The New Yorker: Questioning Ali Soufan

September 14, 2011

The New Yorker
By: Amy Davidson

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What does one ask an interrogator who has questioned dozens of members of Al Qaeda? And how does he ask questions himself? Ali Soufan, who was the subject of a Frontline documentary that aired last night (and can be be seen online) will be chatting live for the filmmakers at 1 P.M. E.T. I’ve been signed up as a guest questioner, and so will be in the chat, too. (The chat transcript is embedded below.) Please join us, and let me know about any ideas for lines of inquiry. There are many with Soufan: about the nature of Al Qaeda, how and whether 9/11 could have been prevented, how one actually gets information from terrorism suspects (not, Soufan has argued, strongly and persuasively, by waterboarding or otherwise torturing them), and why the C.I.A. redacted so much of his new book “The Black Banners,” including, in some passages, every instance in which Soufan used the pronouns “I” or “me.”

Who is Ali Soufan, and why is his story so important? Lawrence Wright’s definitive piece, “The Agent,” which ran in The New Yorker in 2006, helps answer that question. It includes this passage, describing a moment when Soufan, in Yemen to investigate the Cole bombing, finally gets an answer to a question he has repeatedly asked the C.I.A. The date was September 12, 2001, and the fires in what was left of the Twin Towers hadn’t yet been put out:

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When he returned to the embassy, a fax containing photographs of twenty suspects came over a secure line. Then the C.I.A. chief drew Soufan aside and handed him a manila envelope. Inside were three surveillance photographs and a complete report about the Malaysia meeting—the very material that he had asked for so many times. The Wall had come down. When Soufan realized that the C.I.A. had known for more than a year and a half that two of the hijackers were in the country he ran into the bathroom and threw up.

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The 9/11 Commission believed that, if the C.I.A. had answered Soufan, things might have turned out differently….

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To read the full article please click on the link below:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2011/09/ali-soufan-frontline-live-chat.html#ixzz1Y241HGha

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