National Security and Intelligence

Washington Post intelligence reporter Dana Priest was online Thursday, Sept. 7, at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss the latest developments in national security and intelligence.

Dana Priest covers intelligence and wrote " The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military " (W.W. Norton). The book chronicles the increasing frequency with which the military is called upon to solve political and economic problems.

The transcript follows.

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Dana Priest: Hi everyone. Let's begin.

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Seattle, Wash.: Do you think the timing of the move of the terror suspects from the secret prisons (again, kudos on that scoop!) to Gitmo is politically motivated? Voting against legislation allowing military tribunals looks pretty politically unappealing when you introduce this into the equation. Will there be any Democrats or Republicans that have the moral backbone to vote against the tribunals?

Dana Priest: Yes it's motivated by politics--what isn't in this town. But there are other factors as well. First the politics: upcoming elections, forcing Congress to approve his legislation on this matter with just two weeks left or so. But the Supreme Court played a big role too in pushing the administration into a corner. If they didn't do something, the courts might have rule the prisons, the whole system illegal by accepting the notion that they violated the III Convention of Geneva. Criminal prosecutions might have followed.

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San Bernardino, Calif: I heard the the Iranian President (I can't spell his name) will be at the UN. Is there any talk of arresting him when he visits American soil? I know this would be almost a declaration of war, but didn't Rudy Guiliani do something akin to that to Yassir Arafat a few years ago when Rudy was mayor of NY?

Dana Priest: Arresting him for what exactly?

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San Francisco, California: Good afternoon, Ms. Priest, and thank you for chatting with

us today. Yesterday, when the President confirmed the story

of the secret CIA prisons -- a story you broke, for with you

both won a Pulitzer prize and have since been excoriated by

the White House and the right-wing -- how did you feel as a

journalist? In your line of work, is there time to savor those

moments? Thank you for your continued excellent reporting

on issues that matter to the survival of the Republic.

Dana Priest: I felt great. I really did. First because it was so unusual to have a president confirm a secret program, especially one that is so controversial. But secondly, because I think this means we can all now have a real debate about how to handle this incredibly difficult issue of what you do with committed terrorists in a way that seems very, well, somehow more American. And more enduring and defensible.

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Cheyenne, Wyo: Congratulations on your past reporting on CIA prisons. How believable are statements that all prisoners have actually been transferred? Re the 'specially trained interrogators' - it would be interesting to study these people under a microscope... are these people being shunned within the CIA?

Dana Priest: It do believe they have been transferred and the prisons closed. The system is in transition, suspension, while they develop new rules that Congress will buy into. The identities of most of the people involved in these interrogations are not known to their co-workers.

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Davis, Calif: Can you please contrast what the President said about Zubaydah yesterday and what was said about the same subject in Ron Suskind's book? Since the 2 versions are so far apart, which one has more credibility? Yes, I am skeptical of what is coming from the President's (and this administrations's) month these days!

Dana Priest: I guess I don't know the bottom line truth. I had heard from people I trust that his pain medication was withheld (I don't know if Bush had a say in that or not). But then he started cooperating so it's very logical that he was then given medical care, as Bush noted. If this is true, the president just left out the first part. Oops.

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Toronto Canada: Let me echo Seattle's kudos for you scoop on the covert CIA interrogation sites.

President Bush and Dr Rice seem to have said that the transportation of KSM and 13 others to Guantanamo has emptied the CIA's covert prisons. Yet human rights organizations have listed dozens of detainees held in the CIA system, not just the fourteen the CIA will be transferring.

What do you think happened to the other missing men?

Dana Priest: In some human rights reports, two different types of detainees are often lumped together: those held by CIA, and those held in foreign prisons run by a foreign intel service. I think some of the people they are referring to as still missing are in foreign prisons.

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Foxboro, Mass: I'm confused.

Bush made this bold statement that the US doesn't torture that I thought should have already happened. Yet water boarding of prisoners has been documented. Did he miss the memo?

Dana Priest: Okay, under the rules in which the CIA was operating--rules judged by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to be legal--waterboarding was not considered torture. If you read the so-called Torture Memo of August 2002, you'll see that torture, as defined by the OLC there mean only techniques that cause severe mental or physical damage, organ failure or death. Water boarding does not cause such damage, does not result in organ failure or death. that's what the interpretation would be. Note: The DOJ repudiated the memo once it became public.

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Los Angeles, Calif: What is your opinion of the latest agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan to essentially forget about the tribal areas in Pakistan where most of the "bad guys" reside as long as everyone there "gets along." It seems to me Pakistan is feeling the heat and has decided to save itself. How does the Bushian "you're either with us or against us" spin this one?

