Fixing Hell (5 page)
We disembarked the ferry in the SUV and headed for my quarters. When we arrived at my barracks room John and I unloaded my gear into my hooch. Every passing moment made it more clear to me that this once vibrant, young, hard-charging, almost naïve officer and psychologist was not himself.
Don’t force the conversation, Larry, I told myself as we hauled my gear inside. Remember to let it happen when he’s ready. Just follow where this takes you.
I did. Leso obviously welcomed me as a familiar face, a fellow medical professional, and a superior he trusted. I could tell he needed to talk, and once we started to relax at my new home, it was only a matter of time. Within the first thirty minutes in my hooch, his eyes began to tear up. He told me he felt that he had received increasing pressure to teach interrogators procedures and tactics that were a challenge to his ethics as a psychologist and moral fiber as a human being. He was devastated to have been a part of this. As a fellow mental health professional, I related strongly to what he must have gone through with trying to be both a healer and a soldier. Major Leso had been thrown right into the jaws of what had been for me mostly a theoretical, what-if type of debate.
He witnessed many harsh and inhumane interrogation tactics, such as sexual humiliation, stress positions, detainees being stripped naked, and the use of K-9 dogs to terrorize detainees. He had no command authority, meaning he felt as though he had no legal right to tell anyone what to do or not do. There were no guides or reference books he could refer to, nor old college professors he could consult. This young officer was dropped in this horrible situation without the training, informational background, senior military rank, or experience that would be necessary to derail this broken downhill train. Nevertheless, he had garnered the trust of the interrogators over time and was able to make some changes. Though the changes sometimes came only after a fight, he had convinced the intel unit that he should be involved in the interrogation process as a consultant and was successful in cutting back on some of the abusive practices.
I spoke with John for a long time that first night, letting him pour out a lot of frustrations and offering advice on how to cope with the difficulty of being both a soldier and a doctor. I shared with him my own concerns about how to balance those two roles, and he was relieved to hear that a colonel with years of experience still struggled with that dilemma.
Major Leso told me he would remain in Cuba for two weeks, completing the administrative processing prior to his departure from JTF Guantanamo and his return to Walter Reed. That was ideal, I thought, because this would give me about two weeks to uncover what in the hell had happened on this island. As I would often do with others around me, especially those in pain, I began telling Major Leso old stories, filled with laughter and good fun. His emotional pain paused for the time being as we got back in the SUV and headed for the chow hall.
We had been driving for a few minutes when he looked over to me and said, “Colonel . . .” and then paused, obviously wanting to tell me something important. I will never forget the hurt in his eyes.
“Colonel, you need to be real careful down here, sir,” he said softly, but intently. “You can step in a minefield every hour of the day at this place.”
For a second I thought he was talking about actual minefields, warning me with another housekeeping detail about life in Cuba, but I quickly realized he wasn’t talking about explosive ordnance.
“Thanks, John,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
An Infidel in Guantanamo
January 2003
T
he first Saturday I was “on Island,” as they say there, Major Leso took me to the intel headquarters building for a 9 a.m. meeting with the commanding general of JTF Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey D. Miller. He was now the bigwig at Gitmo, the head honcho in charge of the military prison and anything else in Cuba that came with an American flag attached. It was clear who was in charge, there was never any debate about who had veto authority on General Miller’s post. Unlike the previous two-star general, Miller was in charge of everything in a typical Army hierarchal style. Second in command was a one-star brigadier general who was the deputy commander at Gitmo. This mirrored both the typical Army hierarchal command in structure and process. In other words, when Miller spoke, we never, ever heard the one-star general disagree or second-guess him.
The room was packed with the key leaders of the command, and the psychologist—that would be me from now on—was required to sit right behind the general. Major Leso introduced me to General Miller while he and I stood up to talk.
“Welcome, Colonel,” he said, with a nod toward me. “You’ll have big shoes to fill as the new biscuit.”
