Dennis G
05-24-2004, 01:22 PM
I personally know judge Dunlavey
Posted on Wed, Mar. 27, 2002
Lead U.S. interrogator describes Camp X-ray captives as lost souls or ideologues
By CAROL ROSENBERG
Miami Herald
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Speaking for the first time Wednesday, the U.S. general in charge of global anti-terror intelligence operations described suspected Taliban and al-Qaida captives held here as either lost souls who were seduced into waging holy war or ideologically driven fight-to-the-death warriors bent on destroying U.S. culture.
"Some of these people that we've talked to clearly fall into the category of people who were swept up by the moment," said Army Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, a Vietnam veteran who was mobilized from an Erie, Pa., judge's bench days after the Sept. 11 attacks. "But the ones we're looking for are the ones that are in it with their heart and soul — and their goal is the destruction of our culture as we know it, our way of life. We have both."
He added: "Some of the people that we have interrogated and debriefed are clearly people who were lost in society. Some were drawn into the promise of a jihad to fight the northern alliance and they're on some type of absolutely religious goal, and they got sucked up into combat."
Among those, he said, are captives who provide little to zero intelligence value to the U.S. military and civilian law enforcement agencies.
Until Wednesday's interview the identity of Dunlavey, 59, had been a Pentagon secret, reflecting the clandestine nature of the interrogation side of this emerging offshore U.S. detention center for international terror suspects. The Southern Command agreed to make him available on the eve of a change-of-command ceremony for the general in charge of the prison camp operations after weeks of requests by The Miami Herald.
Interrogations have been under way since Jan. 23, mostly aimed at acquiring positive identification of the 300 captives who came on 11 shuttles from Kandahar, Afghanistan, between Jan. 11 and Feb. 15.
But, a spokesman said they began in earnest after Dunlavey arrived on March 1 from the National Security Agency "to establish the standards for interrogation and the processing of intelligence worldwide in the war on terrorism, from here."
Reporters have seen both civilian and military interrogators come and go from the five wooden huts on the edge of the camp. But Dunlavey offered the first, if small, window into the secretive process:
Each interrogation is preceded by a six- or seven-hour planning meeting among intelligence analysts, translators and interrogators among the 200-man team.
Then, depending on a prisoner's willingness to cooperate on any given day, an interrogation can last from minutes to hours.
Dunlavey said intelligence gleaned from the prisoners has included better understanding of the al-Qaida and Taliban culture and motivation — as well as their tactics and methodology, "how they fight, where they may be going."
"We didn't know the enemy very well, prior to 9-11, simply because they weren't out there advertising. They did a great job of masking what they were doing," the general said.
Today, after weeks of interrogations, "We know them a lot better, I wish it was very well."
At least two of the prisoners have been deemed of no value to the interrogators; they are among five diagnosed psychiatric cases and considered so severely mentally ill that they have no intelligence value, Dunlavey said.
Others have yet to reveal their true value.
"We've got a very, very wily well organized enemy," he said. "All you have to do is look at Osama bin Laden or the rest of the leadership. They are well educated, wealthy, intelligent, extremely well funded from a multitude of sources."
Asked whether any of those leaders are among the 300 men at Camp X-Ray, he replied: "I only assume we do. I can't confirm that right now. They are very wily, very intelligent. So we're working for what we're getting."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld chose Dunlavey for the job because of his unique background as a lawyer, judge and combat veteran with some 30 years of intelligence experience, both in the active and reserve Army, said Army Lt. Col. Bill Costello, a Southern Command spokesman.
A Notre Dame graduate in economics, Dunlavey was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army in 1967, served one year in Vietnam and has about three decades of military intelligence work. At his mobilization in September, he was a trial judge in the Erie County, Pa., Court of Common Pleas and had previously worked as both a criminal prosecutor and defense attorney.
He spoke on the eve of a change-of-command ceremony in which Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert turns over prison camp operations, known at the Pentagon as Joint Task Force 160, to another one-star general — Army Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus of the Rhode Island National Guard.
