Chapter FiveInternational Terrorists in Custody

Tracking terrorists and making arrests is one aspect of the overall global war on terror, but an equally important and equally complex aspect is the handling of suspected terrorists once they have been apprehended. The first issue.... View more

Chapter FiveInternational Terrorists in Custody

Tracking terrorists and making arrests is one aspect of the overall global war on terror, but an equally important and equally complex aspect is the handling of suspected terrorists once they have been apprehended. The first issue is the processing and imprisonment of terrorists. The second involves getting them to reveal information about other terrorists and their plans. Like much about this new kind of war, the treatment of terrorists in custody involves new strategies and methods and has yielded mixed results.

Processing Arrestees

Those arrested for terrorism generally fall into one of two categories. The first is terrorist leaders such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammad. When such important people are captured, where they are kept and how they are being treated is kept secret. For example, after his arrest in Pakistan, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad was quickly whisked away for questioning by U.S. authorities, and he will most likely be held in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location until he is brought to trial in the United States.

The second, much larger category of arrestees includes those caught in sweeps, such as occurred in Afghanistan at the time of the fall of the Taliban. Lower-level operatives and substantial numbers of detainees who have been captured or who have surrendered in groups are usually taken as a group to a secure facility operated by the arresting country or a nearby American military base, such as the one at Bagram, Afghanistan. There they are questioned to determine their citizenship and, to the degree possible, their connection to terrorist activity. In some cases it is immediately apparent that a person has no terrorist connections and has simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time; such individuals are released. This is a fairly unusual occurrence, however, because it is often difficult to sort

through the stories of each detainee and determine with confidence whose claims of noninvolvement are true. As a result, many detainees have been in custody for several years.

Guantáanamo Bay

Once American military action in Afghanistan began, individuals in custody quickly numbered in the hundreds. A facility

known as Camp X-Ray, originally erected at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba to house Haitian refugees in the 1990s, was quickly converted into a makeshift prison for Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other arrestees who were moved there from Afghanistan in early 2002.

The original detainees in Camp X-Ray numbered around one hundred primarily Muslim men. They were housed in six-by-eight-foot enclosures, consisting of chain-link fencing for walls, tin roofs, and concrete floors. They were given thin mats and blankets for use in sleep and to kneel on for daily prayer. Photographs of the prisoners in what amounted to cages, kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs, some wearing goggles, earmuffs, and other devices designed to keep them from seeing and hearing, created an uproar among human rights groups around the world. Later, inmates'diets were adjusted to conform to Muslim religious laws, and they were given Qur'ans, the holy book of Islam. Medical care improved, and they were permitted to regrow their characteristic beards, which had been shaved upon their arrest.

The U.S. government also responded to widespread concerns voiced by the Red Cross and other groups by constructing a more permanent facility in Guantánamo Bay called Camp Delta. At this site, large crates used for international shipping were divided into 5.5-by-8-foot cells, with steel mesh replacing three sides of the original container. Half the cell space is taken up by a metal bed that is welded to the one solid wall, and there is barely room to stand and stretch. According to reporter Richard Phillips, "These cells are smaller than the death row facilities in Texas, where inmates are allowed to shower and to exercise for an hour outside the cells each day." In contrast, Camp Delta prisoners "are confined to their non–air conditioned cells in fierce tropical heat for all but thirty minutes a week,"31 when they are allowed to exercise, wearing handcuffs, in a slightly larger 25-by-18-foot enclosure. Not all of those arrested in Afghanistan and neighboring countries are sent to

Guantánamo Bay. North of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, a military base at Bagram is being used by the United States as a detention center. Typical conditions there are similar to those at Guantánamo Bay.

A Deteriorating Situation

By the middle of 2002 the number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay had grown to over 500, and by mid-2003 the number stood at 650, from forty-three different countries. By the first anniversary of the arrival of the initial group on January 15, 2002, only 5 had been released. By March 2003, 16 Guantánamo detainees had attempted suicide, usually by hanging or suffocation, and 4 of these had tried twice. None succeeded, although one was left in a coma from which it is unlikely he will awaken. One inmate recently pleaded in a letter, "set me free as I am innocent or take me to the court for trial [or let me] die as I cannot stand life in this place."32 In response to the suicide attempts, U.S. military officials opened a new psychiatric ward at Guantánamo Bay. Though some cells in this ward will be larger, many prisoners will live in similar conditions to those in which they attempted suicide. Some even will remain shackled while they receive psychological counseling and psychiatric care.