That caught me off guard and I’m sure everyone saw the puzzled look on my face. Outside of a cheerleader I once knew back in college, I had never been called “biscuit” before, let alone by a male, two-star general artillery officer. Major Leso saw the confusion on my face and leaned over toward me.
“I’ll explain later, sir,” he whispered. “Trust me, it’s actually a good thing, Colonel.”
The meeting lasted exactly one hour, and after years in the halls of Walter Reed, it was a pleasure to be among infantry and operational officers again. This appealed to the soldier side of me. General Miller was the kind of commander you wanted to be around—a soldier’s soldier, all business and no bullshit. A minute with him was worth two hours with any PhD or MD. He was focused, and could provide more information with eye contact alone than any medical-officer general I had ever worked for in the past. But at the same time, he had a keen awareness of the value of what the psychologist brought to the fight. In a hospital, we were only called when a patient had committed suicide, a staff physician had a meltdown, or one of our patients was seen on post with no pants or talking to his shoe. Not so under General Miller. He knew that an Army psychologist could contribute much more than that. His meeting was organized, and I saw that everyone serving under him had already learned a key lesson: one better not stutter when questioned by General Miller. Fulfilling objectives within his timeline and bringing your “A game” to his meeting were the only things accepted by him. General Miller made it clear that he expected you to put your feet on the line but not to cross it. Spending all your time on interoffice politics, as was common in some Army medical centers, was not an option. I loved it.
Later on in the meeting it became clear that a special mission was about to occur in February 2003 and I was going to play a key role. Our guys in Afghanistan had captured three teenage terrorists and I was chosen to fly to Afghanistan with a special unit to secure them and return them to Gitmo. This mission was to jump off in less than a month. “Colonel James, you got flight lead on a plane for the juveniles,” Miller told me. He made it clear that he did not want them in the general population, and that I needed to plan how to interrogate these “juvenile enemy combatants” (JECs) posthaste.
“Got it, sir,” I replied, quickly and with conviction. “I’ll have the plan by next Saturday.”
“No, I need it by close of business on Monday.”
“Roger, General,” I said without hesitation. “I’m tracking on it, sir. Consider it done.”
During the meeting, General Miller had discussed how I would be replacing Major Leso, and that it would be my job to teach the interrogators how to get intel without yelling, slapping, sleep deprivation, humiliation, or food deprivation. There was no comment or discussion during the meeting, of course, but as I sat there looking out at the other officers in the room, I knew I had been given a tall order and that not everyone was going to welcome my guidance. After all, the yelling, slapping, and other abuse that I was supposed to help them avoid was actually allowed by the Army Field Manual on intelligence collection. I knew some of the men and women in this room would at some point ask me, “Hey, the manual says it’s okay, so why not?”
When the meeting was finished, Leso explained to me that “biscuit” was an affectionate nickname taken from the initials for Behavioral Science and Consultation Team (BSCT). It was the special behavioral science unit formed when Major Leso was brought over by the previous general to work with the interrogators. Anytime someone needed me or Major Leso, they said, “Where’s the biscuit?” I was the senior psychologist, so I was known as Biscuit 1.
“Okay, I get it,” I told Leso. “I’ve been called worse.”
Everything about General Miller screamed “action.” You felt like you should always be on the move around him, doing something productive, getting things done, not standing around like a slack-ass. So with that in mind, I didn’t waste any time getting to my main task at Gitmo—improving the way we interrogated prisoners. I had already had a long talk with General Miller and I knew that our views on this issue were not too far apart. We had a much better understanding than I would have had with the previous commander. Though General Miller looked at interrogations through the eyes of a soldier, relying largely on the Army Field Manual to determine what was and wasn’t acceptable, I was able to explain to him how an Army psychologist sees it.
“Here’s the problem with the field manual,” I told him. “There’s a difference between what’s legal for a soldier to do under the field manual and what a doctor can do under his ethics code. Now, I’m a soldier, sir, and that guides everything I do here, but the ethics code for a psychologist says we can do no harm to a human being.”
“So you can’t do both,” he said, tracking with me.
