DAVID A Passaro has the dubious distinction of being the only CIA contractor ever jailed for prisoner abuse.
The former US Army ranger has just given his first interview to the Retro Report, a non-profit news organisation, after serving six years for the death of Afghan terror suspect Abdul Wali.
It’s disturbing not only because of his detailed description of the horrors inflicted upon Wali over three days of relentless interrogation but also for the complete lack of remorse shown in the telling.
The interview comes on the heels of a damning report on the US Senate investigation into the CIA practice of secret interrogations over a five-year period.
It found evidence of brutality, dishonesty and at times arbitrary violence conducted by the agency.
In spite of those findings, Passaro is the only contractor serving in Afghanistan to have ever been convicted for prisoner abuse.
Passaro’s case started in 2003, when he was working as a contractor for the CIA at a remote base in Asadabad, Afghanistan. He was tasked with questioning Wali, a farmer who was suspected of being behind a recent spate of rocket fire at the base.
The following are extracts from the interview:
RETRO REPORT: David Passaro is a free man today, and holds the distinction of being the only person working for the CIA ever to be convicted of abusing a prisoner in the war on terror.
DAVID A. PASSARO: Man, I wasn’t hired to be nice to these terrorists. I was there to get a job done. I was there to elicit the truth and keep moving. I didn’t want him sleeping any more than two to three hours a night.
One of the stress positions was something called the “air chair”. And that’s just hold his arms out until he decided he would change his demeanour. Every time he would sit there, he would do this, and he would drop his arms to his elbows. Well, that’s not the air chair.
And then I would tap his arms to tell him to get his arms back up underneath. At one point, he lurched out after me, and I slapped him. It was just a quick response. My hands were right here, and it was just to get him off of me. Is that assault?
It could be construed as assault, but in the war on terror, and in Afghanistan, in Asadabad, that’s not assault.
RETRO REPORT: After three days of interrogation, Wali collapsed. Despite efforts to revive him, he died. No autopsy was performed.
Witnesses would later say that Passaro hit Wali repeatedly with a flashlight and kicked him in the groin. Hyder Akbar, an Afghan-American, had initially accompanied Wali to the base.
HYDER AKBAR: This was a man who had turned himself in voluntarily. It wasn’t the traditional way that people kind of justify torture, the ticking time bomb situation. This was not a situation like that.
DAVID A. PASSARO: Anything that I did to Abdul Wali, none of that constitutes torture. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done anything different.
The CIA opened an investigation, but Passaro returned to a civilian position at the Fort Bragg Army Base in North Carolina.
A year later, after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke, the Justice Department indicted Passaro for assault. Passaro maintained that he and others on the front line of the war on terror were given the implied authority to use force when necessary.
DAVID A. PASSARO: After 9/11, President Bush got on national television, and said, not only are we going to go after the terrorists, but we’re going to go after those that harbour the terrorists, and we will do so under any or with any means necessary. In other words, all the rules and regulations no longer applied.
RETRO REPORT: But witnesses testified that Passaro was explosive, and acting far outside of CIA rules in his zeal to break Wali down. And there was no conclusive evidence presented that Wali was a terrorist at trial.
HYDER AKBAR: There’s some blame to be placed on the U.S. military for allowing an individual like Dave Passaro to be in such a sensitive situation, and then I think that, of course, Dave Passaro for actually, you know, beating this man.
After his conviction, the CIA released a statement that read: “Passaro’s actions were unlawful, reprehensible, and neither authorised nor condoned by the agency.”
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