07/12/12 – Jason Leopold – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
The website is scotthortonshow.com and thestressblog.com.
Now I'll direct your eyeballs toward truthout.org.
Exclusive DOD report reveals some detainees interrogated while drugged, others chemically restrained by Jeffrey Kay and Jason Leopold.
And I'll go ahead now and mention this sidebar piece.
DOD report reveals...
Nope, this is the same one again.
Where the hell is it?
There was one about Jose Padilla.
Anyway, we'll get to that.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Jason?
Great to be with you.
Thank you, Scott.
What's the one about...
Oh, here it is.
DOD report confirms interrogators pulled deliberate ruse on Jose Padilla, convinced him flu shot was truth serum.
So, actually, let's start with that.
Is it...
You're convinced of the case that he actually never was given psychotropic drugs, they just gave him a vaccine and lied to him about what it was?
Absolutely not.
You know, there's...
Based on this report, it raises a lot of questions.
And I think that, you know, Jeff and I, you know, we worked real hard to try to connect some dots here, particularly what was happening at the time they were giving him this so-called flu shot and what they were telling him and what was happening with this working group overseen by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that met...or rather that met shortly thereafter to discuss the use of mind-altering substances.
However, you know, with that said, you know, placebos, which is more or less what that would fall under this ruse, you know, you tell someone that they're getting one drug and you're actually giving them a placebo, has a long history, certainly, you know, within the CIA, and it's been used in that way in the past.
So, it does have...
It does take...
It has an effect, you know, on the individual.
You know, if I'm telling you that I'm giving you LSD, for example, or a truth serum, you may react to that psychologically, thinking that that's what you're getting, when in fact you're just, you know, getting a routine flu shot.
And to me, it really sort of sounded like, you know, there was some sort of experiment, in a sense, happening, because, you know, Jose Padilla was the one that...the only individual in the report that they were able to...the Inspector General established that this happened to.
But there had been discussion, you know, as the report makes clear, that this sort of ruse was taking place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, with other detainees, who, you know, made similar charges.
But, you know, for some reason, the Inspector General was unable to confirm that.
All right, now...
And I'm sorry, because I really didn't set that up very well.
It's just...
It's one part of this work that you've done here.
And I didn't even really explain who Padilla is, for people who don't remember.
He's the American-born, American citizen, who, as far as I'm concerned, very well may have had some kind of ties to Al-Qaeda, as they call it.
But it turns out, when he was arrested by civilian police, the FBI, at the airport in Chicago, that they wanted to flip him and use him as an informant.
That's how dangerous they thought he was.
It was only later where they used lies that they had tortured out of this man, Binyam Muhammad, with razor blades, into having him come up with this ridiculous plot that he and Padilla were going to set off a radioactive dirty bomb.
And he read the recipe in Rolling Stone magazine, that all you've got to do is enrich uranium by swinging it around your head in a bucket.
And this ridiculous nonsense became the basis for them taking this man out of the court system, turning him over to Donald Rumsfeld, in the Navy, and George Tenet, in the CIA, in a brig in Charleston, South Carolina.
So he wasn't down there at Guantanamo Bay, he was in South Carolina.
But then when they finally took him out of the court system and prosecuted him, his lawyers came out with this litany of accusations against, well, basically the troops under Rumsfeld and Tenet's command there, and what they had done to this man, including the use of psychotropic drugs.
And now, do you remember, do you know, from those documents, did they say in court that this was done X number of times, or how severe the reaction was, this kind of thing?
Are you talking about with Padilla?
Yeah.
No, in fact, here's the thing, Scott.
Because his lawyers did complain about this kind of thing, right?
His lawyers did complain.
So back in 2006, his lawyers filed a complaint, it was a torture lawsuit against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
And, you know, the lawyers had said, hey, you know, Jose Padilla was shot up or injected with PCP or LSD, that was supposed to act as a truth serum.
Then during his, and by the way, where did they get that info?
Well, they had access to Padilla.
So Padilla is the one who made those allegations.
Then during his hearing to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial, the Brig Technical Director, a person by the name of Sanford Seymour, said no, no, no, no, that was just a routine flu shot that he got.
It wasn't LSD.
But what they did not disclose to his lawyers was, or to anyone for that matter, was that he was told that this was a truth serum.
That's why he believed that.
That's why he reacted the way he did.
So that was never disclosed to his lawyers.
So then what happened?
You know, his torture lawsuit wound its way through the courts.
The charges, you know, continued.
The allegations that Padilla, you know, made.
And eventually, you know, the lawsuit was rejected, you know, by an appeals court.
