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grid-full-bleed grid-no-gap SplScreenContentHearMa-fNigKG daohZh"><div class="GridItem-buujkM eHLzLy grid--em"><div class="SplScreenContentHearTleBlock-sCMXE jActCi"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubric"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX dZhWBL bric SplScreenContentHearRubric-cLHEJQ ildzkT"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ bric__lk" href="/magaze/a-reporter-at-large"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></a></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SplScreenContentHearHed-lcUSuI iUEiRd NbxED dfelga">Guantánamo’s Darkt Secret</h1><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SplScreenContentHearDek-emptdL iUEiRd wOnsu dJrDEb">The U.S. ary prison’s learship nsired Mohamedou Salahi to be s hight-value taee. But his guard spected otherwise.</div><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl SplScreenContentHearByle-kvEhqE ejWxsm"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH bwbwth byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn lOLCm byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG uhfVi byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL brYZgj byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/ben-tb">Ben Tb</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2019-04-15T05:00:00-04:00" class="SplScreenContentHearPublishDate-bMGEVk gvRvVr">April 15, 2019</time><div class="SocialInsWrapper-hKMEXV ffgPVr social-ins social-ins--standard SplScreenContentHearSocialShare-gSVclr kUKgnn"><ul data-ttid="socialInslist" class="SocialInsList-cHVTIA 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1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Illtratn wh Mohamedou Salahi" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 SplScreenContentHearGrid-kFpOdh fLkIyA"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn SplScreenContentHearCaptn-iOfEOv ckLUKG"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Mohamedou Salahi spent more than fourteen years tentn at Guantánamo Bay, where he was repeatedly tortured.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Illtratn by Tyler Comrie; source photograph om Strger / AFP / Getty (face)</span></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU 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class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><h2 class="paywall">The Guard</h2><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In 2004, Steve Wood was ployed to Guantánamo Bay, as a member of the Oregon Natnal Guard. He and his ras were told that many of the tae were rponsible for 9/11 and, given the opportuny, would strike aga. “I jt remember beg super exced, bee I thought, I’m gog to be dog somethg important,” Wood told me. For two weeks, he worked as a guard the cellblocks, monorg men who had been ptured on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Then a sergeant major pulled him asi for a brief terview, and assigned him to work the night shift Echo Special, a secret, sgle-occupancy un that had been built to hoe the Uned Stat ary’s hight-value taee. The Internatnal Commtee of the Red Cross—which has accs to many of the world’s most notor tentn s, some of them untri where there is no le of law—had recently sent reprentativ to Guantánamo, but the base manr, cg “ary necsy,” had refed to allow them to Echo Special. The man nfed there was referred to by his taee number, 760. When Wood tried to search for 760 Guantánamo’s taee database, he found nothg.</p><p class="paywall">Wood was the send of three boys. His father died a plane crash when he was three years old, and his mother brought him and his brothers up Molalla, Oregon, a lumber town about an hour south of Portland. His mother dated a strg of alholics and addicts, and took the children to an evangelil church on Sundays; Pat Robertson’s sermons blasted om the livg-room TV. In 1999, shortly after graduatg om high school, Wood started a job at the lol sawl. Several of his -workers were missg fgers, and the manager took every opportuny to nigrate the staff. After a few months, he signed up for the Oregon Natnal Guard, on the ary-police track. He sought stcture and disciple—a life of pri, purpose, and clary of missn.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">After 9/11, patrtism eclipsed rtlsns as Wood’s primary motivatn to serve. He had spent the morng of the worst terrorist attack Amerin history lyg on his mother’s uch, high on pakillers after a tonsillectomy, but when he emerged om the haze he was angry, focsed, and longg for ployment. He didn’t harbor any particular animosy toward Mlims, but he had absorbed his mother’s belief: “If ’s not om J then mt be om the Devil.” After pletg the requirements to bee an M.P., Wood enrolled a crimal-jtice program at a nearby muny llege. He relled his polil views as beg “whatever Fox News told .” He didn’t know the difference between a Hdu, a Sikh, and a Mlim—he had never met one.</p><p class="paywall">Before his first shift Echo Special, Wood was told to place a strip of electril tape over the name on his uniform, and to e only nicknam si the cell, so that if 760 were to somehow sneak a msage out of the mp he uldn’t issue fatwas agast his guards or their fai. “Never turn your back,” the sergeant major warned him. Wood, who was twenty-three, had recently learned that his girliend was pregnant. He wouldn’t take any chanc. “You tst the handcuffs and everythg, but, no matter what, we’d never be wh him one on one—there would always be a partner,” Wood told me. Until recently, the guards and the terrogators had worn Halloween masks si the cell. Wood walked through the mp to Echo Special proud to be part of a ser natnal-secury operatn. He thought, It mt be somebody really important—the most dangero person the world, perhaps—to have this special attentn, a guard force jt for him.</p><p class="paywall">Echo Special was a trailer that had been divid two. Wood walked to the ma area, which hoed the guards; through a door was the prisoner’s sleepg space. A ernment report scrib the facily as havg been “modified such a way as to rce as much outsi stimuli as possible,” wh doors that had been “sealed to a pot that allows no light to enter the room.” Insi, the walls were “vered wh whe pat or paper to further elimate objects the taee may ncentrate on.” There was an eyebolt for shacklg him to the floor, and speakers for bombardg him wh sound.</p><p class="paywall">An M.P. explaed to Wood that the current guard force lled Detaee 760 “Pillow,” bee when they had arrived, several months earlier, a pillow was the only object his posssn. Then one of them shouted, “Pillow, you n e out now!” A short man his mid-thirti stepped to the guards’ area, unshackled. He wore a broad se and a whe jumpsu, and moved utly toward Wood. The taee troduced himself as Mohamedou Salahi, then reached for a handshake, and said, “What’s up, du?”