
He have long term effects from that or anything, you know?
Yeah.
So he has a chronic pancreatitis.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I was going to say the pancreatitis is one of his nostrils is swelled shut.
I mean, he's he's sent letters to his lawyers describing the ways that his force feeding regimen has changed.
I mean, Guantanamo has a turnover of staff and he describes in his letters explaining that he can't have too much insure because he'll throw it up.
But because he's a detainee, he isn't listened to.
And so they do it anyway.
And when he throws up, sometimes it's protocol to start the process all over again.
So there's a lot.
Yeah.
And now, I guess the counter argument is, well, he's trying to starve himself to death and they can't let that happen.
So they have to write.
And that's the position of the government is that this is a last resort to to help with issues such as malnutrition.
His lawyers have told me and he's told them that he didn't want to die.
But this is the one thing that he had control over.
Right.
Under 90 pounds, you say under 90 pounds.
And yeah, of course.
I mean, and the whole deal with a hunger strike, of course, is, you know, like you say, he's not trying to starve himself to death.
He's trying to get us to stop him from having to.
That's the point.
It's the most pathetic cry for help that you could possibly have.
And it has proven to work.
I believe in 2013, there was a mass hunger strike that caught President Obama's attention.
So, yeah, they have reason to believe it will it will catch someone's attention.
Well, in the in catching his in catching Obama's attention there, it certainly caught public attention.
But you're saying that that prompted Obama to make some changes?
Yeah, I believe what I believe that he reaffirmed his commitments in 2013 because of it to closing the facility to releasing detainees.
We see where we are with that.
Yeah.
And now, you know, it's funny, too.
They knew I was going to forget his name.
But Clive Stafford Smith, who you quote in here, is one of his lawyers.
He's also representing this guy who is the Brit, the last Brit in Guantanamo, who Obama publicly promised David Cameron, the prime minister, that, yeah, I'm going to send this guy home.
He's clear for release.
He's going to go.
And he's still not home.
Do you know what was going on with that?
Because I think Clive wrote a thing basically saying that, well, the military is just insubordinate.
They're refusing to follow his order, apparently here.
Right.
There's definitely been reports about there's internal disagreement about sending him specifically and others out.
I mean, there's a million reasons why that why he might not be out that we don't know about.
But I've heard that there are there's worry about his condition and being sent out and people seeing.
That was definitely something that was brought up in Ahmaud's case by his lawyers.
They thought maybe that could be a reason he hadn't been released yet.
I mean, we really don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, they got to get him to sign a confidentiality agreement like they did David Hicks.
I promise not to describe all the ways you tortured me as long as you just let me go.
That was an interesting part of the data that the director of National Intelligence releases.
There was a report out by Seton Hall saying that they speculated that some of those recidivism numbers included people who have come in and spoken out about their detainment.
Oh, really?
That just that this is a terrorist act against America's if when they release they talk to the media.
Exactly.
Isn't that something, you know, always just dismiss those numbers of the recidivism thing.
I really should have looked into that.
What a what a great point.
I want to check into that more.
Yeah.
I'll send you a link.
Yeah.
Oh, would you please?
Yeah, that's great.
And isn't that always the way that sounds like, you know, I'm shocked, but not surprised kind of a thing.
You know, what do you think, audience?
You like that?
That's what it means.
Oh, look at all the you can't let anyone out of Guantanamo.
Or they'll be recidivist.
Yeah.
By telling the local media, here's what they did to me.
Amazing.
The same thing that they claimed when the three mysteriously died at Camp No.
Back in 2006, they said these three guys committed suicide and it was an act of asymmetric warfare against the United States trying to make us look bad by dying on our watch.
What a terrorist act.
And of course, Hickman, who you quote in here and the other Scott Horton and Seton Hall in their studies have shown, you know, just how not very mysterious those deaths are.
They weren't suicides at all.
But I guess that's a different story, but an important one.
All right.
Well, so now that this guy is, quote unquote, free, I don't know exactly what his situation is in Oman.
Is he talking to anyone?
Are you able to talk with people who represent him now or him or him?
The closest I got to speaking with him is speaking to the person leading his resettlement with Reprieve.
Reprieve is the organization that is representing him.
The lawyers come from his lawyers come from Reprieve.
Anyway, I was talking to her and it's very fascinating.
All of the considerations that they have to make.
I mean, these people have huge gaps on their resume.
They have no connection to the place that they're being resettled.
In some cases, there have to be language classes, etc.
But she was very clear that the biggest hurdle he will face is stigma, because while he has been released, he was never charged, which means he was never cleared.
Right.
So, yeah, he's going to have to face that in his his new country.
Yeah, everyone is going to just assume that he's a rat or else what's he doing out?
Yeah, something.
Yeah, something bad.
Yeah.
Or, you know, just take the story at face value.
Some kind of terrorist.
But more likely, they'll think it's suspicious that he's free, then, you know.
Right.
I mean, there's there's little information really about each of these people.
I think that this is rare that such a in-depth look at just one of the many occurs.
And I mean, hopefully people read it, but it doesn't have that type of spread.
This article.
Yeah.
No.
But you know what?
It's it does make a difference.
It's chipping away.
It's certainly for historical reasons and everything else.
It's helping to and in real time helping to provide a better context and understanding for the true situation down there.
It's very important work.
I really appreciate you're doing it and your time on the show today.
Lauren.
Yeah.
Thank you for having me.
All right.
That concludes this week.
How a botched translation landed Imad Hassan in Gitmo.
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