Stephen Soldz has published a devastating critique of the work of the FBI and Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) on the controversial interrogation of Guantanamo prisoner 063, the supposed “20th hijacker,” Mohammed al-Qahtani. Entitled “Ethical Interrogation”: The Myth of Michael Gelles and the al-Qahtani Interrogation, the article seriously questions claims that Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Chief Psychologist Michael Gelles, and other interrogators associated with FBI, CITF, and other agencies, had fought against the Rumsfeld/SERE-derived coercive interrogation of al-Qahtani, proposing instead a lawful and ethical approach based upon “rapport-building.”

Some stories are more revelatory than others. They expose the truth hidden behind rhetoric and spin.

Such is the nature of a story I stumbled upon some weeks ago, and which I have written up in an investigatory piece at The Public Record. It concerns the incarceration of a U.S. citizen by the military, held without charges for approximately 18 months, and forced after almost a month of 12-19 hour a