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Wood is six feet three, wh a shaved head, a shy, stoic manner, and the mculature of an éle bodybuilr. Although he towered over Salahi, he hated before takg his hand, and when he did he noted how lite Salahi was. “Nice to meet you,” Wood said. But he thought, What the fuck is this? This is the exact oppose of what’s supposed to happen.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The agmented image of Mohamedou Salahi that Uned Stat ary, law-enforcement, and telligence agenci assembled a classified dossier was that of a “highly telligent” Mranian electril engeer, who, “as a key al-Qaida member,” had played a role several mass-sualty plots. Other men rried box cutters and explosiv; Salahi was a ghost on the periphery. The evince agast him lacked pth, but vtigators nsired s breadth nclive. His proximy to so many events and high-level jihadi figur uld not be explaed by cince, they thought, and only a logistil mastermd uld have left so fat a trail.</p><p class="paywall">The U.S. ernment gathered that 1991, when Salahi was twenty, he swore allegiance to Osama b Lan, and the followg year he learned to handle weapons at an Al Qaeda trag mp Afghanistan. Later, Salahi moved to Germany, where, the Amerins asssed, “his primary rponsibily was to rec for al-Qaida Europe.” Among his alleged recs were three of the 9/11 hijackers, all of whom served as pilots on separate plan. A fourth was Ramzi b al-Shibh, the attack ördator; while C.I.A. ctody, b al-Shibh named Salahi as the man who had arranged his travel to Afghanistan and his troductn to b Lan.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A man a su rec lawrelated poetry to a woman on a livg room uch." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 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11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">In 1998, shortly after Al Qaeda tonated tck bombs outsi the U.S. Embassi Kenya and Tanzania, Salahi took a ll om a phone number belongg to b Lan. Then, and on at least one other ocsn, a member of Al Qaeda’s Shura Council—s learship—wired some four thoand dollars to Salahi’s bank acunt Germany; Salahi whdrew the sh and hand to men who were travellg to Wt Ai, to facilate what the Amerins asssed to be money-lnrg and telemunitns “projects for al-Qaida.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">In 1999, the Shura member lled Salahi, but U.S. telligence didn’t know what his stctns were. In November of that year, Salahi moved to Montreal, where he began leadg prayers at a proment mosque. Soon afterward, a jihadi who had attend the same mosque—and who the Amerins believed had met Salahi—attempted to smuggle explosiv the tnk of a r across the U.S. borr; his plan was to tonate sus si Los Angel Internatnal Airport, what beme known as the Millennium Plot. Canada’s Secury Intelligence Service began a surveillance operatn focsg on Salahi and his associat, but Salahi noticed two phole meras pokg through his apartment walls and left the untry. The U.S. ernment nclud that he was “the lear of the Montreal-based al-Qaida cell.”</p><p class="paywall">In Guantánamo, Salahi admted to this and other allegatns. “I me to Canada wh a plan to blow up the CN Tower Toronto,” Salahi wrote, one of his many nfsns. He listed his acplic and add, “thanks to Canadian Intel, the plan was disvered and sentenced to failure.” After years of holdg out terrogatns, he had bee what the classified dossier scribed as a “highly operative” font of telligence—“one of the most valuable sourc tentn.” He scribed Al Qaeda’s fancial volvement cred-rd d and dg smugglg, and also the group’s “vtment unwtg pani Bosnia, Canada, Chechnya, Denmark, England, Germany, Mrania, and Spa.” He drew anizatnal charts, wh the nam and operatnal rol of key figur, and supplied telligence on jihadi cells and safe ho all over Europe and Wt Ai. Owg to his expertise as an electril engeer, the dossier nclus, Salahi was also able to scribe Al Qaeda’s elaborate munitns systems, “cludg rad relay, uriers, encryptn, phone boutiqu, and satelle munitn lks to laptops.” But the U.S. ernment was sure there was more to be gleaned om him; the dossier says that he “still has eful rmatn” on a variety of subjects, cludg the 9/11 attacks, and lists twenty-two addnal “areas of potential exploatn.” Milary officials nsired him “the poster child for the telligence effort at Guantánamo.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">As a rult of Salahi’s öperatn, his private cell was now stocked wh what the ernment referred to as “fort ems.” After the pillow me soap, towels, a prayer p, and prayer beads—by the time Steve Wood arrived, Salahi also had books, a televisn, a PlayStatn, and an old laptop, on which he killed time playg chs and watchg DVDs. Eventually, Salahi would be allowed accs to a small patch of soil outsi his trailer, where he tend sunflowers, basil, sage, parsley, and cilantro. “What I was told was that his rmatn had saved thoands of Amerin liv,” Wood said, “and this is what they’d given him to keep talkg.”</p><p class="paywall">Salahi was taken to ctody when he was thirty years old, but he had already lived on four ntents, and spoke fluent Arabic, French, and German. English was his fourth language. Sce he had learned ptivy, some of his earlit phras were “I a’t done nothg,” “vy search,” “fuck this,” and “fuck that.” “My problem is that I had been pickg the language om the ‘wrong’ people—namely, U.S. Forc recs who speak grammatilly rrectly,” he wrote on a scrap of paper si his cell. “English accepts more curs than any other language, and I soon learned to curse wh the moners.”</p><p class="paywall">As a matter of profsnalism, Wood rolved om the outset to bury the back of his md what he had heard of Salahi’s past. “It’s hard to s there and lgh and chat wh the guy, if he’s actually that bad,” Wood told me. The night shift was twelve hours, and he never saw Salahi shackled or rtraed. Other Guantánamo prisoners threw punch and fec and ure, but, acrdg to the classified dossier, Salahi’s only disciplary actn was that, on May 11, 2003, he “posssed an excsive amount of MRE food.”