Extreme Measures (29 page)

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FTER Secretary England had walked out of the committee room, several members called for a fifteen-minute recess so they could read General Garrison’s statement. Lonsdale made no attempt to defeat the motion, for the simple reason that she needed to regroup and figure out how she would proceed. She went back to her office in Dirksen and huddled with Wassen and a few other senior staffers. They were all of the opinion that she needed to table the Leland issue for now and let the air force finish their investigation.

As no one had yet read General Garrison’s statement, one of the committee staffers eagerly did so while the debate about what to do roared around her. When she was finished she offered her boss the hope she was looking for. Nowhere in Garrison’s statement was there any mention of how Rapp had abused and mistreated the prisoners. Unlike Leland’s statement, which went into specific detail about Rapp’s abuses. Wassen was skeptical of this, raising the point that Leland’s entire statement was now cast in doubt because his commanding officer had all but called him a liar.

Lonsdale, though, needed something. She wasn’t going to call the whole thing into recess after just having been embarrassed by England. She wanted her pound of flesh from Rapp, and she was going to get it. Lonsdale announced that she would hit him hard on his abuse of the prisoners and directed the group to hastily assemble a list of questions while she went back and got things started. There would be a good five to ten minutes of motions and procedural nonsense before they got back to questioning Rapp.

On the way back to the committee room, Lonsdale asked, “What’s wrong? You were awfully quiet back there.”

Wassen looked down at the ground and said, “I’ve been with you long enough to know when I’ll be wasting my breath.”

“You don’t agree with me?”

“There are plenty of times I don’t agree with you.”

“But you usually speak your mind.”

“I have made myself very clear on this matter, and I think Secretary England framed the issue rather nicely.”

“Secretary England is a capitalist windbag,” Lonsdale said, while flashing a passing senator a fake smile.

“Have you ever stepped back far enough to really look at what’s going on here?”

Lonsdale didn’t answer immediately. “Of course. I do it all the time.”

“Bullshit,” Wassen said flatly. “All of you politicians are like parents. You adopt an issue and it’s like it’s your child. You lose all objectivity.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s absolutely true, and the secretary of defense just proved it.”

“How?” Lonsdale asked.

“When he reminded us that Rapp is on our side.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Lonsdale said dismissively.

“God,” Wassen groaned, “you are impossible sometimes. You think the terrorists are on our side?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Then tell me… just whose side is Rapp on? Based on his record I think he’s pretty firmly in the let’s-kill-all-the-bastards camp.”

“Then you tell me, Ralph,” Lonsdale said in an irritated voice, “just who in the hell is on the side of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?”

“History is your Achilles’ heel, Barbara. I don’t think you want to go there with me.”

“Just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lonsdale asked as the committee room came into view down the hall on their left.

“Those two documents are bathed in blood. They did not spring forth from the pen of men like Jefferson and survive on high-minded ideals alone. They have been bathed in blood over the years.”

“You are so damn dramatic sometimes.”

“And you are as pig-headed as ever.”

Lonsdale stopped and grabbed Wassen by the arm. “So you think this is a mistake?”

“Barbara, you just got your pretty little ass kicked by the secretary of defense in your own backyard. That’s not supposed to happen.”

“What would you have had me do?” she hissed at him.

“Maybe nothing.” He shrugged, “I warned you from the outset not to rush into this.”

“Well, I disagree. We are a nation of laws. We can’t have animals like Rapp running around doing whatever the hell they want.”

“That’s a lovely platitude. Would you prefer the terrorists run around and do whatever they like?”

“You are so damn infuriating sometimes.”

Wassen looked over the top of her head and said, “This is why I kept my mouth shut. You don’t want to hear what I have to say.”

“Not on this issue. That’s for sure.” Lonsdale turned and entered the committee room. A few of her colleagues wanted a word with her, but she brushed them off and took her seat. After a quick look up and down the bench she gaveled them back into session.