Recently several dozen prisoners were moved to a new medium security wing of Camp Delta. There they sleep in a communal dorm and have greater ability to move around. They are allowed to exercise daily and eat and pray together. As many as two hundred may eventually be housed under such conditions—a precursor, American officials say, to their ultimate release and return home either to face trial or regain their liberty. In mid-2003 the Department of Defense, on the heels of revelations that several detainees were young teenagers, announced that a few unidentified prisoners were scheduled

for imminent release and that the government would be moving faster in the future to investigate each prisoner's case. In May 2003 several dozen prisoners left Guantánamo Bay for Afghanistan, but whether they are now free is not clear.

Stress and Duress

Recent investigative reports in newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal focus attention not on the conditions at Guantánamo Bay but on allegations of serious mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram, the military detention center in Afghanistan. Autopsies on two prisoners who died there in December 2002 revealed blunt force injuries to their bodies that contributed to their death; both deaths were subsequently ruled homicides.

"Stress and duress" is the name military officers use for the techniques designed to gain information from some terror suspects at Bagram and elsewhere. Stress and duress is not as extreme as deliberate, directly inflicted torture, but its intention—to break prisoners'wills and induce them to reveal information—is the same. A practice called "softening up" of new captives includes beatings by military police and U.S. Army Special Forces. According to Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, prisoners are "commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep,"33 and kept awake by kicks and nonstop bombardment with bright light. They may be forced to stay in one position for hours, and some released detainees have reported that prisoners are chained to the ceiling for extended periods of time and are denied food and drink. Pain medication has been withheld from wounded prisoners to give them further incentive to talk.

Though no one is accusing the United States of the extreme methods of torture used by some repressive regimes around the world, a number of concerns have arisen about practices by which, in the words of reporters Priest and Gellman, "the traditional lines between right and wrong, legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred."34 Some Americans argue that it is vital to learn whatever information al-Qaeda suspects have, as

a way of protecting Americans from future attacks, but many others are deeply troubled by this attitude. In 1999 in a report to the UN Committee Against Torture, the U.S. delegates said, "Americans find torture abhorrent to their very notion of themselves as Americans. The right to be free of torture is an indelible element of the American experience."35 The same standards apply to American citizens and noncitizens everywhere the U.S. government operates in the world. This basic American value, nevertheless, has been challenged by the war on terror.

Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense in the Bush administration, has repeatedly denied that anyone is being tortured at American hands, as defined by the UN Convention on Torture, which the United States ratified in 1994. In that document, torture is defined as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession"36 by a person acting in an official capacity. The Geneva Convention, the most important documents outlining the rights of wartime prisoners, define torture similarly, and clearly outlaw it. Calling prisoners "dry and safe," and describing U.S. treatment of prisoners as "proper …humane …and appropriate," Rumsfeld has said that there was no doubt in his mind that the conditions of their captivity are "consistent with the Geneva Convention, for the most part."37

Rumsfeld and other spokespersons for the Bush administration do not speak on the record about specific activities, but they do acknowledge that the most aggressive interrogation techniques allowable by international standards are being employed. The commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, Daniel McNeill, said American tactics had been adapted to the situation, adding that "they are in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques."38

Rendition

Another means of getting information from terrorists is the practice known as rendition. Rendition is the military practice of turning over, or rendering, arrestees for questioning by the authorities of another country. This practice differs from the formal legal process known as extradition, in which one country demands the return of a criminal held in custody by the civilian authorities of another country. Military renditions of terror suspects sometimes occur immediately upon arrest; others take place, usually secretly, at a later time if the suspect has not been cooperative under initial questioning.

Rendition of fugitive criminals has in the past been seen as a legitimate form of international cooperation, but some charge it is being used illegitimately in the war on terror. Groups such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross claim that its purpose is no longer to help other countries track down their own criminals, but to send terror suspects for interrogation in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, where torture of prisoners is known to occur. "We don't kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them,"39 one directly involved official is quoted by Washington Post reporters Priest and Gellman.

Any reports of mistreatment of a rendered suspect by CIA or other American operatives are classified, but according to one diplomat, "After September 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all the time. It allows us to get information from terrorists in a way we can't do on American soil."40 A senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of American interrogation practices summarized American involvement by saying, "In some cases involving interrogations in Saudi Arabia, we're able to observe directly through one-way mirrors the live investigations. In others we get summaries. We will feed questions to their investigators." But he adds, "They're still very much in control."41

It cannot be said with certainty how many suspects have been rendered during the war on terror because such transfers are usually made secretly, even of low-level operatives, and the circumstances of the custody of top terror suspects are rarely if ever revealed. However, some officials estimate that of the three thousand or so individuals in U.S. custody as terror suspects, approximately one hundred have already been rendered. Thousands more are believed to be in the custody of the foreign authorities who made the original arrest.

