Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
Monday, October 12, was the ninth anniversary of al Qaeda’s suicide attack on the USS Cole. Seventeen American sailors were killed in the attack. It is worth remembering that the mastermind of the operation, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, is currently held at Guantanamo. Much of the media’s coverage of al Nashiri has been centered on the fact that he was waterboarded and subjected to other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs). Much less attention has been paid to the plots Nashiri was working on when he was captured in November 2002, and how those plots were stopped. Here is how the DOD’s short biography of Nashiri recounts the attacks that didn’t happen:
There is every indication that Nashiri — who was the head of al Qaeda’s operations in the Arabian Peninsula at the time of his capture — was getting ready to unleash a new round of terror when he was captured. U.S. intelligence officials stopped Nashiri and his operatives, some of whom are also held at Gitmo, in their tracks. The question is: How did they do it? CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, who is a self-styled critic of the enhanced interrogation program, conceded in his May 7, 2004 report, titled “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001 – October 2003),” that Nashiri gave up information on his fellow terrorists as a result of coercive interrogations. According to the IG, EITs were used on Nashiri “immediately upon his arrival” into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. The IG wrote, for example:
While Nashiri gave up “lead information on other terrorists during his first day of interrogation,” he decided at some point to clam up. In particular, Nashiri’s debriefers and interrogators found that he was giving up information that was of mostly historical value. They decided to up the ante in response. The IG explained what happened next:
So, according to the IG’s report, it was only after the use of the EITs that Nashiri “provided information about his current operational planning.” That planning undoubtedly included the Port Rashid operation and the plot to blow up a U.S. housing compound in Riyadh (which, if executed, would likely have been similar to the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996). Note that when the IG wrote about it being “difficult to identify exactly why al Nashiri became more willing” to provide these details, he was undoubtedly talking about the variety of EITs that were employed because they were used from Nashiri’s first day in custody. And the language surrounding that sentence is all about the implementation of the EITs. So the facts of the case are this: (1) Nashiri is an accomplished terrorist who managed to orchestrate an attack against an American warship that killed 17 sailors and also did incredible damage to the vessel. (2) He was working on his next round of attacks at the time of his capture. (3) U.S. intelligence officials learned about al Nashiri’s plotting, at least in part, because of the intelligence he gave up during coercive interrogations and the debriefings that followed. On the ninth anniversary of the USS Cole bombing, we should be thankful that our U.S. intelligence professionals stopped Nashiri from killing more American servicemen.