Dana Priest: Like they always have: Pakistani politics is a delicate balance between pushing Musharref and not pushing him so hard (to be with us) that he is overthrown and replaced by radical Islamists who know control the country's nuclear weapons.

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Using Military Power to Solve Political Problems: Ms. Priest - The gist of your book made me wonder if other great powers of the past also used their military might like we are doing right now (i.e. to solve political/diplomatic problems). In your research for the book, did you come across such a pattern? If yes, did the great powers use it at their peak.. or when their powers were waning? Did the over reliance on military strength maybe lead to their decline? Just curious... Thank you.

Dana Priest: Of course. Rome and the British. They were over-extended, you could say. Rumsfeld's think tank even studied these cases, and others.

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West Coast: Assuming that certain people don't change, do you find it telling that President Bush has been accused of torture going back to his youth, (killing frogs)

and through college, (hazing frat pledges with hot coat hangers)? He says "we don't torture", but has never really defined it.

In your view, does Bush have a normal view of what torture is?

Dana Priest: The thing about that is, there is no "normal" definition and there never has been. There isn't much case law from the times when people have been brought before international tribunals on the charge of torture. When the infamous Aug. 1 memo was written, that's what those government lawyers did. They went back to the international courts to see how they ruled. Bush is basically asking Congress to make clear what techniques are taboo or accepted under Article III as it relates to an even murkier area, humiliating and degrading treatment.

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Davis, Calif: Let me ask a follow-up about Zubaydah: Suskind says that he is a mentally disturbed, low-level operator. Yet the US gov't sent thousands of agents unnecessarily after what came out of his mouth. Yet the president presented this man as a treasure trove of good intell.....

Thanks for allowing this follow-up

Dana Priest: I have not been able to confirm what Suskind says. I do believe that many of the people Zubaidah fingered were then detained.

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Orange County, Calif: I know your expertise is national security, not politics necessarily. But I think John McCain is the one that will either make or break Bush on this prison thing. He strongly criticized the Administration earlier for their policies. Where do you see him going now? Will he appease the right-wing base concerning this? or will he continue his independent streak? Has he ever talked to you about this?

Dana Priest: He'll continue his I-streak on this one. Along with Republican Senators John Warner and Lindsey Graham, McCain is the author of legislation now competing with the administration's on the matter.

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Reston, Va: When Rummy's think tank reviewed Ancient Rome, where there any comparisons between the relationship between the Romans and the German tribes then, and the U.S. and the Middle East today?

Dana Priest: I don't recall. there's a footnote in my book about the study. You can probably get a copy of it now from DOD, but I'm not certain about that.

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Washington, D.C.: What does it mean when interrogation is completed? How do you know you've gotten all the information you'll get out of a prisoner?

Dana Priest: It's obviously a judgment call, but interrogators who spend four years with someone, are usually pretty good at making those calls.

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Montpelier, Vt: So how does an average citizen decide whether those secret interrogations were "productive" in getting important information to the CIA. Bush says those interrogations were vital. But I read that some Army Generals say that those coercive interrogations were not helpful at all. How do we decide who to believe?

Dana Priest: Great question. No one wants to talk about this. You might have to hang tight for a will on that one. Or look at the vast public record in the Israeli case. Before Israel repudiated the use of torture against detainees, they made loads of information and testimony available on this. The bottom line was this: torture does work on some people. But it can also produce false information. And more than that, it's cost in terms of a country's moral standards and the personal cost to interrogators make it just not worth it.

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Washington, D.C.: Can the International Red Cross interview the prisoners who have been sent to CIA prisons in other countries?

Dana Priest: I highly doubt it. My guess is they will be able to visually look at them (to make sure they are okay). Perhaps they will be able to visit with them briefly. As for extensive interviews, I don't see that happening.

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Anonymous: To clarify an earlier comment, will the prisons run by foreign intelligence services continue their activities? Is Bush just transferring the best known detainees to Guantanamo, while keeping the majority of the detention system functioning?

Dana Priest: Yes they will. But no, on the second part. Prisoners sent out of CIA hands were never considered very valuable. The agency kept the valuable ones.

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Ottawa, Canada: The question of how to handle committed terrorists doesn't seem to be that insolvable. Membership in terrorist groups is, no doubt, illegal. Prove to a court that these people belong to an outlawed group and put them in jail for life. Problem solved. No need for torture or the death penalty.