A Simmering Debate

The treatment of terror suspects is extremely controversial and depends on very different situations. For example, journalist Martin Edwin Andersen describes a situation in which "credible sources say a [detainee] has specific knowledge about a terrorist cell that has obtained a suitcase nuclear bomb and plans to use it within hours. … How can his captors …make him talk before it is too late?"42 Some people argue that torture would be justified in such a situation, including well-known political commentator William F. Buckley:"We should not torture an al-Qaeda prisoner as a general rule. But to torture the one who knows where the hijacked airborne 737 is headed is an exemption to the rule."43 Though the idea of torture is distasteful to many Americans, a few argue that it is time to establish laws permitting it under certain circumstances. "We can't

just close our eyes and pretend we live in a pure world,"44 Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz wrote in 2003, arguing that the war on terror requires a new legal process by which torture warrants can be granted to American authorities on a case-by-case basis.

Few topics generate more heated debate than the justification of torture. Most who argue openly for the selective use of torture feel it should be limited to situations in which crucial information is needed immediately to protect America and its people. However, experts point out that the information extracted under torture is often incorrect, blurted out simply to end the torture. Some suggest permitting the torture of suspected terrorists would have a deterrent effect, stopping people from becoming terrorists. Others counter that if the United States practices torture, American captives are more likely to be tortured by other nations in retaliation.

Some argue that torture is unacceptable under any circumstances, a violation of human dignity and human rights to which all people everywhere are entitled, regardless of what they have done. "We never want to become like those we claim as our enemies,"45 Scott Silliman, a professor at the Duke University law school, points out. Silliman speaks for many Americans who believe that their country does, and should always, set the standards for the world. Clearly the issue of treatment of terror suspects in detention will be a major test of American values as the war on terror proceeds.

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Chapter FourWinning Global Support to Fight Terror

Occasionally news headlines trumpet the capture of a high-profile terrorist, such as the arrest in Pakistan in March 2003 of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the al-Qaeda leader said to be the mastermind of the events of September 11..... View more

Chapter FourWinning Global Support to Fight Terror

Occasionally news headlines trumpet the capture of a high-profile terrorist, such as the arrest in Pakistan in March 2003 of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the al-Qaeda leader said to be the mastermind of the events of September 11. Despite the significance of such arrests, the news stories are often strikingly undramatic. Observers often describe an unassuming resident of a quiet neighborhood being arrested while he slept, or ate, or visited friends. There were no bombs, just an uneventful stakeout followed by a quick raid. The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad followed this pattern. At 2:30 A.M. a house was raided, based on a tip from neighbors hoping for a reward who had noticed a stranger in their neighborhood. Unknown to them, this stranger was the third highest ranking member of al-Qaeda. Acting on this tip, Pakistani police moved in, and quickly and without bloodshed arrested Mohammad and a companion.

What appeared on the surface to be simple and ordinary was in fact the result of delicate and complex cooperation between the governments of Pakistan and the United States. Such diplomacy is required in the war on terror. President Bush said as much, in his first major address to Congress and the American public after September 11:"We ask every nation to join us. We will ask, and we will need, the help of police forces, intelligence services, and banking systems around the world."29 What this has meant in practice is that behind every terrorist arrest in a foreign country is a story of collaboration with foreign officials, ranging from heads of government to local police chiefs.

These negotiations are designed to help the United States capture wanted terrorists while respecting the sovereignty of other nations. As the richest and most powerful nation in the world, what the United States offers in return for cooperation is whatever financial, political, military, or other support is most needed by the government of the foreign country involved. However, concerns often arise in the international community about how the United States uses its extraordinary power, and the enormous pressure it can exert on weaker nations. Mixed reactions to U.S. requests for cooperation have resulted in a great deal of international tension as the war on terror progresses.

Using Economic Clout

Some nations such as Great Britain work effectively with the United States because they generally agree with American objectives and share American values. Others cooperate because they need the wealth the United States can offer. The United States provides billions of dollars in foreign aid each year. Offers of more aid are a key way the United States persuades reluctant nations to support its goals. In addition to direct monetary assistance, future economic development is often offered in the form of promises to help build highways, airports, dams, factories, and other costly infrastructure that strengthens countries by enabling them to become more competitive and more self-sufficient. Other economic incentives include granting what is known as favored nation trading status, which allows for certain tariff reductions that benefit the foreign country.