R
APP sat at the witness table and tried to follow what was going on. The various esteemed members of the committee seemed to be in great disagreement over how they should proceed. Even a few members of Lonsdale’s own party were upset by the fact that she had rushed them headlong into this. Rapp wondered how they would react when he dropped the next bomb on them.

Finally, after a good ten minutes of wrangling, Lonsdale looked down and said, “Mr. Rapp, I would like to remind you that you are still under oath.”

Rapp nodded.

“Speak into the microphone,” she snapped, her patience used up by the bickering of colleagues.

“I am aware that I am still under oath.”

Looking like she was afraid that someone might try to make another motion, Lonsdale quickly asked, “Do you deny striking Abu Haggani while he was bound and in U.S. custody?”

The room went completely silent and all eyes turned to Rapp, who was again alone at the witness table.
It all comes down to this
, Rapp thought.
Give them something and let them know you’re serious.
“Madam Chairman, I will gladly answer all of your questions truthfully and to the best of my ability if you will clear the chamber of everyone except you and your fellow committee members.”

Before anyone could react, Lonsdale snorted and said, “That is not going to happen.”

Rapp nodded as if to say fine and then said, “Then you will leave me with no choice but to exercise my Fifth Amendment right.”

Lonsdale sensed the stirring on both the left and the right. Ignoring the chatter, she said, “Mr. Rapp, you are not in control of this committee.” She gestured to the nearly fifty staffers sitting behind the nineteen members. “These people have all passed stringent background checks, and I am deeply offended that you would call into question their integrity.”

Rapp could spend the rest of the morning arguing with her about the leaks that came out of this committee and every other one on the Hill, but that wasn’t what he was here for. He looked back at Lonsdale with a face that said,
You have to be kidding me,
and said, “Madam Chairman, in light of the fact that I am offering to answer all of your questions truthfully and honestly, I think it is a reasonable request.”

The vice chair reached over and pulled Lonsdale in for a quiet conference. Rapp watched as both members covered their microphones with their hands and eagerly chatted in each other’s ear. After nearly a minute of back and forth, Lonsdale returned to her microphone and cleared her throat.

“Mr. Rapp, we would be willing to entertain a motion to clear the room of everyone except committee members and yourself, including your delegation from the CIA, but I want to be crystal clear on your offer. You will make no attempt to evade our questions or invoke your Fifth Amendment right… is that correct?”

“That is correct. On issues pertaining to the matter before us, I will answer all of your questions truthfully and to the best of my ability.”

Lonsdale and the vice chair covered their microphones again and began whispering. Rapp was betting on two things. The first was that Lonsdale had already been smacked by England, and she would not want her day to end in a defeat the town would be talking about for weeks. The second, he was betting on the collective hubris of the committee. Any of them would be sure of their ability to rip him to shreds in a proceeding like this. Together, all nineteen members would be fearless in the face of one man.

As Rapp had hoped, Lonsdale emerged from her conference and ordered that the room be cleared of everyone with the exception of the witness and the committee members. Rapp did not bother to turn around and look at his departing colleagues. Kennedy knew what was going on, and for now, the others did not need to be involved to this extent. Rapp was about to go way out on a limb and there was no sense in sending more than one person into the dangerous situation.

Lonsdale looked around to make sure everyone was gone. The large room seemed massive now that it was just the twenty of them. She wondered briefly if this had ever been done before. It happened on the Intelligence Committee from time to time, but she was not aware of the Judiciary Committee ever having met in such a manner. She looked down at Rapp and was surprised to see that he too appeared nervous for the first time all morning.

“Mr. Rapp, I would like to warn you… if I get the slightest sense that you are lying to me or any other member of this committee, I will…”

“I hit the prisoner,” Rapp said clearly into the microphone. He knew he needed to give them something; show them that he had not made an empty promise. He also had no desire to sit there and listen to another round of threats form Lonsdale.

“So you are admitting to striking a bound prisoner?”

“He was not bound at the time, but I did strike him.”

“I’m not sure that makes any difference. He was in our custody.”

“Yes, he was.”