Dana Priest: From Canada:

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Anonymous: Re Cheyenne question: And if you (Dana) discovered the names of the interrogators, what would you do?

Dana Priest: Chances are those people are under cover. We don't print the names of people who are under cover. But let's make the question harder: what if one of them wasn't under cover? My main goal would be to get the person to talk to me, to tell me what they went through and how it worked. If, and probably only if, they allowed their name to published would we publish it. they were, after all, acting under instructions their bosses believed to be legal.

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Anonymous: How long did it take you and the President to write his speech about the CIA prison system? Could this speech garner another Pulitzer Prize? Would winning one in league with the President be better than winning one on your own? THANKS

Dana Priest: Wow. That's a new one!

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Lexington, Ky.: What is the point of holding prisoners captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan after all these years? What possible information could they have that is applicable to today's situation?

Dana Priest: The entire reason for Gitmo's existence is to hold people "preventatively," that is people who say they are committed to killing Americans (or used to say it in the training camps). Most of them did not get a chance to do so, but are believed to want to try as soon as possible. That's what preventative detention is all about.

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Re Anonymous:: What percentage of the questions that you get come from psychos like Anonymous?

Is it a fair number?

Dana Priest: 2 percent. Goes as high as 20 percent if I have just published a story people don't like and which is criticized on the psycho-blogs, either left and right. Thanks for asking.

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Seattle, Wash: Actually, I served in the Canadian Army myself - and share the same opinion about how useful torture actually is. It didn't help us one bit during counter-terrorism operations, and it's not helping currently here in the USA.

An example would be the tens of thousands of terrorists arrested, charged, tried, and jailed - without torture, with lawyers, with rights - in France. So that they have a very high conviction rate from arrests while ours is abysmally low here in the US.

Dana Priest: One big caveat on France. Their counterterrorism court allows suspects to be detained for long periods of time (I think up to a year) without much evidence.

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Toronto Canada: I suspect that President Bush's acknowledgement that the CIA had been running covert, extrajudicial, overseas interrogation centres, including some in Europe, after all, will be a further embarrassment to friendly leaders in Europe.

Do you anticipate that this will further erode "the coalition of the willing"?

Dana Priest: It could. This will embolden the investigators in Europe who are looking into European cooperation. That might scare off some countries that were willing to do these things before. But I don't think it will stop productive counterterrorism cooperation in other, less controversial areas. After all, everyone's in this together.

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Richmond, Va.: Will Bush's "dare" to Congress to pass legislation for military tribunals fall flat because, with the right opposition tactics, it can be seen as just another diversion to his failures in Iraq and elsewhere? Or is this an issue that "must" be legislated for electoral credibility, even if it risks another rejection by the Supreme Court?

Dana Priest: The Democrats have never been very clear on their position on tribunals, except to support the courts and criticize Bush. Much less so on secret prisons, although they did condemn torture (now how tough is that!). They did not take up this issue at all. John Kerry asked for a report on conditions in the prison "if they exist." That was just about the extent of it.

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Oslo, Norway: Now as the US President has admitted to these secret CIA prisons, and has transferred the last prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, will you (or The Washington Post) reveal their former locations? As the prisons are closed, it should pose no threat to US "national security" to expose their previous whereabouts. If you or the Post are not going to reveal their locations, what is the reasons for this? Surely consideration for these countries, or US relations to them are not good enough reasons not to withhold the information from the public.

Dana Priest: As it currently stands, we will not. The reason is this: these countries still cooperate on other productive intelligence gathering matters and the fear, expressed by the administration to us, is that they might stop those activities, maybe out of embarrassment, maybe because they lack trust in the administration to keep promises. In any case, not having their cooperation would weaken valid counterterrorism operations. That's the reasoning. I'm certain we will take criticism for it. We already have.

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Glenmont: I read on a blog -- okay, don't panic -- that CNN is reporting that Bin Laden has shifted to warning Americans to convert to Islam as a prelude to an attack -- that he got "in trouble" with some of his supporters for failing to fulfill that condition of jihad -- giving the victim a chance to convert before you kill him.

This is described as suggesting that Bin Laden is planning another, massive attack on the U.S. Your take?

Dana Priest: Ok. I'll try to stay calm...Hope springs eternal on his part I'm sure. Who knows. I don't hear any one in the intel community in a panic right now over that audiotape. Lawrence Wright has written a great book with insights on how bin Laden has angered the jihaist community. It's worth reading.

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Dana Priest: Signing off now. Thanks for all the great questions. See you next week.

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