A prominent example of how economic pressure can result in cooperation by otherwise reluctant or unfriendly nations occurred in Pakistan. Before the September 11 attacks, Pakistan was one of only three countries in the world (along with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) recognizing the

Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Pakistan had not traditionally been considered an ally of the United States. In fact, it had been subject to American economic sanctions as a result of its acquisition and testing of nuclear weapons as part of its ongoing conflict with neighboring India, a longstanding U.S. ally.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, however, Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, was faced with a difficult choice. The Bush administration made it clear that it expected Pakistan's cooperation in tracking down Taliban and al-Qaeda members who had crossed the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Musharraf was concerned that a refusal might result in stronger U.S. support for India in the struggle over the resource-rich Kashmir province on the India-Pakistan border. He also worried that a refusal would make Pakistan look like a supporter of terror in the eyes of the world. On the other hand, Musharraf was well aware of Pakistan's strong and vocal core of radical Muslims, who openly threatened a backlash against Musharraf if he cooperated with the United States in hunting down fellow Muslims.

Musharraf was willing to risk this backlash because what the United States offered was too significant to turn down. Pakistan was staggering economically under a $35 billion loan debt from other countries and international agencies. Its

domestic debt was equally devastating. The Bush administration offered an aid package worth over a billion dollars and agreed to forgive an additional billion dollars in debt, and to reduce trade barriers and other economic sanctions against Pakistan so it could make money on its exports.

Similar aid packages have been offered to other countries, not always with equal success. For example, Turkey refused to allow the United States to station sixty-two thousand troops on Turkish soil, which foiled U.S. plans to launch an invasion of Iraq from the north. The United States had offered Turkey an aid package including $6 billion in grants for Turkish cooperation, but the Turks strongly opposed the U.S. action in Iraq and could not reach an agreement.

Threatening the Uncooperative

In some cases, especially among smaller, developing countries, threats of boycotts, trade embargoes, reducing direct aid, and other sanctions are used to convince a country to go along with American requests. Countries may be more likely to bow to economic pressure, however, simply because the alternative might be submitting to military force.

The United States has by far the most powerful military in the world, and American leaders have proven their willingness to use military force when economic sanctions fail. This was the case in Iraq, after President Saddam Hussein repeatedly fell short of both UN and U.S. demands to disclose his inventory of weapons and dispose of weapons he was forbidden by the United Nations to have.

After declaring an end to diplomacy and negotiations, it took the United States only a few weeks to cross over from Kuwait, traverse Iraq, enter Baghdad, and topple Saddam's regime. Subsequently, key administration figures such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited the region, and in their speeches and meetings hinted at the possibility that the military would be used again if countries such as Syria and Iran did not take a stronger stand in rejecting terrorists and their methods. The Bush administration has clearly signaled its intention to keep the pressure on all countries it considers important to the war on terror, using both the carrot and the stick.

Cooperative Policing

In the case of Pakistan, even with the powerful package of incentives offered by the United States, Musharraf knew that his alliance with the United States would be hard to sell to his people, many of whom harbor strong anti-American sentiment. He agreed to cooperate by allowing only a very limited military presence in Pakistan. Though American forces have been permitted to chase suspected terrorists across the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan if they are in "hot pursuit, " and to assist in covert operations, Pakistan expects U.S. forces to stay on the Afghan side of the border. Their role is to provide technical support and advice to Pakistani law enforcement and generally to go no further than that. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) is ultimately responsible for conducting intelligence gathering and stakeouts and making arrests. Typically, American operatives are present when arrests are made and during interrogations, but both countries take great pains to stress the Pakistani role. The important point is that the United States is not violating Pakistan's sovereign right to handle all aspects of law enforcement and military action in its own country.

Thus, cooperative policing has become one of the major components of the war on terror. The capture in early 2003 of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad was a prime example, as was the arrest of Abu Zubadayah, a top al-Qaeda leader, in March 2002. Zubadayah escaped Afghanistan in September 2001 and went into hiding in Pakistan. His whereabouts came to light after two men disguised as Afghan women were caught at a border checkpoint by Pakistani police. Under interrogation, the men revealed knowledge of Zubadayah's presence in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Communication detection devices were then used to pinpoint his location, and Pakistani authorities called in the Faisalabad police to close in.

