A Recurring Headache

Nos chimères sont ce qui nous ressemble le mieux.
(Our delusions are that which resembles us the most.)

—Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

The documents issue was a recurring headache and embarrassment.

Over the next several days, I started to make arrangements for one of my colleagues to travel to pick up CAPTUS’s documents. She was enthusiastic. I was envious. The location was exciting, and hard to get to. The more different a location from my normal points of reference, the more I liked it. Taboos and social categories that define us recede; one could be a man made new. I had devoted my life to pursuing chances like this. But the arrangements fell through, as she was unable to travel before her return to Washington for another assignment.

I chose a second officer to send and went to discuss it with the COS.

“No can do, Glenn. She is supporting another case. I’m down a couple of officers and can’t support you guys with PCS [permanently stationed] officers. We have to do our own work. Sorry, can’t go. You’ll have to work it out yourself. There is no one I can spare.”

I selected a third officer to go retrieve the documents. Two days before he was to depart he, too, was suddenly recalled to Washington.

CAPTUS became at times slightly contemptuous of what seemed to him simple incompetence because I—as far as he was concerned, the CIA—was unable to provide his own documents. He asked me, “XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXX ?”1

I had no answer I cared to give CAPTUS.

Our hosts, too, were bemused by my inability to provide something important to the interrogation. I sensed that Little Guy and his boss, Muhamad, were also starting to become impatient and frustrated, progressively skeptical about the CIA’s claims about what and who CAPTUS was, XXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX, but they remained tactfully silent.

And so the dance would repeat itself, and repeat itself.

Headquarters sent another cable. They had just rendered another al-Qa’ida operative, and I was to be involved in the case. XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX . I did not know much about this new individual, but I was distressed. I was having trouble reconciling my assessment of CAPTUS with that which had underpinned his rendition. I suspected the new man was a victim of a similar operational zeal and lack of nuance. Be aggressive! Take them down! Go get ’em! But I also understood the position that our enemies were ruthless killers and that we had to act aggressively to destroy them. If in doubt, err on the side of protecting American lives before that of protecting foreigners’ rights.

I tried to go myself for the documents but in the end could not; if I went, the CAPTUS operation stopped; no one could deal with liaison on this case in my absence; the COS could not drop his other duties to fill in; I had other duties the COS needed me for; traveling would take me away for a full week.

In the next “interview” session, CAPTUS pointed out in irritation again, while Little Guy squirmed, ill at ease, that he would be able to answer my questions, if only I would show him the documents he knew I had. . . .

I returned to the office late that afternoon to write my day’s reporting cables, angry at the absurdity of the situation. A TDY member of my team rode back with me. He was unaware of the long saga of the absent documents but sensed I was in a bad mood.

“What was wrong with the interrogation today?”

“Nothing. It’s a long story.”

I was atypically uncommunicative. The TDYer tried again.

“You all right?”

“Ehhh,” I replied. The TDYer looked at me as I drove, thinking I had simply made an incomprehensible grunt.

“It’s a language of purity,” I said, glancing back. “Everything’s fine.”

Jack was working at the adjacent desk. After a short while of typing in uncharacteristic irritated silence, to Jack’s initial glee but then distressed surprise, I positively exploded to him about our feckless incompetence. I leaned back in my chair, away from my computer.

“Jack, I am simply embarrassed, mortified, horrified, ashamed, even to see CAPTUS. How fucked up is that?! The interrogator afraid to see the detainee? Jesus Christ. I just know he thinks we’re idiots, as well as kidnappers and torturers, which, of course, we are. I feel like some stupid son of a bitch standing clueless at a formal cocktail party, his fly down, wearing no underwear, and his dick hanging out. Goddamnit! We XXXXXX some sorry sucker and need three or four months to get the documents necessary for the interrogation to the officer conducting the interrogation? Did nobody think that maybe having CAPTUS’s documents with him for the interrogation, or at least in the hands of someone who could use them, made a little bit of sense? What am I to tell liaison? They already suspect that we’re interrogating some poor innocent sap and that we have no idea what we’re doing, that we’re typical, culturally clueless American clods, stumbling about beating up Arabs, but they tell themselves that we simply must have information we are not sharing with them, which is irritating to them in its own right—for otherwise, what the hell are we doing?! It is inconceivable to them that the CIA could be so fucked up. Thank God they think we’re the Wizard of Oz and always know exactly what we’re doing. The front line. The front line. We’re the front line?! Good God.”

Jack enjoyed my periodic little frustrated riffs, but he sympathized, too. I then told him, laughing at the absurd situation and my own characterization of it, that I consoled myself on such occasions with the wisdom of an earlier officemate, who also used to laugh at my expostulations: “Just remember, Glenn,” he told me, “things can always get worse.” We laughed, but I was still irate.

1 CAPTUS asked an insulting rhetorical question.