You know, he said he didn't have any standing.
So just recently, I think it may be just last month as a matter of fact, the Supreme Court finally rejected, you know, refused to take up this torture lawsuit.
And what's important to note is that they refused to take it up just a few days after they did that.
That's when we got the FOIA to this document.
That's when it was finally filled.
And, you know, Marcy Wheeler, who is an investigative blogger over at the website Empty Wheel, made a point of that yesterday in reviewing this.
And so the timing issue, Scott, of producing this report in response to the FOIA my colleague Jeff Kaye and I, or rather, excuse me, that Jeff Kaye filed for this document is very suspicious.
I hope that's not getting too weedy.
No, no, no, it's not weedy at all.
You're saying this could have been part of the case, and the Supreme Court didn't get a chance to hear this evidence because the defense was never told this.
And so it did not bear in their decision whether they hear it or not.
That's the biggest deal in the whole world.
Exactly.
So, you know, there's a question as to whether then did, you know, was it withheld purposely until the Supreme Court rejected it?
Certainly maybe a case could be made for that.
And had his attorneys had this information, perhaps they would have presented it, you know, to the Supreme Court.
Because what does it show?
Well, it shows that he was, you know, that this was abusive treatment.
As the inspector general noted, you know, one agency, either the Defense Intelligence Agency that was in charge of his interrogation, along with the FBI, one of those agencies was rebuked.
You know, we don't know exactly what happened for not following the law.
And that's a very, very important piece of evidence that they had in their possession, the government, for three years.
That was never provided.
Well, and now remember, too, audience, that when they finally did back down and put him in a civilian court system, that I just completely forgot what my point was going to be.
I've been doing that more and more.
I think I got early onset Alzheimer's disease.
But that's all right.
We'll be right back.
Maybe I'll think of it during the break.
It's Jason Leopold from Truthout.org.
Two important pieces.
DOD report reveals some detainees interrogated while drugged, others chemically restrained.
And then the sidebar report confirms interrogators pulled deliberate ruse on Jose Pedia, convinced him flu shot was truth serum.
We'll be right back after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHortonShow.com.
Also slash donate if you're interested.
Talking with Jason Leopold from Truthout.org.
This very important piece co-authored with Jeffrey K.
And talk about cross Ts and dotted Is.
They really put the work into this thing.
I urge you guys to read it.
DOD report reveals some detainees interrogated while drugged, others chemically restrained.
And actually, so far, we've just been talking about the sidebar piece.
Jose Pedia here.
DOD report confirms interrogators pulled deliberate ruse on Jose Pedia, convinced him flu shot was truth serum.
We're talking about what we know and what we don't know exactly about what kind of psychotropic drugs they may or may not have given Jose Pedia.
But remember, everyone, back when they finally backed down and took him out of the custody of the CIA and the military and gave him over to the court system, that they had to do this lengthy series of hearings in order to prove that he was fit to stand trial, that he was competent, sane enough to participate in his own defense.
And then I forget whether they had to hold a separate series of hearings to determine whether he was sane enough to be convicted, whether he could really be found guilty and and understand the charges against him or whatever, because of whatever it was that they'd done to him with or without drugs.
Is that your understanding of the thing?
Am I on the right page with that, Jason?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, you know, this, to most people, Scott, this report, these headlines, you know, I would imagine that someone rolled their eyes and say, OK, you know, not a surprise.
And it's not a surprise because the you know, what what has happened in this so-called global war on terror, the war crimes that have been committed and that's what really what they are, have are enormous.
I mean, there's the evidence just continues to mount.
You know, what's really significant about this is that there has not been much on the use of drugs as an interrogation technique, you know, or the use of, you know, mind altering drugs particularly.
And you and I spoke a couple of years ago, actually, when, you know, Jeff and I also put that report on together on mefloquine, which was an antimalarial that was given to every single, you know, Guantanamo detainee and had the same mind altering effect.
So, you know, but but it's still obviously very important to, you know, to document it and, you know, to continue to pursue this.
And, you know, what's what's incredible here is that, you know, it's how the, you know, how our government spun this, you know, how the Pentagon watchdogs spun this.
So, you know, what they say is, is that and this is the caveat, is that the report or the rather the mind altering drugs were not given.
They concluded or they were unable to substantiate was not given to detainees for the purposes for the purposes of interrogation, meaning that there was no formal government policy, you know, to mess with their head, which is ludicrous.
So essentially, they were given mind altering, you know, substances, but it wasn't an official government policy.
What's really, you know, another important note here is that which we established right in our first, you know, in our lead paragraph is that detainees who who were diagnosed as having severe mental health issues, they were given powerful antipsychotics and interrogated and interrogated.
