Re: Korea - 50 years ago this week, Dec. 13-19

[<Cfbernard@aol.com>]

You all,

The enclosure to this will put torture of prisoners in another perspective of some value for you.  The 60 Minutes program on this is for the middle of January.

Best, and I wish it were a happier story.

Carl Bernard


  FACING UP TO TERRORISM

A three day Seminar (December 12-14) on "Terrorism Using Weapons of Mass Destruction," focused on the threats from terrorists armed with nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical weapons.  Presentations from the 12 countries attending covered prevention, economic planning to cope with its various stages, and the operational answers to this form of asymmetric warfare.  

The French doctrine for coping with these threats was aired in detail, including the preparations underway for treating the mass casualties expected.  Other nations' methods for coping with such attacks were solicited as well as critiques of their own preparations.  The 9-11 attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were the immediate motivation and driving force behind this seminar.  A catastrophic explosion soon after 9-11, at a large chemical factory in Toulouse, increased French concerns enormously.

The president of the non-governmental organization (The French High Committee for Civil Defense) that hosted the just completed Seminar is also the Vice-president of the French Senate.  This gentleman, Paul Girod, accompanied President Jacques Chirac of France on his visit to President Bush in Washington the week after the 9/11 tragedy.  Girod's style and presence at the Seminar went far towards making its participants appreciate the significance of the messages they were hearing.  It is a pity that the U.S. Congressional session underway kept the senior American figure scheduled to speak, Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut, in Washington.  His substitute's presentation, however added much value to what the American participants had said publicly and in private conversations.  This U.S. State Department person, Steve Goodwin should stay working on this subject and share his impressions widely, particularly with those not familiar with the subject.

My own comments/questions to the Seminar's participants:  "My interest, like that of everyone else here is in discovering how to go about helping prevent other terrorist incidents.  Acquiring an adequate intelligence service seems like a first step.  Example: a just published French work asks what we would have done with one of the terrorists in our hands before the 9/11 tragedy, and he would not talk!  (N.B., we had one, supposedly the person who was to have been the fifth member of the cell on the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania.  We did not know what we had and did not find out despite having him in August, a part of my grumble about needing an adequate intelligence service.)

A French video titled 'The Battle of Algiers' shows the French resorted to deliberate and reasoned application of torture to break a massive urban terror campaign that rocked Algiers from 1955-57. The film also shows the determination of the terrorists, including how Algerian terrorists required candidate members to assassinate a police officer before he could become a cell member.  What can be done to eliminate such groups?"  (Can a more effective, quicker-acting truth serum be developed?  An investment to acquire such a product would be of far more value in the asymmetric wars of our time than a faster and more effective jet fighter.)

A discussion with Mike Wallace is scheduled with French Army Brigadier General Paul Aussaresses, a key French participant in their anti-terror campaign in Algeria will go further towards making the American public aware of the complexity-and proximity-of  French attitudes on the issue of when torture and “intense” interrogation methods may become necessary in order to overcome determined terrorists. It follows on an article featuring the situation of  Aussaresses, published by the New York Times on 29 November.  The most prominent of the officials charged with, and responsible for the destruction of the terrorist organization in Algeria from 1955-7 Aussaresses, as a senior and very experienced captain of their Special Force, was given this responsibility, and will candidly attempt to explain his methods and activities to Wallace as he did in a book published in early May.

A sensitive American participant at the Seminar thought my references to the admitted French use of torture in Algeria indelicate, given the distressing publicity over the activities-particularly explicit descriptions of "questioning, and then eliminating" terrorists in Algeria during the mid-50s.  Many participants shared my concerns and discussed them with me on the remaining day and a half of the Seminar.

His role in WWII was as a Jedburgh; i.e., those who were parachuted back into France in groups of three to help the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">resistantes in the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Maquis who were "disturbing" German occupation.  These active patriots sabotaged German operations, particularly their ability to move reserves freely about when it came time to oppose the allied landings.  In his last tasking of this sort , he  parachuted into Germany itself to help French POWs survive the operations that were part of their liberation from POW camps.  Their German captors were planning to use them to confuse and slow down the attacking Soviet forces.

Aussaresses' recent decision to explain the rationale behind his use of torture to quell the Algerian effort to liberate themselves from France has been a grievous scandal for the past year.  An obscure law prohibiting advocating war was invoked to punish him for writing history in a candid way.  His trial for “the crime” of explaining to the French public what he did and why, ended on 29 November.  The judge's finding will be announced in late January, but the prosecutors only sought to levy a fine of $15,000, in this heavily symbolic persecution of free speech.  Ausaresses was not charged for supervising the torture of thousand of rebels, nor his admitted killing personally 24 of these men.  An amnesty for war crimes passed by the French Legislature many years ago made trial for this impossible.  His lawyer will accompany him on the visit to 60 Minutes.  The publishers of his book were also charged for making knowledge of his actions a public matter.  Their judgment for this should come at the same time as his.

A positive and most distressing part of this public exposure is the probable adoption of this disturbing process by nations subject to terrorism, once its efficacy is both known and acknowledged.  Some of the present generation of terrorists may be inhibited by 60 Minutes' public exposure of what could happen to them if caught.  This may cause them to seek less reprehensible ways to reach their goals than by transforming aircraft into flying bombs.

The discussion at the Seminar of Aussaresses's actions in Algeria was inhibited, but not absent.  It would be difficult to exaggerate the actual benefits that will accrue to our security from terrorist attacks if the cooperations discussed formally and informally at the Seminar are achieved.

This rationale and concern for all aspects of recent and relevant operations is the reason this draft report on the Seminar is being expedited to as many of those with responsibilities for combatting terror, who are known to me.  The 15 other Americans who participated will produce reports whose cumulative impact should make the value of this effort unmistakable.  We should consider acquiring all of these to help determine the best uses of the information acquired, and how to use the resources and concepts of the 11 other attending nations.
 
The question:  is it more important to get information to prevent a catastrophe, or is it more important to gain a conviction, after the fact?  Should forms of intensive interrogation, including truth serums and stress, be used on rare occasions?  Is it a ‘greater good’ for society if counter-intelligence opts not to grant a detainee his “Miranda Rights?”  The Supreme Court, attorneys have observed since 9-11, has supported some such measures in the face of the extreme concerns of war.

The early French presentations set the tone for the Seminar.  It had been planned and programmed well before 9/11, and their own later explosion in the chemical factory in Toulouse. They prefer to believe this smaller disaster (25 killed and most windows in this city of a half million persons blown out) to have been an accident, in no small part to keep the French people from being too alarmed before its leadership is prepared to limit the next lot of damages.

One French scholar links a homely statement about the only thing more difficult than introducing a new concept to senior military chiefs is eliminating an existing one, to Andy Marshall's thought:  "Real change takes so long that you have to start down the road of change far before there is a sense of urgency.”