Police clipped electric wires and snuck into the target house around 3:00 A.M., where they surprised and subdued guards. Zubadayah and others ran to the roof and jumped to a neighboring rooftop, where more Pakistani police were waiting. In the melee that ensued, Zubadayah and a companion were shot and another accomplice was killed. Two dozen others were arrested in the house. Once the arrests were made, American operatives moved in to identify the suspects and search the hideout, where they found computer disks, notebooks, and

phone numbers—in all, about ten thousand pages of material. This evidence was sent back to the United States for analysis, while the suspects were taken to American bases for questioning. In that month alone in Pakistan, more than sixty al-Qaeda suspects were apprehended in similar cooperative policing efforts.

Equipment and Training

Because the details of covert operations generally remain secret even when a major arrest is made, it is impossible to know the full extent of the American role in covert activities in Pakistan and elsewhere. However, the extent of U.S. technical support, essential to the success of the effort, is more open and obvious. Pakistan's border security has been boosted by the provision of all-terrain vehicles, Apache helicopters, and radio communication equipment. Afghanistan has been similarly equipped, and the United States has spearheaded the training of Afghan and Pakistani police and army officers in use of this equipment and tactics in the war on terror. The ways in which U.S. training has enabled other countries to fight terrorism can be seen perhaps most clearly in the Philippines.

The Philippines were once an American protectorate, and a huge American military presence continued even after Philippine independence in 1948. Although small groups, primarily Filipino Muslims, have been consistently hostile to the

United States, for the most part relationships between the two countries have been cordial. In recent years, the Philippines have been troubled by several terrorist groups, most notably Abu Sayyaf ("Bearer of the Sword"), whose goal is similar to that of other groups in neighboring countries—to establish an independent fundamentalist Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

Speaking for the Bush administration, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stated that "if we have to go into 15 more countries, we ought to do it to fight terrorism."30 The president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, saw in this message an opportunity to get American assistance in fighting Abu Sayyaf. Though Filipino law forbids allowing foreigners to fight on Philippine soil, an exception provides for visiting forces joining in noncombat military exercises. Arroyo worked with the United States to create a joint military exercise designed to train Filipino soldiers to track down Abu Sayyaf members and other terrorists. In January 2002, 650 American soldiers,

including 160 Special Forces operatives, arrived in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines.

The purpose of these exercises was primarily to train Filipino soldiers to use new technologies that would help them combat terrorism in their own country. The American military training was judged a success, especially because the leader of Abu Sayyaf was killed during the joint operation, in a dramatic skirmish that took place on a small boat off the coast of the Philippines. The new skills the Philippine army had acquired were a major factor in their ability to carry out this mission. In January 2003 a new group of U.S. soldiers and advisers arrived to take part in another round of training including advanced night flying skills. It appears that the Philippines might serve as an example of how the United States can work with other countries to fight terror in ways which respect their leadership and national sovereignty.

Some question the long-term advisability of this broad technical support, however. Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan has a long history of alliance with the United States, and indeed it is uncertain whether the friendship will outlast the current president of either country. If Muslim extremists are able to gain more power in Pakistan or Afghanistan, all the equipment and training offered by the United States could potentially be used against it. International relations in this part of the world are complex and go beyond the war on terror. For example, there is concern that U.S. help in strengthening the Pakistani armed forces may lead to escalating tension between Pakistan and India, its long-standing enemy. Alliances built on such whims threaten important partnerships in the region, such as that between the United States and India, and must be undertaken with great care and sensitivity.

With or Without Global Support?

America's relations and sometimes fragile alliances with many other countries around the world were unquestionably harmed by the stance taken by the United States against Iraq. To many nations, Iraq was not a threat to the region or the world because its army and its weapons had been greatly reduced in a long war against Iran as well as the first Gulf War in 1991. Instead of going to war, many nations favored giving UN weapons inspectors more time to comb Iraq, arguing that this was the safest and most humanitarian way to determine what Iraq did and did not have in its arsenal.

How to Reduce Terrorism?

The position of the United States and its sole significant ally, Great Britain, was that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power so that a serious and imminent threat could be removed from the world. Although the Bush administration claimed there was a strong possibility that Saddam would supply al-Qaeda with weapons, links between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime have not been documented. The war on terror is very different from other wars, and its goals are rather imprecise. As a result, many Americans supported the war simply to see a ruthless dictator stripped of power, and because invading and conquering was a familiar and easily understandable way to confront an enemy. Whether it was actually fought over terrorism and whether it has actually reduced terrorism remains to be seen.