</p><p class="paywall">Salahi often appeared sullen and whdrawn. But, when he wanted to engage, he spoke wh a worldly, provotive humor that Wood found appealg. He liked to rile his guards to batg equaly, race, and relign, and he wield a sophistited unrstandg of history and geopolics to chip away at their beliefs. Before meetg Salahi, Wood had never heard of Mrania; Salahi told him that, to his great embarrassment, slavery was still practiced there, even among people close to him. Salahi also phed him to rearch Wtern foreign-policy blunrs—for example, that 1953 the Amerin and the Brish telligence servic had orchtrated a up Iran, overthrowg a popular Prime Mister orr to prop up a tyrannil, pro-Wtern Shah. “Have you heard of Nelson Manla?” Wood relled Salahi sayg. “Look him up, du. Look up the prison on Robben Island. See if you thk his ptivy was jt. See what did to his fay.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="69fm99"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="vpjole"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">A job postg picts life as an telligence officer Guantánamo Bay as “a rewardg challenge wh credible surroundgs”—sunsets, beach, iguanas, priste Caribbean blue. “After a htled day of tacklg a myriad of issu and directly ntributg to the global war on terrorism,” reads, “fun awas.” Officers uld partake pottery class, patball, gby, tennis, and softball, or exercise several pools and gyms. The lol dive shop offered gear and certifitns for sailg, water-skig, snorkellg, scuba divg, and more: “No experience, no problem. . . . Relaxg is easy.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In practice, many ary-police officers killed time by watchg movi and gettg dnk at the Tiki Bar; they also took flights to Afghanistan, to pick up more tae. But Wood spent his days the base library, rearchg topics that Salahi had brought up the cell. He voured volum on history, foreign affairs, polics, civil rights—“pretty much any type of book you uld thk of, other than, like, romance novels,” he said. “I was tg myself on the world.” But, bee Salahi’s trailer was a natnal secret, Wood kept a rdial distance om most of the other guards. “I’d e home and iron my uniform, and my roommat didn’t know a thg,” he said. “They’d ask me, ‘Who’s there?,’ and I’d say, ‘I don’t know, probably somebody famo.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">In time, Wood began to thk of everythg he had known before meetg Salahi as a narrow-md myth of Amerin superry, notable for s omissns of overseas misadventur. Meanwhile, the Bh Admistratn’s pretext for vadg Iraq was llapsg, and so was Wood’s tst ernment. It was the sprg of 2004. There were no weapons of mass stctn. The “missn” had not been “acplished.” When Wood watched the eveng news, he saw photographs of Amerin M.P.s torturg and sexually huiatg Iraqi tae at Abu Ghraib. He began to wonr whether the se agast Mohamedou Salahi was as flimsy and polilly motivated as that for the vasn had been. “I was, like, What else have they lied about?” he said.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi unrwent daily terrogatns. The ssns Wood wnsed were lm and urteo, wh Salahi attemptg to answer everythg asked of him. “It was the pretty blond terrogator brgg the disks wh footage om Al Qaeda and Taliban trag mps Afghanistan,” Wood relled. The vios had been pulled om jihadi Web s, or ptured by telligence officers durg raids, and Salahi’s role was to intify the people them. But sometim, after öperatg, “he’d get prsed and anx, and say, ‘I’m a bad Mlim,’ ” Wood told me. “And I’d say, ‘No matter what you did the past, man, you’ve saved thoands of liv.’ I’d always say that, and he’d jt shake his head, like, ‘Bullsh.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">One night, when Salahi was asleep, Wood heard sounds that remd him of a child havg a nightmare. He walked to the sleepg area and found Salahi lyg the fetal posn, shakg. No adult Wood’s life had ever looked so ightened and so vulnerable. He gently held Salahi’s shoulr, and said, “Everythg’s O.K.” Salahi shook his head, and clicked his tongue disagreement, but refed to speak. The next day, Wood prsed him to talk about the episo, but Salahi wouldn’t elaborate. He jt said, “Du, they fucked me up.”</p><p class="paywall">The night terrors kept g. Salahi was on a diet of Ensure nutrn shak and antiprsants. One day, he plaed to Wood that the terrogators were mandg rmatn on events that he uldn’t possibly know about, bee they had taken place while he was ctody.</p><p class="paywall">Although Wood had troduced himself to Salahi as Stretch, his nickname om the sawl, Salahi had quickly learned his real name, as well as those of the other guards. “The tape would fall off our uniforms,” Wood relled. “We’d try to ver back up, real quick, but eventually we were, like, fuck . We knew he wasn’t a threat.” Where once he had stggled to five himself for enjoyg Salahi’s pany, he now felt bad about havg to lock the door at the end of each shift. He walked to the morng sunlight a daze, unable to rencile his imprsn of the man Echo Special wh the pictn of the terrorist the dossier. Had Wood remaed as a regular guard, one of the regular cellblocks, he might have fished his ployment wh his unrstandg of the global war on terror more or ls tact. Instead, he began to wonr whether what he was actually protectg at Guantánamo was one of the ernment’s darkt secrets: that s hight-value ary taee was beg held sentially by mistake, and that his isolatn Echo Special was tend to ver up the hell that had been flicted upon him.</p><p class="paywall">One day, Salahi started requtg paper om his guards. As the rult of a recent urt lg, Guantánamo tae had accs to legal reprentatn, and so, durg the next several months, Salahi drafted a diary of his tentn as a seri of harrowg letters to his lawyers, Nancy Hollanr, Sylvia Royce, and Thera Dunn—four hundred and sixty-six pag, sealed envelop and mailed to a classified facily near Washgton, D.C. No guards or terrogators were allowed to read Salahi’s work. For the first time, he scribed his experienc whout fear of retributn. On one page, he relled the day he got his nickname, when an terrogator brought him a pillow. “I received the prent wh a fake overwhelmg happs, and not bee I was dyg to get a pillow,” he wrote. “No. I took the pillow as a sign of the end of the physil torture.”</p><h2 class="paywall">The Detaee</h2><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Mohamedou Ould Salahi was born late December, 1970, the nth child of a Mranian mel herr and his wife. Like most untri Wt Ai, Mrania had gaed pennce om France a earlier. Few lols spoke French, but sce the untry had been arbrarily drawn up as a vast, mostly sert terrory, populated by numero ethnic groups who spoke different languag, there was no alternative for official documentatn. When a nurse, who spoke only Hassaniya Arabic, filled out Mohamedou’s birth certifite the Lat alphabet, she omted a syllable om his last name. Salahi beme “Slahi.” So began a life which ernments treated Salahi acrdance wh their own mistak.