Posted on Wed, Mar. 27, 2002
Lead U.S. interrogator describes Camp X-ray captives as lost souls or ideologues
By CAROL ROSENBERG
Miami Herald
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Speaking for the first time Wednesday, the U.S. general in charge of global anti-terror intelligence operations described suspected Taliban and al-Qaida captives held here as either lost souls who were seduced into waging holy war or ideologically driven fight-to-the-death warriors bent on destroying U.S. culture.
"Some of these people that we've talked to clearly fall into the category of people who were swept up by the moment," said Army Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, a Vietnam veteran who was mobilized from an Erie, Pa., judge's bench days after the Sept. 11 attacks. "But the ones we're looking for are the ones that are in it with their heart and soul — and their goal is the destruction of our culture as we know it, our way of life. We have both."
He added: "Some of the people that we have interrogated and debriefed are clearly people who were lost in society. Some were drawn into the promise of a jihad to fight the northern alliance and they're on some type of absolutely religious goal, and they got sucked up into combat."
Among those, he said, are captives who provide little to zero intelligence value to the U.S. military and civilian law enforcement agencies.
Until Wednesday's interview the identity of Dunlavey, 59, had been a Pentagon secret, reflecting the clandestine nature of the interrogation side of this emerging offshore U.S. detention center for international terror suspects. The Southern Command agreed to make him available on the eve of a change-of-command ceremony for the general in charge of the prison camp operations after weeks of requests by The Miami Herald.
Interrogations have been under way since Jan. 23, mostly aimed at acquiring positive identification of the 300 captives who came on 11 shuttles from Kandahar, Afghanistan, between Jan. 11 and Feb. 15.
But, a spokesman said they began in earnest after Dunlavey arrived on March 1 from the National Security Agency "to establish the standards for interrogation and the processing of intelligence worldwide in the war on terrorism, from here."
Reporters have seen both civilian and military interrogators come and go from the five wooden huts on the edge of the camp. But Dunlavey offered the first, if small, window into the secretive process:
Each interrogation is preceded by a six- or seven-hour planning meeting among intelligence analysts, translators and interrogators among the 200-man team.
Then, depending on a prisoner's willingness to cooperate on any given day, an interrogation can last from minutes to hours.
Dunlavey said intelligence gleaned from the prisoners has included better understanding of the al-Qaida and Taliban culture and motivation — as well as their tactics and methodology, "how they fight, where they may be going."
"We didn't know the enemy very well, prior to 9-11, simply because they weren't out there advertising. They did a great job of masking what they were doing," the general said.
Today, after weeks of interrogations, "We know them a lot better, I wish it was very well."
At least two of the prisoners have been deemed of no value to the interrogators; they are among five diagnosed psychiatric cases and considered so severely mentally ill that they have no intelligence value, Dunlavey said.
Others have yet to reveal their true value.
"We've got a very, very wily well organized enemy," he said. "All you have to do is look at Osama bin Laden or the rest of the leadership. They are well educated, wealthy, intelligent, extremely well funded from a multitude of sources."
Asked whether any of those leaders are among the 300 men at Camp X-Ray, he replied: "I only assume we do. I can't confirm that right now. They are very wily, very intelligent. So we're working for what we're getting."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld chose Dunlavey for the job because of his unique background as a lawyer, judge and combat veteran with some 30 years of intelligence experience, both in the active and reserve Army, said Army Lt. Col. Bill Costello, a Southern Command spokesman.
A Notre Dame graduate in economics, Dunlavey was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army in 1967, served one year in Vietnam and has about three decades of military intelligence work. At his mobilization in September, he was a trial judge in the Erie County, Pa., Court of Common Pleas and had previously worked as both a criminal prosecutor and defense attorney.
He spoke on the eve of a change-of-command ceremony in which Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert turns over prison camp operations, known at the Pentagon as Joint Task Force 160, to another one-star general — Army Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus of the Rhode Island National Guard.