Lonsdale felt suddenly vindicated, but she wanted to make sure her opponents on the committee were clear on this point. “So you admit to striking him?”

“Yes.”

Lonsdale glanced at her notes. “And choking him?”

“Yes.”

“Was he restrained while you were choking him?”

“Yes,” Rapp said.

Lonsdale paused for a second to let the gravity of the admission sink in. “I see in one of the reports here that there was an electronic stun gun found in the interrogation room. Did you use that stun gun on the prisoner?”

“Yes,” Rapp answered without hesitation.

Senators began mumbling to themselves.

“Madam Chairman,” said Bob Safford, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, “I would like to remind the witness that at any point he may still invoke his Fifth Amendment right.”

Lonsdale shot Safford a look that said,
Shut the hell up
, and said, “Maybe the senator didn’t hear, but the witness has already said he does not wish to invoke his Fifth Amendment right.”

“Senator Lonsdale is right. I have no intention of invoking the Fifth.”

Lonsdale turned back to the witness table and was surprised to find Rapp walking in front of it.

“Have any of you,” Rapp said, “bothered to ask yourself why I would risk running an operation like this?” Not a single one of the nineteen answered, so Rapp continued. “Several weeks ago I was contacted by a source who works for a foreign intelligence agency. He informed me that two terrorist cells had been intercepted en route to the United States. One was headed to Los Angeles and the other to New York City.”

“Why are we only hearing about this now?” asked Senator Safford, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

“That’s a complicated answer, but the short version is that this ally no longer trusts us on this particular issue.”

“What particular issue would that be?” Lonsdale asked.

“Enhanced interrogation methods.”

“You mean torture,” Lonsdale said.

“Call it whatever you’d like, ma’am, but please do not delude yourself into thinking it doesn’t work.”

“Mr. Rapp, I…”

“Please let me finish, ma’am. This is very important. This intelligence asset has reason to believe that a third cell may exist and might already be in the United States.” Rapp slowly looked from one end of the long bench to the other. Not a single senator made an effort to speak.

Lonsdale exhaled a heavy sigh and said, “I find the timing of this phantom intelligence to be entirely self-serving.”

“I thought you would say that, Senator, so I am prepared to make a deal. I would like to repeat what I just said in an open session. Hopefully, this afternoon. If you want to investigate and prosecute me for striking Abu Haggani, a man who is responsible for murdering over one hundred U.S. service personnel… a man who specializes in attacking grade schools filled with children… a man whose contribution to terrorism is that he was the first to recruit mentally retarded people to become suicide bombers… If that is the case you would like to put before the American people, then I welcome it. I am more than willing to publicly stand behind my position.”

“And what exactly would that position be, Mr. Rapp?” Lonsdale said with derision. “That you think it should be the official policy of the United States of America to torture prisoners of war?”

The conversation had been brought to the crossroads that Rapp had been hoping for. Rapp watched as a good third of the panel snickered at their chairman’s quick retort. He took the hatred he felt for them and doused it with pity just as Kennedy had told him to do. “My position, Madam Chairman, and members of the committee, is that it should be the
unofficial
policy of this government to reserve the right to use extreme measures in instances where we are threatened from terrorist attacks.”

“Extreme measures,” Lonsdale said with a disappointed look. “No doubt a euphemism for torture.”

“Ma’am, about ten years ago I spent a week in the custody of the Syrian Intelligence Service.” Rapp spoke without malice or dramatic effect. “I can tell you from firsthand experience that there’s a big difference between torture and extreme measures.” Rapp looked to the most liberal members of the committee as Kennedy had advised and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I respect your position on this issue. No one who I work with likes torture. None of us enjoy inflicting pain on a prisoner, and it is not something that we do because we are bored and have decided to satisfy our sadomasochistic streaks. We do it in the rarest of instances, and we do it to save American lives.”

“Mr. Rapp, what if this person is innocent?” asked the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“I only know of one instance where that has happened, and I was not involved in it. The person was never tortured in the sense that most people would define torture; however, I will freely admit that this person was subjected to environmental stress that is designed to get people to break. It is not something that is remotely pleasant, but this person was released without any physical harm.”