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi was a prec stunt; after school, he ed to steal chalk om the classroom and return to Bouhdida, a dty, unplanned neighborhood Mrania’s pal, Nouakchott, to re-create the day’s lsons for kids who uldn’t afford an tn. Mrania is an Islamic republic, wh rich tradns poetry and recatn that belie s dismal rat of leracy and enomic growth. As a teen-ager, Salahi memorized the entire Quran.</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Image may nta Furnure Couch Clothg Apparel Human Person Chn Stg Home Der Room and Livg Room" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Abu Hafs, Salahi’s and a senr Al Qaeda official, evad pture.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph urty Ben Tb</span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">He grew up measurg polil eras by ary ups—1978, 1979, 1984—chang <em></em> power that did ltle to alter the ways which Mranians <em>experienced</em> power. The lack of progrs, velopment, and eedom Mranian society spired Salahi a righteo anger toward tocracy and rptn, and a sire to fight for somethg bigger than himself.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In the eighti, he and a younger , a slenr poet named Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, spent their evengs at a lol fé, where the owner showed vios of the Paltian stggle and the jihad Afghanistan, which the Soviet Unn had vad 1979. In 1988, the Sdi iologue Osama b Lan announced the formatn of Al Qaeda. Walid, who was thirteen, started readg b Lan’s pamphlets. He and Salahi were smten wh the Al Qaeda narrative, that a ragtag group of mujahien, rryg light weapons and hidg v, were takg on a superpower the fense of all Mlims. They weren’t the only people taken by this stggle—the C.I.A. was fundg and equippg many of the mujahien groups.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="phnadi"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In 1988, Salahi graduated om high school and won a scholarship to study engeerg Duisburg, Germany. He was the first person his fay to attend universy. But the ll to jihad terpted his studi. By 1990, the Soviets had whdrawn om Afghanistan, but Al Qaeda was still fightg agast the Communist Afghan ernment that the Soviets had stalled. That December, shortly before his twentieth birthday, Salahi board a flight to Pakistan and crossed to Afghanistan, and although he never met b Lan, he soon pledged his allegiance to the Al Qaeda learship.</p><p class="paywall">Walid, who was sixteen, stayed behd. But two months later, when Salahi returned to Mrania and scribed his experience of the jihad, Walid rolved to set off on his own for Afghanistan. Walid was a prodig poet— Nouakchott, he had won several awards—and when b Lan met him he was imprsed by his eloquence and nvictn. Soon afterward, they travelled together to Sudan, where b Lan ran a nstctn pany and a jihadi trag mp, and sped around Khartoum b Lan’s whe Merces.</p><p class="paywall">In the sprg of 1992, Salahi returned to Afghanistan. Bee he had no experience wh weapons, Al Qaeda personnel sent him to the Al Farouq trag mp, near Khost, where he learned how to e a Kalashnikov rifle and lnch rocket-propelled grenas. But by then the Soviet Unn had llapsed, and, while Salahi was trag, the Afghan ernment lost s Rsian support. Afghanistan’s civil war entered a new stage, wh rival Islamist groups vyg for ntrol, and Salahi wanted no part of . After three months, he left Afghanistan and returned to Duisburg, where he worked a puter-repair shop while he fished his gree.</p><p class="paywall">Another two years passed before Salahi’s name ught the attentn of Deddahi Ould Abllahi, the head of Mrania’s secury-telligence apparat. In 1994, as the director of state secury, he opened an vtigatn to Nouakchott’s jihadi scene. Several Mranians had travelled to battlefields Afghanistan and Bosnia, and Mahfouz Walid had bee an important figure Al Qaeda; he now went by the nom guerre Abu Hafs al-Mrani. In Nouakchott, Abllahi and his subordat began to map out the work, tag people close to Abu Hafs and solicg the nam of other jihadis. Several young men mentned Salahi as a ntact Germany. Wh the assistance of German telligence, Abllahi told me, “we started llectg the maximum amount of rmatn. How do he live? How do he behave? How do he react to world events?” It was unclear to Abllahi whether Salahi was still active wh Al Qaeda, but he seemed to be someone whom all the Mranian Islamists knew.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Abu Hafs ascend to Al Qaeda’s Shura Council, where he served as b Lan’s personal adviser on Sharia law. In 1996, when Abu Hafs was twenty-one, he drafted b Lan’s most important fatwa: an eleven-thoand-word document exriatg the Sdi Kgdom and warng the U.S. Secretary of Defense that Al Qaeda’s adherents “have no tentn except to enter paradise by killg you.” The fatwa was Al Qaeda’s claratn of war agast the Uned Stat. Acrdg to “The Exile,” a prehensive acunt of post-9/11 Al Qaeda, by the vtigative journalists Cathy Stt-Clark and Adrian Levy, who gaed accs to Abu Hafs’s diari, he ghostwrote “most of Osama’s speech, relig judgments, and prs releas.” In 1998, b Lan wrote Abu Hafs to his will.</p><p class="paywall">Around that time, after a long perd whout ntact, Abu Hafs lled Salahi om b Lan’s satelle phone. The s had married a pair of sisters, and so they were now also brothers--law. But, after Salahi returned to Germany, they had srcely been touch. While Abu Hafs was handlg Al Qaeda’s affairs East Ai, his father beme ill, and so, as both men remember , Abu Hafs requted Salahi’s help transferrg money to re for his fay Mrania. Salahi agreed, and Abu Hafs wired around four thoand dollars to his German acunt. Salahi whdrew the sh and gave to iends who were travellg to Nouakchott, and they livered to Abu Hafs’s fay.</p><p class="paywall">A siar phone ll, followed by a send transactn, took place December, 1998. But, after Abu Hafs ed b Lan’s phone to ll a different Nouakchott, Abllahi’s subordat took the to ctody, and tortured him for two months. So, when Abu Hafs lled Salahi for assistance a third time, early 1999, Salahi refed, and hung up.</p><p class="paywall">Al Qaeda had by this time transformed to an ternatnal terrorist anizatn that was lnchg attacks East Ai and the Middle East. The U.S. had fired cise missil at Al Qaeda-lked targets Sudan and Afghanistan, and, a bid to pture Abu Hafs, the C.I.A. had raid a hotel Khartoum. (He ped through a kchen door.) One night October, 1999, a iend of Salahi’s asked him to host three Mlims who were passg through Duisburg. Over dner, they explaed that they were headg east, for the jihad. The men slept on his floor and left for Afghanistan at dawn. Salahi didn’t know their real nam, and never heard om them aga.