How to reduce terrorism is indeed a major worldwide concern that many nations feel the Bush administration has not adequately addressed. When Bush announced the war on terror shortly after September 11, he categorized the nations of the world as either supporters of the United States or supporters of terrorists. At the time, concerns about his possible oversimplification of the problem took a backseat to the legitimate need to bring al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups under control. Since 2001, however, defining a country as "friend" or "enemy" on the basis of one issue—terrorism—has been called into question. A case in point is Pakistan, whose new status as an ally is troubling to many who see more threat than friendship brewing there. Saudi Arabia has been considered an American ally for decades, but most of the September 11 hijackers came from that country and the invasion of Iraq prompted reexamination of that alliance despite Saudi support in other areas. Countries such as France and Germany, who led the opposition to the war in Iraq, have long-standing good relationships with the United States but have been alienated by the Bush administration's policies and actions. Few, however, would seriously consider France and Germany enemies of the United States.

As the war on terror took center stage in American foreign policy, and the Bush administration began to focus on a war with Iraq, many countries perceived America as a bully whose actions were undermining long-standing, hard-won, and valuable international bonds that preserved peace. The Bush administration, on the other hand, believed that the United Nations and other world bodies lacked the initiative and will to go beyond endless and ultimately fruitless diplomatic negotiation and that only force would make real headway in the war on terror.

Whatever merit there may be in these differing positions, it is clear that relationships between the United States and most nations around the world, including some of its staunchest allies, have been significantly affected by Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq without UN support. Some fear that efforts to defeat al-Qaeda and other terrorists will dissolve as resources and media attention are focused on Iraq. Others contend that the war in Iraq is likely to create a new generation of people with a grudge against the United States and thus undermine the chances for winning the war on terror. It remains to be seen what steps must be taken to ensure the kind of global support the United States needs to wage the war on terror.

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Chapter ThreeThe Technological War on Terror

Use of military troops and covert operations are two major components in the war on terror, but state-of-the-art high technology is also an integral part of missions that hunt down terrorists. Technology provides essential information.... View more

Chapter ThreeThe Technological War on Terror

Use of military troops and covert operations are two major components in the war on terror, but state-of-the-art high technology is also an integral part of missions that hunt down terrorists. Technology provides essential information the CIA and Special Forces need, and new weapons and surveillance techniques have in some situations taken the place of field operatives in the war on terror. Technology is preferred in some situations for a particular key advantage: It can often be employed without putting anyone in physical danger.

The military makes substantial use of modern technology in nearly all its missions. Often several different kinds of technology are used in concert. For example, the presence of a wanted terrorist may be initially detected electronically through such means as cellular or satellite airwaves. Then a more conventional weapon such as a bomb or guided missile may be dropped on that location. In modern warfare, the majority of bombs and missiles fall into the category of what are nicknamed "smart bombs." This refers to explosives that are precisely guided by sensors or remote control devices to a target. Smart bombs, for example, were used at the outset of the war on Iraq when intelligence sources believed they had pinpointed Saddam Hussein's exact location. Unmanned aircraft known as predator drones can find and destroy even a very small moving target. In Yemen in November 2002, five

al-Qaeda operatives, including one American, were killed in their car by such a strike by the CIA.

These very precise weapons are at the highly visible fore-front of modern warfare, but they are really only a small part of technological advances already in place to fight terror or currently under development. Much of the new technology cannot be used as weapons in the conventional sense of physically injuring an enemy; rather, these sophisticated tools expose the enemy and his sources of support, a huge advantage in waging war. Such technological advances not only assist the United States in tracking down terrorists but enable it to provide specific information to foreign countries so they can win the war on terror within their own borders.

Eavesdropping on Terrorists

Telephones, cell phones, and e-mail enable everyone to communicate better, including terrorists, but advanced communication systems have also benefited those who track terrorists down. Sophisticated phone surveillance, for example, is becoming an effective means of locating terrorists. The National Security Agency (NSA), the largest U.S. intelligence agency, is responsible for intercepting and analyzing massive amounts of foreign voice, video, and other communication as well as protecting U.S. government communications. One new software program breaks down speech into phonemes, the units of sound that make up words, and recognizes specific words with 98 percent accuracy, regardless of the speaker's dialect or accent. Its computational speed is amazing; it can search twenty hours of audio recording in less than one second and identify certain words, names, and secret codes likely to be associated with terrorist activity. This software can be loaded on laptops

and used in the field as part of wiretapping and bugging activities.

Terrorists risk exposing themselves through many other forms of communication because of new technologies' ability to intercept messages. For example, before the hunt for bin Laden intensified in the wake of September 11, he was known to use satellite phones. Because it is now quite possible to locate a person by intercepting a satellite call, he has since abandoned this method of communication. Direct communications by e-mail are also very risky because of a number of programs that are used to hone in on and read electronic messages.