“What about mental harm?” Lonsdale asked.

Rapp nodded. “That is a very good point. I have no doubt that the person suffered mental trauma. We have done our best to try and compensate this person and offer him medical assistance. Again, I am not proud of it, I was not involved in it, but I admit to you that a mistake was made. One mistake among hundreds of interrogations.”

“I don’t find your words reassuring, Mr. Rapp.”

He turned to face the senior senator from Vermont. “This is an ugly business, Madam Senator. These religious fanatics want to do us great harm, and it is my job to try and stop them. That is why I launched this risky operation. We have two men in our possession, both senior Taliban members with heavy ties to al-Qaeda. Men who have the blood of thousands of innocent people on their hands, and I am not allowed to talk to them. One of those men, Mohammad al-Haq, acknowledged the existence of the third cell without us even laying a hand on him.”

“That,” said Lonsdale, “was because you were threatening to hand him over to the butcher of Mazar-i-Sharif… General whatever his name is.”

“That’s right,” Rapp said without shame. “That’s how you get these guys to talk. Mohammad al-Haq is not an American citizen. He is a terrorist.”

Lonsdale said, in a surprisingly even tone, “Mr. Rapp, you would be well advised to remember that this committee, as well as several federal judges, have already weighed in on this issue. This country is bound by the Geneva Conventions. We must afford all prisoners of war the protection mandated by law.”

“And the terrorists who intentionally target civilians?” Rapp asked. “Who holds their feet to the fire and makes sure they follow the Geneva Conventions?” Rapp looked at the right side of the bench and added, “We all know the answer to that. They did not sign the Geneva Conventions and never will. They in fact go out of their way to break almost every rule the Geneva Conventions set forth, yet in our infinite wisdom we have decided to afford them the protections of a document that they spit on.”

“Mr. Rapp,” Lonsdale said, in an almost tired voice, “we are a nation of laws.”

“Yes, we are,” Rapp said respectfully. “An open democracy. A government of the people, by the people.” He took a step closer to the bench and lowered his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t want to do this,” he said in almost pleading tone, “but you are leaving me with no other choice. I’ve been doing this for close to twenty years, and tension between the CIA and Capitol Hill has never been this bad. We have forgotten who our true enemy is. It is not us.” Rapp pointed back and forth among the various members. “Secretary of State England said it earlier. We are on the same team. I remember after nine-eleven, when the pain of that day was still fresh, many of you came to me and asked if we were doing enough to make these terrorists talk after they were captured. You didn’t think we were being aggressive enough, and then Abu Ghraib hit and we went right back to fighting each other.”

Rapp paused for a brief moment and then directed his words directly at Lonsdale. “Madam Chairman, it is my sincere belief that we are going to be attacked in the near future. I know for a fact that at least one of the two men I tried to question last week has information that could help us to stop this attack.” He looked from one end of the table to the other and said, “I am begging each and every one of you, think of the ramifications. Think of how the American people will react when they find out that this committee and its members were more concerned with protecting the debatable rights of a couple of bigoted, sadistic terrorists than they were in protecting their own citizens, who each and every one of you has sworn to protect and defend.”

“If this country is attacked,” said Lonsdale, “then you and the CIA will be to blame. Not this committee.”

Rapp’s anger was barely in check. He’d set aside all of his disdain for these men and women, and their ever-shifting set of principles, in hopes that they could find a middle road. He was giving them an opportunity to save themselves, and Lonsdale could not see fit to get off her pedestal and take the necessary course, the course that would protect the country. His every fiber wanted to let loose on the self-serving chairman, but Kennedy’s voice kept him in check. Her words admonishing him that they would need these people, especially after the bombs went off. The president had assured them that the CIA would not be blamed should an attack take place. He had guaranteed them that he would place the blame firmly at the feet of a group of elitist senators and rabid congressmen who had for years harassed and hamstrung the CIA.