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">By now, Salahi was unr surveillance by German telligence. But the Germans saw no reason to ta or qutn him. Acrdg to an vtigatn by <em>Der Spiegel</em>, “he preached gloomy back-yard mosqu,” and remaed ocsnal ntact wh jihadis—men whose nam and cell-phone numbers would turn up vtigatns spanng Ai, Europe, North Ameri, and the Middle East. But he did not nsir himself a member of Al Qaeda, or a facilator of s operatns. One day, German officers qutned one of Salahi’s iends. When they asked whether Salahi was volved any terrorist activi, the iend lghed.</p><p class="paywall">But Salahi wanted to live ee of surveillance, and he cid to leave the untry. One of Salahi’s iends, who was now livg Canada, suggted that he move to Montreal. “He said, ‘Canada is amazg—there is no racism, they speak French, and is jt a very advanced untry,’ ” Salahi said years later, a U.S. ary hearg. “You will have a job at the snap of a fger,” his iend told him. Ramadan was approachg—when the men leadg prayers read aloud the entire Quran durg the urse of a lunar cycle—and, Salahi relled, “my iend said, ‘We need you here Canada bee we have no Hafez,’ ” the Arabic word for a man who n rece the Quran om memory. “In Arabic untri there are oodl, but Europe and Canada one is very rare.”</p><p class="paywall">Salahi land Montreal on November 26, 1999. (His wife returned to Nouakchott.) His iend, Hosni Mohsen, troduced him to the imam at the Al Sunnah mosque. The mosque had thoands of atten, a few of whom belonged to an Algerian jihadi group that had e to the attentn of the French and Canadian telligence servic. “Bad people always want to blend to a crowd,” Salahi explaed at the ary hearg. Some of Mohsen’s “bad iends,” as Salahi scribed them, vised Mohsen’s apartment while he was hostg Salahi.</p><p class="paywall">“So look at me,” Salahi said. “I have ntact wh Osama b Lan’s operative, who was helpg lnr money. I’m now Canada, attendg a mosque where we believe a very dangero group is attendg.” And, bee was Ramadan, Salahi was leadg prayers. “Somethg is gog on.”</p><p class="paywall">“It’s not lookg good,” the pridg ary officer replied.</p><p class="paywall">“No, ’s not lookg good at all,” Salahi said. “It will look worse.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">One of the Algerian jihadis was Ahmed Rsam, a serial thief who was livg Canada unr a false inty. In 1998, he had travelled to Afghanistan, and spent a year Al Qaeda trag mps, where he learned to handle weapons and explosiv. In the sprg of 1999, French telligence officers asked their Canadian unterparts if they uld qutn Rsam about jihadi activi Europe, but the Canadians uldn’t lote him, bee he had entered the untry on a fake passport.</p><p class="paywall">A week after Salahi began leadg prayers at the Al Sunnah mosque, Rsam drove a rental r onto a U.S.-bound ferry Victoria, Brish Columbia. When the boat reached Port Angel, near Seattle, ctoms officers found the r more than a hundred pounds of explosiv, along wh four timed tonators, each fashned om a ne-volt battery, a circu board, and a Cas watch. Rsam told vtigators that he had planned to tonate sus a crowd termal at Los Angel Internatnal Airport.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A stranger an elevator talks to a woman holdg a baby." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“I hope you treasure every mute of strangers tellg you to treasure every mute.”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g 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ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">After the failed attack, Canada began to aggrsively vtigate the Montreal cell. “They were very jumpy,” Salahi relled at his hearg. “They were everywhere the mosque, the police r, twenty-four hours.” Among the targets of the vtigatn was Mohsen, Salahi’s iend and host. Upon Mohsen’s arrt, acrdg to a urt filg, vtigators found “pocket lter” that clud “both Salahi’s name and Rsam’s phone number.” (Mohsen uld not be reached for ment.)</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">One night, Salahi awoke to the sound of a ty hole beg drilled to his wall. The next morng, he found two phole meras. Salahi lled the police to report that his neighbors were spyg on him, but they told him that he should jt ver the meras wh glue. Soon afterward, Canadian vtigators me to the apartment and qutned him about the Millennium Plot. “I was sred to hell,” Salahi relled at his hearg. “They asked me do I know Ahmed Rsam. I said, ‘No.’ ” (Invtigators later termed that Rsam had left Montreal for a safe hoe Vanuver on November 17th—ne days before Salahi arrived Canada.) He began to notice surveillance everywhere. “O.K., screw , is not a problem—they n watch me,” he said. “They were aaid that I would kill some people.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="hxq8lob"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="7ujx5l"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In Mrania, Abllahi’s men taed Salahi’s wife and brothers and terrogated them about the Millennium Plot. “They didn’t tell me, bee they were sred,” Salahi relled. But his fay members were eager for Salahi to return, and so they told him that his mother was ill.</p><p class="paywall">On January 21, 2000, Salahi board a flight to Senegal. It was cheaper to fly to Dakar than to Nouakchott, and his brothers drove three hundred to meet him there. As they left baggage claim, Salahi later wrote his diary, “my hands were shackled behd my back and I was encircled by a bunch of ghosts who cut me off om the rt of my pany. At first I thought was an armed robbery,” but, when the airport police approached, “the guy behd me flashed a magic badge, which immediately ma the policemen retreat.” Salahi and his brothers were thrown to the back of a van and driven to a tentn se.</p><p class="paywall">Before dawn, Salahi was taken to an terrogatn room. An Amerin woman, who he assumed was an telligence officer, entered the room, and stood by as a Senegale officer qutned him about the Millennium Plot. Salahi nied knowg Ahmed Rsam, and add that he thought the entire narrative around the attack had been ncted “to unlock the terrorism budget and hurt the Mlims.” At the time, he later wrote, “I believed excsively Conspiracy Theori—though maybe not as much as the U.S. ernment do.”</p><p class="paywall">By the followg day, the lead Senegale officer was nvced that there was no reason to hold Salahi. “I was happy bee the one-ton stack of paper the U.S. ernment had provid the Senegale about me didn’t seem to imprs them,” Salahi wrote. “It didn’t take my terrogator a whole lot of time to unrstand the suatn.” Another Amerin official arrived, and took Salahi’s photograph and fgerprts. Soon afterward, Salahi’s brothers were released wh stctns to return to Mrania. They were told not to wa for Salahi.