More common is terrorists' use of websites to post information, using hidden codes or other markers. According to a

July 2002 CNN report, "Al-Qaeda is said to be computer savvy, and some investigators believe they have found markers or code words that indicate bin Laden is trying to signal supporters he is alive."20 Captured al-Qaeda members have revealed that their organization uses sophisticated technology known as steganography to hide messages inside photographic files on completely unrelated types of websites, including pornographic sites. The photographs are the equivalent of throwing a blanket over something one wishes to hide, making it difficult for the various detection programs to get beyond the photograph to read the encrypted data. Site addresses are changed frequently to minimize the chance of being caught, and the enormity of the Internet makes hidden messages an effective, although complicated, way of communicating.

James Bamford, a prominent expert on national security, says that al-Qaeda's means of communication are "a combination of low-tech communication with supporters, communicating by messaging or couriers, and using the Internet to reach others."21 In other words, al-Qaeda and other groups use whatever seems to be the most effective and least risky means of communication at the moment, from hopping on airplanes to deliver messages in person to carefully and laboriously embedding a message on the Internet. Journalist Daniel Sieberg agrees that "within the veiled and shadowy network of Osama bin Laden's operation, information is likely communicated through both high- and low-tech means, using everything from a web page to a whisper."22

In part, the continued need to communicate face-to-face is due to improvements in counterterrorist technologies. An example of one such breakthrough is the FBI's state-of-the-art computer program known as Carnivore, which is capable of detecting even the most cleverly encrypted messages. Also in this class is the top-secret Echelon system, a satellite-based network that monitors a wide range of worldwide communications, making it harder to communicate.

Even with such advanced technologies, however, it is difficult to stay ahead of online terrorist activity. General Mike Hayden, the director of the NSA, commented after September 11 that "we are behind the curve in keeping up with the global technological revolution,"23 and Bruce Schneier, an expert in cryptology, the art of making and breaking codes, adds that "the years of the military being at the leading edge of technology are gone because it moves so fast. In the real world …everyone has access to the same stuff. The limitations are basically just money."24 Regrettably, money is a commodity bin Laden and al-Qaeda do not lack.

Faces in a Crowd

Eavesdropping is only one technological means to zero in on terrorists. Research aimed at identifying individuals by various methods of facial scanning began in the 1980s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, and use of the technology has grown recently in the hope that it will be helpful in the war on terror. Face recognition, or faceprinting, as this technology is sometimes called, is part of the new "biometrics" industry, which is based on analyzing precise measurements of many parts of the face, such as the bridge of the nose, the corner of the mouth, and the cheekbone. The underlying theory is that no two individuals have exactly the same measurement profile, just as no two have exactly the same fingerprints. Today the two leading companies in this field are Identix and Viisage. Identix software takes up to 80 different measurements of the distance between specific parts of the face to identify an individual. Viisage software takes a different approach, creating 128 images of the face from different aspects and angles, called eigenfaces, to build a multidimensional picture called a face space. Both systems then store those visual images in a database, with which images of unknown individuals can be compared.

Face recognition systems are intended to be used at entrances to prominent buildings or other public places that might be targets for terrorist acts. Specially placed cameras will scan a crowd and send the data to an Identix or Viisage data-base. As people go by, their faces would be "read" and matches with known terrorists could be made. One particularly promising use of such technology is for screening in airports. Trials of various faceprint programs are in place in a few locations around the world, including the airport in Reykjavik, Iceland, a major stopover point for the long transatlantic flights terrorists often must take.

However, even when the conditions are most favorable, when a very clear photo of an individual looking directly into the camera is fed into a database, the technology is not yet reliable. A recent trial of Identix at the airport in Palm Beach, Florida, was a disappointment, as fifteen employees who had volunteered to be identified in the database as terrorists were spotted only 47 percent of the time. Conversely, a passenger was falsely identified as a terrorist by the system at a rate of

once every half-hour. It appears that such face recognition software programs are still far from being able to pick out individuals accurately enough to be useful in the war on terror.

Identifying terrorists by faceprinting will not be made easier simply by improving the system. Terrorists protect their identities very carefully, and photographs, if they exist at all, tend to be of very poor quality. A grainy photograph of a person looking to the side with his or her face partly in shadow is not likely to provide sufficient data to create a database profile. The chances of identifying a person by using this technology are also reduced if the person does not look directly into the camera. Researchers disagree about the extent to which disguises, changes in health, or the aging process can affect face recognition. Plastic surgery also further complicates the issue of recognition of an individual.

