‘We Could Have Done This the Right Way’

The revelation of more details could be cathartic. But the process could also become a political circus. Already, former Bush aides and other Republicans have erupted in anger, portraying the program as necessary and the revelations as dangerous to American security. With no hint of irony, Karl Rove told Fox News last week, "We're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses." More noteworthy, perhaps, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham—who both condemned the use of torture during the Bush era—issued a statement along with Sen. Joseph Lieberman dismissing the idea of a truth commission. They argued such a panel would "focus on the mistakes of the past" rather than "looking forward to solutions."

If a truth commission is formed, Soufan will almost certainly be a key witness. The son of a Beirut journalist, Soufan grew up in Lebanon and later moved with his parents to the Philadelphia suburbs. As a young street agent in New York, he become a protégé of John O'Neill, the flamboyant and controversial FBI counterterrorism agent who became well known for his warnings (mostly ignored) about the threat posed by Osama bin Laden.

Working with O'Neill, Soufan was a key investigator of the bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden in October 2000. Robert McFadden, a U.S. naval criminal investigator who also worked on the Cole bombing, says that Soufan could quote Qur'anic passages to radical jihadist prisoners, challenging them about the meaning of the prophet's words and ultimately gaining enough trust to engage them in extended conversations about their lives. "It's amazing the amount of information that came out of his interviews," says McFadden.

Soufan became a teacher for other interrogators. McFadden says that in early 2002, Soufan flew to Guantánamo to conduct a training course. He gave a powerful talk, preaching the virtues of the FBI's traditional rapport-building techniques. Not only were such methods the most effective, Soufan explained that day, they were critical to maintaining America's image in the Middle East. "The whole world is watching what we do here," Soufan said. "We're going to win or lose this war depending on how we do this." As he made these comments, about half the interrogators in the room—those from the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies—were "nodding their heads" in agreement, recalls McFadden. But the other half— military intelligence officers—sat there "with blank stares. It's like they were thinking, This is bullcrap. Their attitude was, 'You guys are cops; we don't have time for this'."

Only weeks later, this clash of cultures played out in the heated dispute over how to handle Abu Zubaydah. A Palestinian who is believed to have served as logistics chief for Afghan terrorist-training camps, Abu Zubaydah was captured after a bloody gunfight. He was transferred from Pakistan to Thailand, where Soufan and Gaudin immediately sought to gain his trust by nursing his wounds. (Soufan would not comment on the location of the interrogation; sources, who like others interviewed for this story didn't want to be named discussing sensitive information, have placed him in Thailand at this time. An FBI spokesman says Gaudin, who is still in the bureau, would not comment on his role in the Abu Zubaydah interrogations.) "We kept him alive," Soufan says. "It wasn't easy, he couldn't drink, he had a fever. I was holding ice to his lips." Gaudin, for his part, cleaned Abu Zubaydah's buttocks. During this time, Soufan and Gaudin also began the questioning; it became a "mental poker game." At first, Abu Zubaydah even denied his identity, insisting that his name was "Daoud."

But Soufan had poured through the bureau's intelligence files and stunned Abu Zubaydah when he called him "Hani"—the nickname that his mother used for him. Soufan also showed him photos of a number of terror suspects who were high on the bureau's priority list. Abu Zubaydah looked at one of them and said, "That's Mukhtar."