“I can’t, but the thing is, there isn’t really a reason to do it that way anyway,” I explained. “What’s in the field manual isn’t necessarily the best way, and what I can bring to the table, sir, is my knowledge of psychology and how to best get people to talk. There are better ways, more effective ways, to get this intel.”
The conversation went on for some time, but luckily for me I wasn’t starting with a superior officer who thought the only way to get intelligence was to beat it out of the prisoner. General Miller knew from the outset that we needed to reform the interrogation process and that was the main reason I was on his island. He was looking for me to get to it and make it happen.
Major Leso showed me around Gitmo over the next few days, starting with Camp Delta, the permanent 612-unit detention center that replaced the temporary facilities of Camp X-Ray, used when the detainees first started arriving in 2002. Leso explained to me how Camp Delta was broken down into four areas with different levels of security. Newly arriving detainees were first sent to Camp 3, the maximum-security camp, then to Camp 2 if they cooperated with the guards. After more cooperation they might be moved to Camp 1. Prisoners who were considered to be a minimum security risk and who cooperated with interrogators were moved to Camp 4.
Moving from one camp to another had its advantages, and Camp 4 was the choice accommodation, with showers and four communal living rooms for ten detainees each. In Camp 4, each detainee had a bed and a locker for personal items. It even had small common recreational areas for playing board games and team sports. The detainees at Camp 4 also shared communal meals, and wore white uniforms instead of the orange worn by other detainees.
The next two weeks went by fast. I became occupied with the plan for the JECs and Leso was already out-processing. During this time period, I met up with an old friend, Dr. Mike Gelles, who was in Gitmo for an official visit. Mike and I had been interns together many years ago at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C. He had long since left Navy active duty, but he had worked his way up to be chief psychologist for the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Behavioral Science Unit. Mike was not happy with the abuses at Gitmo and filed a formal complaint through Navy channels. It pissed off a ton of people. He and I agreed to work together to turn this ship around and teach interrogators how to interview with respect, decency, and humanity. I trusted Mike as a person and as a forensic psychologist. Likewise he trusted me, and so we charted a course for the future of the BSCT at Gitmo.
As I took on more of Major Leso’s duties by the day, he began to detach himself from the Joint Task Force, which is the normal process for a departing soldier. Over the course of the next two weeks, he and I had many talks and I helped him work through and process the emotions, ethics, and morality of what he had been through. Through hard work, consultation, and the relationships he established, Major Leso was able to help right a sinking ship out in the middle of the Caribbean. I reminded him that it was through his efforts and determination to do the right thing that he was able to help craft a command policy to outlaw the harsh and abusive tactics. Rather than focusing on the net negative, I emphasized to Major Leso the importance of what he had done. He had convinced the chain of command that there was another way to get a prisoner to talk instead of employing harsh tactics. I felt it vital that he could hear this and grasp this emotionally. Otherwise, he would return to Walter Reed a broken man and a shell of a human being. Unknown to him at the time, he had paved the road for me, and the interrogators were ready for more guidance on how a psychologist could help them accomplish their mission and get detainees to talk without abuse.
He had a huge going-away party on a Friday night put on by the Intelligence Control Element staff, and I was pleased to see that he actually enjoyed himself. He was immensely relieved to be leaving Gitmo, and I was glad he could go back to the States and get himself back together. I drove him to the ferry Saturday morning, on his way to the airport. When we said our good-byes, he repeated his earlier warning to me.
“Sir, you gotta be careful down here,” he said. “Don’t step in anything.”
I promised him I’d watch out. As I watched him leave, I was both heartened to see that his mood had improved somewhat and dismayed that such a short time at Gitmo could do that to a man. I wondered if he would ever bounce back to the bright-eyed officer I knew at Walter Reed. John did not know it at that time, nor did I, but in the coming years many horrible things would be written about him without any data to back up the charges. I would not see Major Leso nor have any contact with him again for four months. For his own well-being he just needed to fade away, but his time in Cuba would continue haunting him.