Bill Dedman wrote about Mark and others speaking publicly for the first time about the efforts waged to try to stop coercive and degrading detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay. Mark told NBC that coercive interrogations trained confessions and made left them unable to prosecute terrorist suspects. Mark explained to NBC News “We always said, there are no secrets, just delayed disclosures” and CITF personnel were told their grandchildren would ask them what they did during the war, so “We wanted our folks to be proud.” Mark described the investigative process CITF used to investigate terrorists.
Tag Archives: NCIS
Can the ’20th hijacker’ of Sept. 11 stand trial?
Bill Dedman reported on the torture of Guantanamo detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani and Mark and the CITF’s battles to try to prevent his torture. Dedman described the SERE tactics that were used on the prisoner and approvals by the Secretary of Defense. Mark told NBC “You’re talking illegal acts here. The secretary of defense can’t change the law. One of the things that we told our personnel was the fact that during Nuremberg, Nazi war criminals were actually tried for acts that were perpetrated by them under orders of their superiors.” Mark also told NBC that “The techniques made some detainees unprosecutable.”
Notes Show Confusion on Interrogation Methods
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane reporting on a CIA lawyer’s visit to Guantanamo who said the torture laws were vaguely written and that it was basically subject to perception, as well as “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.” The NY Times described Mark’s and his comments that “That looks like the kinds of stuff Congressional hearings are made of” and “Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this.”
CIA advised military on questioning at Guantanamo
McClatchy reported on Mark’s reaction after a CIA lawyer came to Guantanamo to explain how the CIA was implementing their interrogation torture program. McClatchy quoted from an email Mark wrote saying “This looks like the kinds of stuff Congressional hearings are mad of” and Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this.”
U.S. failure to retaliate for USS Cole attack rankled then – and now
Micheal Isikoff wrote a story on how declassified documents reveled frustration regarding lack of response for the USS Cole attack, by both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Mark told NBC that wishing weeks NCIS and FBI investigators had solid evidence the USS Cole attack was linked to both al-Qaida and to Osama bin Laden.
Defusing the Bomb: Reversing the Process of Radicalization and Preventing Political Violence
The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted Mark and Micheal Gelles to address the challenges of fighting radicalization and explain the deradicalization and counterterrorism policies of five countries visited while conducting study of violent extremists.
Learning to Bridge the World: From Roger Williams to Combating Terrorism – An Alumnus’ Career in Law Enforcement
Roger Williams University announced that Mark, who graduated from RWU in 1978, would be giving a presentation about his career as an NCIS special agent.
Speed Read: 8 Revelations From Kurt Eichenwald’s ‘500 Days’
In this Daily Beast review of Kurt Eichenwald’s book ‘500 Days: Secret Lies In The Terror Wars’, eight revelations were cited, where Mark was written about. Eichenwald wrote that Mark’s “revolution deepened” and cited Mark’s position that “This looks like the stuff that congressional hearings are made of” and that “Someone needs to be considering how history will look back on this.”
What triggered Aaron Alexis to go on a shooting spree?
Fox News reporter Bill Hemmer interviewed Mark about the Washington Navy Yard active shooter rampage. Mark explained the Navy Yard is a business center and explained the incident was an insider-threat issue, not a terrorist incident.
The art and heart of interrogation
The Straits Times wrote a feature article about Mark and interrogation methods in their series featuring people in the fight against terror. Mark said that contrary to popular belief that terrorists are well-trained to resist interrogation techniques, they usually receive little or poor training. Mark told The Strait Times “No two terrorists are the same, and there is no single silver bullet that will solve all of the interrogator’s problems” but when you treat someone with dignity and respect, they begin to trust you.