[NOWAR/PAIX] CSIS secretly interrogated Afghan prisoners

["C.Ailes" <cailes1 AT yahoo.com>]

CSIS secretly interrogated Afghan prisoners
Spy agency's role in war raises questions given their lack of experience
 
Published On Mon Mar 08 2010
 
New documents show CSIS had a role in the interrogation of Taliban suspects 
captured by Canadians.
JOHN D. MCHUGH, AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO
 


    * Travers: Did we turn a blind eye to Afghan prisoners?
    * More Afghanistan coverage
    * Read Colvin letter (pdf)
    * Letter: Ambassadors protest Colvin affair
    * Censored Colvin emails (pdf, 8MB)
    * Amnesty International 2007 report


More about
Canada's Afghan Mission»
Murray Brewster
Jim Bronskill The Canadian Press


OTTAWA–Canadian spies have been interrogating captured Taliban fighters in 
Afghanistan since 2006.


Officers with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have been working 
with Canadian military police intelligence officers, according to heavily 
censored witness transcripts filed with the Military Police Complaints 
Commission.


CSIS acknowledged in 2006 that its members gathered intelligence in 
Afghanistan, but the spy service's precise role has remained in the shadows 
until now.


Intelligence expert Wesley Wark says the revelations are disturbing, partly 
because CSIS would have had no specialized knowledge of how to elicit 
information from Afghan prisoners at the time.


"I find that stunning," said Wark, a University of Toronto historian who 
believes when it came to skill in interrogating prisoners of war, CSIS 
"lacked it in spades" in 2006.


Maj. Kevin Rowcliffe, former staff adviser to Canada's overseas operations 
commander, told investigators with the commission (which handles complaints 
about the military police) there was debate within the army itself about how 
much experience its intelligence officers had in grilling prisoners.


"There was a lot of discussion in my headquarters about who was qualified to 
do interrogations, because we're not talking the normal police interview, 
we're talking interrogations, which (censored) were doing, not (military 
police)," he says in an edited transcript of an interview on Dec. 6, 2007.


A copy of the transcript was obtained by The Canadian Press.


"(Military police) were involved in that, but they weren't necessarily 
involved in interviewing or interrogation-related issues," Rowcliffe, who has 
since retired from the military, told the investigators. "That would be 
(censored) or some other parade that had special training in interrogation."


Sources familiar with the unedited version say the blanked-out references are 
to CSIS.


The spy agency is legally permitted to gather intelligence anywhere in the 
world concerning threats to the security of Canada. In recent years, it has 
increasingly operated abroad.


Another source familiar with the process said CSIS officers in Kandahar 
carried out what's known as tactical field questioning, essentially the 
initial interrogations of suspects. They tried to sort out who was a simple 
field soldier and who was a bona fide insurgent commander.


The spies would sometimes make recommendations on which Taliban prisoners to 
hand over to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's notorious 
intelligence service, the sources said.


The final say on whether to transfer always rested with the military task 
force commander.


The Military Police Complaints Commission tried to ask questions about CSIS's 
role in Kandahar but abandoned that approach when it became bogged down in 
legal challenges about its authority to investigate Ottawa's overall prisoner 
transfer policy.


Last November diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin testified before a 
special House of Commons committee that most prisoners Canada handed over to 
the Afghan intelligence service were tortured – a claim the Conservative 
government and military commanders, past and present, angrily denied.


Rowcliffe's interview transcript prompts questions about whether the military 
and CSIS officers had enough time to conduct proper interrogations so early 
on in the insurgency, when newly arrived troops had little intelligence on 
the threats they faced.


The military has 96 hours after capture to decide whether to hand a prisoner 
over to Afghan authorities, but Rowcliffe said there was pressure to turn 
them over sooner.


He said he took up the concerns with the commander of overseas operations, 
saying: "I understand the time sensitiveness of this issue to the Government 
of Canada, but we may have Osama bin Laden, yet you are trying to get me to 
give him over as quickly as possible."


Often his superior's answer was "no." His boss, Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, 
indicated his hands were tied and told Rowcliffe the federal government's 
policy was firm.


"I said we need to take the time to do a proper investigation, interview, 
interrogation, whatever you want to call it, to confirm who we have and what 
has this guy done or gal done," Rowcliffe said in his statement.


He was asked by commission investigators how he thought the military would 
obtain its intelligence if the instructions were to transfer detainees 
quickly to the Afghans.


"My impression was they didn't seem to care about that," said Rowcliffe. "I 
don't know if they didn't grasp the importance of it, or just that it was not 
important because the pressure was ... to get rid of them because of the 
Government of Canada."


He said he wasn't sure whether there was pressure from the defence minister 
and chief of defence staff.


"I have no idea, but I know from Gen. Gauthier's position that (it was): Get 
rid of them as quickly as you can and what's taking so long? That's the kind 
of questions I'd get."


Security expert Wark said these latest revelations will likely fuel human 
rights groups' fears that Canada was outsourcing interrogation to the Afghan 
security forces.


Canada went into Kandahar thinking the Taliban and Al Qaeda were merely "a 
nuisance," he said, and there was a "ferocious underestimation" of the 
mission.


"The military simply had no expertise. It had been decades since they had to 
interrogate prisoners of war," Wark said. "And if the military lacked that 
expertise, you can be sure, CSIS lacked it in spades."


He said hard questions must be asked about how much knowledge CSIS had of 
Afghanistan and its complex tribal network in 2006.


"The answer would be very little," he said. "They didn't have a trained body 
of people with the language skills, knowledge of the country, knowledge of 
the tribal situation, who was in charge of which warlord group, what was the 
nature of the Taliban. Those are all issues they had to develop an expertise 
on after 2006."


CSIS spokeswoman Isabelle Scott, in response to media questions, said the 
agency does not publicly discuss operations.


She did confirm CSIS has had a presence in Afghanistan "for the past few 
years" and provides intelligence "in support of the safety and security of 
Canadian and allied forces on the ground." She also said CSIS gathers 
intelligence in Afghanistan "to mitigate potential security threats to 
Canada."


It was CSIS activities in Kandahar that caught the attention of the spy 
agency's inspector general, Eva Plunkett, who investigated "policy gaps and 
inconsistencies."


The declassified version of Plunkett's 2007 certificate – a top secret report 
card on CSIS prepared for the public safety minister – contained no 
suggestion that the spy service had done anything wrong or illegal.


The certificate noted Afghanistan was "a fundamental intelligence priority" 
and commended CSIS for impressive work "in an extremely challenging 
environment."


But it warned that CSIS and National Defence lacked clear policies that would 
"guide future (censored) activities in this theatre."


Agreements between the spy service and military were out of date, said the 
annual certificate, made public in May 2008.


"I do believe that those who serve in this environment deserve to be equipped 
with the policy framework to guide their work."




      __________________________________________________________________
The new Internet Explorer® 8 - Faster, safer, easier.  Optimized for Yahoo!  
Get it Now for Free! at http://downloads.yahoo.com/ca/internetexplorer/