</p><p class="paywall">Several more days of terrogatn followed. The Senegale did the talkg, but the Amerins provid the qutns and reported back to D.C. Eventually, one of the terrogators told Salahi that he was gog to be sent to Mrania for more qutng. He was terrified—he wanted to go back to Canada, where terrogators behaved wh the bounds of the law.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi was led to a small private aircraft. The journey to Nouakchott took roughly an hour, tracg the Mranian ast—to the left the Atlantic, to the right the Sahara. Salahi, who hadn’t been home sce 1993, was filled wh nostalgia and dread. “Through the wdow I started to see the sand-vered small villag around Nouakchott, as bleak as their prospects,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">The plane land at sunset. A secury guard hand him a filthy black turban, to hi his face durg the drive to the secret-police headquarters. There, an telligence officer named Yaub nfisted Salahi’s Quran and left him a dank cell. He tried to sleep, but his md was racg wh the expectatn of torture at dawn. “I’d read about Mlim hero who faced the ath penalty, head up,” he wrote. “How did they do ?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The next morng, Salahi was led to the office of the Mranian telligence chief, Deddahi Ould Abllahi. “The room was large and well-furnished,” Salahi wrote, wh a portra of the Print “nveyg the weakns of the law and the strength of the ernment.” In the urse of the next several days, Abllahi and his men, cg the ncerns of the Amerin ernment, terrogated Salahi about his time Afghanistan, his ntact wh his Abu Hafs, and the Millennium Plot. The men never abed Salahi, but, as the days beme weeks, he wished that they would jt turn him over to the Uned Stat, where, he assumed, he uld at least challenge the legal grounds of his tentn.</p><p class="paywall">After roughly three weeks, F.B.I. agents vised Salahi’s cell. Their qutns were much the same, Salahi wrote, but “the whole environmental setup ma me very skeptil toward the honty and humany of the U.S. terrogators. It was kd of like, ‘We a’t gonna beat you ourselv, but you know where you are!’ So I knew the FBI wanted to terrogate me unr the prsure and threat of a non-mocratic untry.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">On Febary 19, 2000, Abllahi let him go home. “We had done all our vtigatns, and we found nothg agast Salahi,” Abllahi told me. Abllahi’s men nfisted his passport, once aga cg a requt by the Amerins. But a iend helped him fd work stallg Inter routers for a telemunitns pany. “It sucked that I didn’t have the eedom to travel,” Salahi relled the ary hearg. “But, hey, I have to pe wh . So far, so good.”</p><h2 class="paywall">Dry Ice</h2><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On a Tuday afternoon September, 2001, one of b Lan’s msengers sought out Salahi’s , Abu Hafs, and told him to keep an eye on the news. Abu Hafs was back Afghanistan, livg wh his fay Kandahar. It had been five years sce the Taliban had taken over most of the untry, and televisns were banned. He grabbed his shortwave rad. In the U.S., was morng. He knew what he expected to hear.</p><p class="paywall">The first mors of a “plan operatn” began circulatg among Al Qaeda lears 1999. But wasn’t until two years later that b Lan shared wh the Shura Council the broad outl of the attack: four plan; two civilian targets; two ernment targets. In that meetg, Abu Hafs challenged b Lan on Quranic grounds, argug that the sle of civilian sualti uld not be jtified Islam. He add that such an attack would be a betrayal of Al Qaeda’s agreement wh the Taliban ernment, which had provid sanctuary for the group on the unrstandg that would do nothg to provoke a full-sle U.S. vasn. Later that summer, Abu Hafs wrote a twelve-page dissent, but b Lan bristled at his fiance, and the objectns of other Al Qaeda lears, and moved forward. In July, 2001, acrdg to Stt-Clark and Levy, the thors of “The Exile,” Abu Hafs hand b Lan his rignatn letter. B Lan, wary of Al Qaeda’s agily, urged him not to speak publicly of his parture. For the next two months, Abu Hafs tght jihadi recs at a madrassa.</p><p class="paywall">After the attacks, Cofer Black, the head of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, who had served as the agency’s Khartoum statn chief while b Lan was Sudan, assured Print Gee W. Bh that men like Abu Hafs would soon “have fli walkg across their eyeballs.” The next day, he orred Gary Schroen, the agency’s former Kabul statn chief, to gather a team for a paraary missn. “I want to see photos of their heads on pik,” Black said, acrdg to Schroen’s memoir, “First In,” published 2005. “I want b Lad’s head shipped back a box filled wh dry ice. I want to be able to show b Lad’s head to the Print.” Black add that he and Bh wanted to avoid the spectacle of a urtroom trial. “It was the first time my thirty-year CIA reer that I had ever heard an orr to kill someone,” Schroen wrote.</p><p class="paywall">On September 26th, Schroen and six other officers load an agg Soviet helipter wh weapons, tactil gear, and three ln dollars ed, nonnsecutive bills. They took off om Uzbekistan and flew to northern Afghanistan, over the snow-pped mountas of the Hdu Kh. There, Schroen ntacted the lears of the Northern Alliance, an armed group that had spent years fightg the Taliban, wh ltle external support. Schroen relled, “When I began to distribute money—two hundred thoand dollars here, two hundred and fifty thoand dollars for this—I thk that they were nvced that we were scere.” In the next few weeks, Schroen’s C.I.A. team and their Afghan unterparts travelled through much of northern Afghanistan, layg the groundwork for the U.S. ary vasn.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In Nouakchott, Abllahi’s men taed Salahi aga the fall of 2001, at the requt of the Amerins. “I really have no qutns for you, bee I know your se,” Abllahi told him. Salahi had leted the ntents of his phone. “All I had were some numbers of bs partners Mrania and Germany,” he later wrote, “but I didn’t want the U.S. ernment harassg those peaceful people jt bee I had their numbers my phone.” One of the ntacts was listed as “P.C. Lan”—German for “puter shop”—and he figured that, to the Amerins, “Lan” would be a red flag.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa 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11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">A uple of weeks to his tentn, two F.B.I. agents walked to the cell. “Where is Abu Hafs?” one of them asked.