Joseph Hickman - The Convenient Terrorist: Two Whistleblowers’ Stories of Torture, Terror, Secret Wars, and CIA Lies

Copyright 2017 by Joseph Hickman & John Kiriakou

Introduction Copyright 2017 David Talbot

Foreword Copyright 2017 Jason Leopold

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1162-4

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1164-8

Printed in the United States of America.

Table of Contents

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Cast of Characters

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ABU ZUBAYDAH A SAUDI ARABIAN CITIZEN AND TORTURE VICTIM, CURRENTLY BEING DETAINED AT THE GUANTANAMO BAY DETENTION FACILITY

JOHN KIRIAKOU A FORMER CIA AGENT; NOW WORKING AS A COUNTERTERRORISM CONSULTANT

AMIR AN ARAB-AMERICAN CIA OFFICER WHO WORKED SUPPORTING JOHN KIRIAKOU IN PAKISTAN

MAJOR KHALID A PAKISTANI MILITARY OFFICIAL WHO WORKED WITH CIA OPERATIVES IN PAKISTAN

MOHAMMED SHAM BOYHOOD FRIEND OF ABU ZUBAYDAH

AMIN UNIVERSITY FRIEND OF ABU ZUBAYDAH

KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED (KSM) A MILITANT OFTEN CREDITED AS THE CHIEF ARCHITECT OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS, CURRENTLY BEING DETAINED AT THE GUANTANAMO BAY DETENTION FACILITY

OSAMA BIN LADEN FOUNDER OF AL QAEDA, EXECUTED BY US SPECIAL FORCES IN 2011.

ABDUL RASUL SAYYAF LEADER OF THE ISLAMIC UNION FOR THE LIBERATION OF AFGHANISTAN, CURRENTLY A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT IN AFGHANISTAN

PRINCE TURKI AL-FAISAL BIN ABDUL AZIZ SAUDI INTELLIGENCE CHIEF

KALIL AL-DEEK ASSOCIATE OF ABU ZUBAYDAH INVOLVED IN PLANNING MILLENNIUM ATTACKS

IBN AL-SHAYKH AL LIBI FRIEND OF ABU ZUBAYDAH

BRUCE JESSEN AND JAMES MITCHELL TWO PSYCHOLOGISTS WHO DEVELOPED THE TORTURE PROGRAM EMPLOYED BY THE CIA AFTER THE 9/11 ATTACKS

ALI SOUFAN FBI AGENT INVOLVED IN THE QUESTIONING OF ABU ZUBAYDAH

MAHER RELATIVE OF ABU ZUBAYDAH

Authors Note

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On December 9, 2014, I waited in front of my computer for the Senate Select Intelligence Committee to release a report on torture. The report had not yet been made public, and I was very anxious to see what it would say. I believed one of the people who would be featured in the 499-page report was a high-value detainee being held in Guantanamo named Abu Zubaydah.

When the report was finally made public, I found that I had been correct. Abu Zubaydah was mentioned. However, there was also something surprising in the report. Something I had not been expecting at all. Namely, that Abu Zubaydah was mentioned more than one thousand times.

Reading this report was personal for me. In fact, it was probably the most personal thing Id ever read. Eight years earlier, I had been in the military and assigned to an intelligence unit at Guantanamo Bay. In this capacity, I had participated in that operation that had transferred Abu Zubaydah from CIA custody into custody of the Department of Defense. Years later, I was hired as the lead researcher on the Abu Zubaydah habeas defense team. I worked on that team for two years, and in those two years I threw myself completely into the details of Abu Zubaydahs lifelearning everything there was of his biography, analyzing government documents concerning him, and interviewing his family, friends, and associates. Through this research, the one thing I became absolutely certain of was that Abu Zubaydah was not the number three man in the Al Qaeda organizationas the US government had proclaimed at the moment of his capture (and as many in the government still claim to this day). To the contrary, there was compelling evidence that Abu Zubaydah was not even a member of Al Qaeda. Yet it also became bracingly clear that he was not an innocent dupe or nave fellow traveler, as many civil rights and humanitarian groups had contended.

In the real world, a persons life is complicated. It does not always fit easily into a simple category that explains it entirelylike terrorist mastermind or blameless follower. Abu Zubaydahs life was just that.

It is just that.

Abu Zubaydah is a real personnot a terrorist monster and not, for lack of better words, an innocent lamb. While the US government and Abu Zubaydahs attorneys continue to go back and forthas they do to this daythere remains one thing upon which both sides agree. And thats that neither side wants the complete, muddy truth about Abu Zubaydah to come out. Sometimes the truth hurts everyone, and serves nobodys agenda. Unfortunately for him, Abu Zubaydah is the perfect example of such a case.

John Kiriakou is good friend of mine and a former CIA officerone of the agents who had originally captured Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002. Years later, he went to prison for having revealed that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured.

When John was released from prison, we reconnected because we knew we had a story to tell. About Abu Zubaydah and his associates, yes, but also about something more. We knew that together we had information about torture and the pursuit of terrorists by the US government that had never been made public. And that would change everything.

We knew that we had to tell this story.

Joseph Hickman, 2017

Introduction

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By David Talbot

Recently the New York Times made a bid to expand its editorial spectrum by hiring a columnist outside the newspapers neoliberal mold. Did the newspaper hire a philosophical soul mate of Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in the country? Did it choose a rising African-American essayist or a voice of Americas threatened immigrant or Muslim communities? Or, a passionate critic of the countrys war-addicted national security state? No, the Times poached neoconservative Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal a climate change denier, unrepentant apologist for the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, and anti-Muslim bigot. During a plague season of fake news and presidential mendacity on a level never before seen, the newspaper of record brought on board a spin artist known for his crackpot science and imperial mania. This is what counts as intellectual diversity in the establishment media.

Hot Books seeks to break this corporate mold with a bold catalog that includes urgent works of investigative journalism, searing memoirs, and political jeremiads. The imprint debuted with D. Watkinss powerful essay collection, The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America , and continued to challenge conventional wisdom with books like American Nuremberg , Rebecca Gordons war crimes argument against our countrys top political and military leaders, and Unspeakable , my own extended conversation with fearless journalist Chris Hedges about Americas most taboo topics. More recently, Hot Books has published Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Dick Russell and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about the corporate energy titans at the heart of the Donald Trump presidency who are responsible for the end of the world as we know it.