Other technologies such as fingerprint databases and eyeprints, which scan the coloration patterns of the iris, have similar drawbacks because terrorists'eyeprints are not likely to be on file already, nor are their fingerprints, unless they have been previously arrested. Even if such files exist, it is unlikely that a terrorist would willingly cooperate in providing the on-the-spot match. For practical reasons, therefore, in addition to technological problems, there are no immediate plans to implement such procedures as eyeprinting passengers before they board planes. Likewise, scenarios in which cameras scan a crowd at the Super Bowl or a World Cup match and identify one face among thousands just before he carries out an act of mass destruction are likely to remain more the stuff of movies than reality for some time to come. Nevertheless, considerable effort is going into developing reliable identification systems, which would be a major tool for tracking down terrorists if their accuracy can be improved.

Ubicomp and Data-Mining

Technologies such as faceprinting are part of what is now being described by the buzzword ubicomp, which stands for "ubiquitous

computing." Ubicomp refers to technology that is all-seeing, or everywhere at once. The central goal of ubicomp is to develop new ways of tracking things and people. Speaking to its extreme pervasiveness and potential to infiltrate daily life, ubicomp is described by journalist Elizabeth Weise as "a gentle dusting of almost microscopic sensors in everything we use, wear, walk on and drive, all calling out to each other in a radio whisper we never hear or see, but that tracks us like a mother following a two year old child."25 Already some ubicomp has entered daily life. Electronic ATM and credit card transactions enable people to purchase items without using cash. Transponders like EZ Pass allow people to travel on pay roads without stopping at toll booths. Technologies communicate instantly to swap data about customer identity and credit card information. "Cookies" placed on computer drives enable websites to greet customers by name when they log on. Navigational and theft recovery systems in cars use satellites to beam information about a car's whereabouts.

To this point ubicomp has been developed primarily by businesses, but recently the value of the data they collect has become apparent to the government. Ubicomp leaves records of what a person has been doing and where he or she has been. This could prove valuable in tracking down terrorists. To make this point, some analysts have re-created the movements and activities of the September 11 terrorists using such things as credit card, travel, and phone records, to show how valuable identifying these patterns in advance could have been.

Ubicomp is part of a larger operation known informally as data mining. Data mining refers to the effort to create a comprehensive profile of every person—citizens and noncitizens alike—in the United States by drawing on a wide range of commercial databases as well as public and private records. The most extensive of these efforts is the proposed Total Information Awareness Project, known as TIA. TIA is directed by retired admiral John Poindexter and is operated through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the Department of Defense.

According to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, "As envisioned, TIA would enable the federal government to collect comprehensive personal data on ordinary people including driving records, high school transcripts, book purchases, medical records, phone conversations, e-mail, and logs of Internet searches."26 Cross-referencing such data with information about citizenship and immigration status might make it possible to monitor people entering an airport or other building and identify who was an American citizen and who was traveling on a passport, who had and had not ever traveled in the Middle East, who had recently been stopped for suspicious activity of any sort, and whose banking activity suggested movement of large amounts of money.

Balancing Privacy with Protection

The almost unlimited potential of data mining to track people has excited those involved with hunting terrorists. It has, however, caused deep concern among many Americans because of what are perceived as erosions of constitutional rights, most notably the right to privacy. Most people have become accustomed to providing personal information to businesses, which seek to attract and keep customers through data collection, and most people accept without question government tracking devices such as social security numbers. But most people strongly object to the collection of detailed personal data by very powerful government entities such as the Department of Defense for the ultimate purpose of catching individuals engaging in illegal activities. Though many might argue that a person who is doing nothing wrong has nothing to fear, concern is growing that creating detailed databanks on even the most law-abiding of citizens is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy because it arbitrarily includes people there is no reason to suspect of anything.

TIA is at this stage only a controversial proposal by the Bush administration, not an implemented program. Its progress has been slowed by the vigorous objections of many legislators and powerful groups representing a wide spectrum of liberal and conservative viewpoints. Susan Graham, a Republican senator from Maine and head of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, says that it "raises extraordinary concerns about individual privacy."27 Former House majority leader Dick Armey, a Republican from Texas, called TIA "the only thing that is scary to me."28 Coming from members of Bush's own party, these objections are an indication of strong feeling that TIA violates basic privacy rights. To date, TIA has been stalled by congressional refusal to allocate funds for it, but the Bush administration has not abandoned the idea.

Terrorists move all too easily in a free society, and few would deny that it is important to use the vast powers of computers to aid in tracking down and apprehending individuals intent on violence. How this can be done without undercutting the public's rights to live without undue government interference will be one of the great challenges of the continuing war on terror.

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