</p><p class="paywall">“I am not Afghanistan,” Salahi replied. How uld he possibly know? The terrogatns always circled back to the Millennium Plot. Salahi me to thk of his terrogators as actg out a Mranian folktale which a bld man is given the gift of a sgle, fleetg glimpse of the world. “All he saw was a rat,” Salahi wrote. “After that, whenever anybody tried to expla anythg to the guy, he always asked, ‘Compare wh the rat: Is bigger? smaller?’ ”</p><p class="paywall">One of the F.B.I. agents threatened Salahi wh torture, and tried to timidate him. “He said he was gog to brg black people,” Salahi relled, the ary hearg. “I don’t have a problem wh black people—half my untry is black people!” But the agent kept g racial slurs. “This was my first time hearg the words,” Salahi said. “Like, what is a ‘motherfucker’? That is not appropriate language, man. He was very silly. He told me he hated Jews also. . . . I told him I have no problem wh the Jews, eher, man. Anyway, he said, ‘I know you are part of the Millennium Plot.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">A few days later, Salahi was released. Abllahi lled Salahi’s boss at the telemunitns pany, to assure him that Salahi should be allowed to rume work. While ctody, Salahi had beiend Yaub, the telligence officer who had been one of his guards. Yaub had a large fay and a small salary, so, when Salahi was released, he started payg Yaub to do ocsnal tasks. Though Salahi was a skilled electrician, he hired Yaub to fix his TV.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Not long afterward, mid-November, Salahi’s boss sent him to Mrania’s Printial palace, to stall Inter routers and update the phon. “I thought there would be a lot of formali, pecially for a ‘terrorist spect’ such as myself, but nothg like that happened,” Salahi wrote. “After all, only the Amerins spect me of terrorism, no other untry. The irony is that I have never been the Stat, and all the other untri I have been kept sayg, ‘The guy is alright.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">After work, Salahi went to his mother’s hoe. Two telligence officers, cludg Yaub, arrived and said that Abllahi need to see him aga. One of the arrtg agents suggted that Salahi drive his own r to the statn, so that he uld drive himself home afterward. Yaub climbed to the passenger seat. “Salahi, I wish I were not part of this sh,” he said.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Neher of them knew that the Uned Stat had asked Mrania’s Print to hand over Salahi to a rendn team. “He was guilty of nothg,” Abllahi told me, and he had not been charged wh a crime. “That’s why we had prevly let him go.” But, Abllahi ntued, shggg, “to refe a mand om an telligence agency, the fight agast terrorism—that would have been impossible.”</p><p class="paywall">On the eveng of November 28th—Mrania’s Inpennce Day—Salahi had been ctody for a week. Abllahi had bought him a new outf, but Salahi had refed to eat, and the fabric was loose on his shoulrs. They drove to the airport silence, Abllahi’s black Merces. “He was not happy—he didn’t want to leave,” Abllahi told me. “But I wasn’t the cir. I was an agent of the state. I executed orrs. And I knew that the requt was jtified, bee he had nnectns this i, the Islamo-terrorist circl, and he might be able to give his ptors some ias of how to improve secury. That was my thkg—that he was sufficiently telligent and well rmed to help any telligence service that might ask him for help.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="6idvj"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">It was Ramadan aga. “I pictured my fay already havg prepared the Iftar fast-breakg food, my mom mumblg her prayers while duly workg the most lici, everybody lookg for the sun to take s last steps and hi beneath the horizon,” Salahi wrote. He and Abllahi knelt on the nway, and prayed together.</p><p class="paywall">A private jet land, and out climbed a Jordanian rendn team. The lead officer uldn’t speak Mrania’s Hassaniya Arabic, and Abllahi hardly unrstood the Jordanian dialect, so Salahi translated for them. “He said he needs fuel,” Salahi explaed to Abllahi. (In his diary, Salahi wrote, “I was eager to let my predator know, <em>I am, I am</em>.”) When the nversatn was over, the Jordanians bldfold Salahi and put a set of soundproof earmuffs on him. Salahi was terrified. “I thought was a new U.S. method to suck tels out of your bra and send them directly to a ma puter which analyz the rmatn,” he wrote. “It was silly, but if you get sred you are not you anymore. You very much bee a child aga.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In Amman, Jordan, Salahi was hood and taken to a tentn facily the headquarters of the untry’s General Intelligence Directorate. (After 9/11, the directorate acted as a proxy jailer for the C.I.A.) The terrogatns vered the same topics as before: Abu Hafs; Al Qaeda’s trag mps 1992; the Millennium Plot. The Amerins supplied the qutns, and the Jordanians extracted the rpons, often through ercive means. Salahi was asked about nocuo exchang om tercepted e-mails and phone lls, as if they had been nducted . At other tim, the qutns origated om material on his hard drive, which the F.B.I. had pied Nouakchott. Once, on a technil assignment, Salahi had been photographed near the Print of Mrania; now the lead terrogator acced Salahi of havg plotted to kill him.</p><p class="paywall">Still, Salahi found his Jordanian terrogators to be highly knowledgeable, and they veloped a kd of mutual rpect. “It is a fact that they unrstand this whole ncept of terrorism much better than the average Amerin terrogator,” Salahi said, his ary hearg. “They really know who is who,” and, as a rult, “they were very reluctant to torture me. It was not every day, the torture—I would say maybe twice a week.” While other tae were mercilsly beaten, stng up by their limbs, and sexually asslted, he add, “all they did was strike me at different tim the face, and h me agast the ncrete wall.”</p><p class="paywall">The guards, who were officially prohibed om teractg wh him, began askg qutns. “Where are you om?” one of them said.</p><p class="paywall">“Mrania.”</p><p class="paywall">“What are you dog Jordan?”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">“My untry turned me over.”</p><p class="paywall">“Are you kiddg me?”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A rtrant patron aggrsively pliments the waer for her good service." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“I orred my meal more than an hour ago! Sce then, I have received , eaten , and paid for ! Thank you for a wonrful eveng!”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">“No.”</p><p class="paywall">“Your untry is fucked up.”