preview.tinyurl.com/6pc49k -> www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.html
He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called "knuckledraggers." Mr Martinez came in after the rough stuff, the ultimate good cop with the classic skills: an unimposing presence, inexhaustible patience and a willingness to listen to the gripes and musings of a pitiless killer in rambling, imperfect English. He achieved a rapport with Mr Mohammed that astonished his fellow CIA officers. A canny opponent, Mr Mohammed mixed disinformation and braggadocio with details of plots, past and planned. "They'd have long talks about religion," comparing notes on Islam and Mr Martinez's Catholicism, one CIA officer recalled. And, the officer added, there was one other detail no one could have predicted: "He wrote poems to Deuce's wife." Mr Martinez, who by then had interrogated at least three other high-level prisoners, would bring Mr Mohammed snacks, usually dates. He would listen to Mr Mohammed's despair over the likelihood that he would never see his children again and to his catalog of complaints about his accommodations. The story of Mr Martinez's role in the CIA's interrogation program, including his contribution to the first capture of a major figure in Al Qaeda, provides the closest look to date beneath the blanket of secrecy that hides the program from terrorists and from critics who accuse the agency of torture.
Daniel Pearl and the separate teams at the CIA's secret prisons of those who meted out the agony and those who asked the questions. In the Hollywood clich of Fox's "24," a torturer shouts questions at a bound terrorist while inflicting excruciating pain. A paramilitary team put on the pressure, using cold temperatures, sleeplessness, pain and fear to force a prisoner to talk. When the prisoner signaled assent, the tormenters stepped aside. After a break that could be a day or even longer, Mr Martinez or another interrogator took up the questioning. Mr Martinez's success at building a rapport with the most ruthless of terrorists goes to the heart of the interrogation debate. Did it suggest that traditional methods alone might have obtained the same information or more? Or did Mr Mohammed talk so expansively because he feared more of the brutal treatment he had already endured? A definitive answer is unlikely under the Bush administration, which has insisted in court that not a single page of 7,000 documents on the program can be made public.
The two dozen current and former American and foreign intelligence officials interviewed for this article offered a tantalizing but incomplete description of the CIA detention program. Most would speak of the highly classified program only on the condition of anonymity.
Michael V Hayden, director of the CIA, and a lawyer representing Mr Martinez asked that he not be named in this article, saying that the former interrogator believed that the use of his name would invade his privacy and might jeopardize his safety. The New York Times, noting that Mr Martinez had never worked undercover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news articles and books, declined the request.
Officials acknowledge that it was cobbled together under enormous pressure in 2002 by an agency nearly devoid of expertise in detention and interrogation. With little research or reflection, it borrowed its techniques from an American military training program modeled on the torture repertories of the Soviet Union and other cold-war adversaries, a lineage that would come to haunt the agency. It located its overseas jails based largely on which foreign intelligence officials were most accommodating and rushed to move the prisoners when word of locations leaked. Seeking a longer-term solution, the CIA spent millions to build a high-security prison in a remote desert location, according to two former intelligence officials. The prison, whose existence has never been disclosed, was completed -- and then apparently abandoned unused -- when President Bush decided in 2006 to move all the prisoners to Guantnamo.
Next Page Editors' Note: June 22, 2008 The Central Intelligence Agency asked The New York Times not to publish the name of Deuce Martinez, an interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda prisoners, saying that to identify Mr Martinez would invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency. After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr Martinez had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article. The Times's policy is to withhold the name of a news subject only very rarely, most often in the case of victims of sexual assault or intelligence officers operating under cover. Mr Martinez, a career analyst at the agency until his retirement a few years ago, did not directly participate in waterboarding or other harsh interrogation methods that critics describe as torture and, in fact, turned down an offer to be trained in such tactics. The newspaper seriously considered the requests from Mr Martinez and the agency. But in view of the experience of other government employees who have been named publicly in books and published articles or who have themselves chosen to go public, the newspaper made the decision to print the name.
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