And those antipsychotics are known to produce unreliable information.
You know, it would result in the in the detainee likely giving information that is not accurate under the current system.
That was that is now set up by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit.
Everything that a detainee says is presumed to be accurate.
And then it falls upon the detainee to prove that what he said wasn't accurate.
And here they're basically admitting in the first place, if they've got a if they have to dose all these men with antipsychotics, something made them crazy, where they all just a bunch of crazy people when they were abducted.
So why they say, hey, this because they're mentally ill.
You know, it's it's it's another important, you know, piece to this puzzle.
We know that there have been, you know, hundreds of those detainees were, you know, who are who are mentally ill.
And one of the detainees that was the subject of this investigation, who who was included in this report, they diagnosed him as borderline with borderline personality disorder, as with schizophrenia and as a psychotic.
So what did they do?
Well, they shot injected him with Haldol, powerful antipsychotic.
And interrogated him.
He essentially admitted, yeah, I'm with Al-Qaeda.
Let me go to sleep.
And then they kept him locked up in Guantanamo for three years.
They never told him what they were injecting him with.
You know, he believed it was some form of truth serum.
So, I mean, this is this is not just torture.
This is, you know, this is just the war crimes that, you know, that exist here are are tremendous.
Well, my right about assume my assumption about what drove them mad in the first place, people who had to be given these heavy antipsychotics.
Yeah, well, listen, you know, again, here's here's another point.
And I think that that's what one can take away from this report is that the model again, right?
Yeah.
I mean, one of the attorneys actually, when he was asked, when the inspector general asked one of the detainees attorneys, if he could, you know, or if the office could speak to the detainee, the attorney said, look, you know, he's pretty much lost much of his memory.
He doesn't have any any memory left, really.
So I'm not sure what he can give you.
So we're not going to let you talk to him.
You know, it certainly made it sound like the, you know, either or maybe a combination, obviously the indefinite detention and whatever he was given, you know, turned it into into that.
Yeah.
Well, now, in your article, you talk to a lot of doctors and lawyers.
What did they tell you?
You know, many of the lawyers basically said this is this just adds another layer to the cruelty of what, you know, what took place at Guantanamo with Padilla.
You know, one expert health policy expert and a lawyer, his name is Greg Block, said that, you know, this is a grave breach of medical ethics, even though the Padilla incident sounds like a juvenile prank, which was, you know, those were his words.
He said it's a grave breach of medical ethics.
And we also disclosed some of the investigative gaps that exist.
You know, Len Rubenstein from John Hopkins Medical Center and former president of Physicians for Human Rights.
I mean, he he said that the same thing, you know, the the ethical issues here are just enormous because you had doctors that were present while this was happening.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, we have a lot of that psychologists and doctors to participating in this kind of thing.
And now, I guess I'm trying to remember back how it was.
I guess it really was all the worst torture, even at Guantanamo.
It was the CIA really that did it.
And the military did some of their own, but it was more sleep deprivation tied to the wall.
I mean, all that's pretty bad.
But it was the CIA that really drive a man out of his mind.
Yes.
And I think that, you know, the CIA and, you know, we're starting to see special operations forces, you know, the Defense Intelligence Agency.
That's what's very noteworthy about this particular report or all the various agencies that were involved here.
Right.
Just think about how little you've heard about their role in this all this time.
Exactly.
It's just a tiny little window into what's still to be known.
There's just been no accountability whatsoever to get to the truth of all this.
No.
And you know what?
There there there won't be.
And, you know, it's starting to become very clear why.
Well, you have a number of these people, Scott, who continue to work for this administration now on detainee policies, interrogation practices.
Literally, Obama retained many of these people.
So, you know, when when Rumsfeld made that, you know, that infamous statement, the treatment at Abu Ghraib was just the result of a few bad apples.
Oh, no, this is this is enormous.
This this includes, you know, dozens upon dozens of of top officials.
And, you know, if you start paying close attention, you start to see where those officials now.
Oh, look, they're still working in, you know, for the government, for for Barack Obama.
And all their apologists in the media are all still media apologists for the same kind of thing.
Exactly.
I just when Scahill did that piece about the torture prison beneath Mogadishu.
Not a peep on TV about that.
No, you know, it's it's disturbing.
All right.
Well, listen, your journalism is disturbing, but because you did such a great job on such a horrible issue, it's DOD report reveals some detainees interrogated while drugged, others chemically restrained.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks very much, Jason.
Jason Leopold, everybody.
Truthout.org, Scott Horton Show.
Thank you, Scott.