</p><p class="paywall">The guards also brought him books om the library, cludg the Bible, which he had requted, he wrote, “bee I wanted to study the book that mt more or ls have shaped the liv of the Amerins.”</p><p class="paywall">Every other week, when Red Cross reprentativ vised the prison, Salahi and a handful of other C.I.A. tae were whisked to the cellar, to be hidn om view. In Nouakchott, Abllahi waed for updat om the C.I.A. and the G.I.D., but received none. “I thought he’d be back no time,” he told me.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi’s fay wasn’t notified of his rendn, and so they were surprised that Abllahi refed to let them see him. Acrdg to one of Salahi’s brothers, Abllahi told the fay that Salahi was beg kept a tentn facily the sert, far om Nouakchott. (Abllahi says that, after Salahi disappeared, the fay never ntacted him.) To sure Salahi’s upkeep, the fay regularly gave Abllahi’s men money, food, cloth, and gifts. In return, they passed along msag om Salahi, which they had vented, and assured the fay that Salahi was well.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In Kandahar, Abu Hafs felt the Amerins closg . The Taliban was rapidly losg ground. On October 17, 2001, Abu Hafs’s madrassa took a direct h om a missile. One day November, after buryg several iends, Abu Hafs sought out an Al Jazeera journalist. His turban was still damp om where his wife had cleaned off other people’s blood. “The Amerins, wh their polici, bore the u of the events of September 11th,” Abu Hafs said on mera. “Strikg horror, panic, and fear the hearts of the enemi of Allah is a dive mandment.” He add that Amerin cizens should blame their law-enforcement and telligence agenci—wh their “satell, ground statns, lns of spi, and huge budgets”—for the fact that the hijackers had “found a secury breach as big as a whole fleet of hijacked civilian aircraft, and managed to shove Ameri’s nose to the ground.”</p><p class="paywall">By the send week of December, was clear that Kandahar would fall. B Lan had fled to the mountas, and the remag Al Qaeda lears unrstood that, as Arabs and North Ains, they uld never blend wh the lols, who spoke Dari, Pashto, Balochi, and other regnal languag. (For the first several weeks of the vasn, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, believed that everyone spoke “Afghan.”) In a sh to leave Kandahar, two dozen senr Al Qaeda officials board a b, but Abu Hafs, fearful that a sgle air strike uld pate the jihadi movement, urged them to disperse.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-9 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Durg the next several days, Abu Hafs travelled toward the Pakistani provce of Balochistan. He slept remote villag, and entsted his life to Afghan sheepherrs who were prumably unaware of the twenty-five-ln-dollar bounty on his head. He wrote a letter to his wife and children, but there was no way to send , and so he kept a pocket his rob.</p><p class="paywall">When Abu Hafs reached Quetta, Pakistan, he found the cy’s private hospal filled wh jured Al Qaeda members. Taliban fighters walked the streets, nfint the support they received om Pakistan’s telligence service. Abu Hafs, however, regard the Pakistanis as duplico. (The C.I.A. me to much the same ncln.) B Lan’s fay was en route to Pakistan, and Abu Hafs need to make arrangements for their protectn. In liberatns wh Al Qaeda lears, he cid that the saft place was Iran.</p><p class="paywall">On December 19th, Abu Hafs board a b Quetta, rryg a fake passport and a suse full of sh. An image of b Lan’s face adorned the wdshield, and Abu Hafs spent much of the journey to the Iranian borr, some four hundred , wonrg whether was a “Wanted” poster or a tribute. At a Pakistani Army checkpot, he slipped a wad of bills to his passport, and went through unqutned.</p><p class="paywall">In Iran, Abu Hafs was greeted by reprentativ of a secretive and éle Revolutnary Guard Corps un that is rponsible for protectg top officials. A few weeks later, Iranian spi told Abu Hafs to ll other Al Qaeda officials and rm them that they would be wele Iran—although, like him, they would live wh their wiv and children unr a form of hoe arrt, sometim prisons, sometim lavish pounds and hotels, always the pany of the Revolutnary Guard. The cisn to simultaneoly protect and ta Al Qaeda members was apparently ma by Iran’s spy chief, Qassem Suleimani. Wh a few months, dozens of Al Qaeda members were livg Tehran, unrgog ocsnal terrogatns, aware that their Iranian hosts uld betray them at any moment. Abu Hafs spent the next relative luxury, exercisg alongsi foreign diplomats one of Tehran’s swankit gyms, and lookg after b Lan’s sons along wh his own. The Pentagon had reported that he was ad.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On the night of July 19, 2002, the Jordanians transported Mohamedou Salahi, bldfold and chas, to the airport Amman, where a new team took over. At first, Salahi was relieved—he assumed that the Amerins had e to unrstand his irrelevance to 9/11 and the Millennium Plot, and that he was beg sent back to Mrania. Instead, the men stripped him naked, strapped a diaper on him, and swapped out his shackl for a heavier set. One of the men momentarily removed Salahi’s bldfold, and shed a flashlight to his ey. Everyone on the team was drsed entirely black, their fac obscured by balaclavas. They drove up to the stairs of an airplane, but, Salahi wrote, he was “so exhsted, sick, and tired that I uldn’t walk, which pelled the rt to pull me up the steps like a ad body.”</p><p class="paywall">At sunrise, the plane land at Bagram Airfield, the largt U.S. ary base Afghanistan. For the first time, Salahi was the ctody of uniformed Amerin soldiers. “Where is Mullah Omar?” they asked. “Where is Osama b Lan?” They shouted and threw objects agast the wall. Salahi had been livg a cell practilly sce the begng of the vasn, ne months earlier.</p><p class="paywall">Milary personnel took his bmetric rmatn, and logged his health problems—cludg a damaged sciatic nerve—then led him to a cell. The punishment for talkg to another taee was to be hung by the wrists, feet barely touchg the ground. Salahi saw a mentally ill old man subjected to this method. “He uldn’t stop talkg bee he didn’t know where he was, nor why,” Salahi wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Durg terrogatns, an telligence officer, known among the tae as William the Torturer, forced Salahi to strs posns that exacerbated his sciatic-nerve issu. “His specialty was btalizg tae who were nsired important, but not valuable enough to get them tickets to the secret CIA prisons,” Salahi wrote. Another officer tried to build rapport wh Salahi by speakg to him German. “<em>Wahrhe macht ei</em>,” the officer said—the tth sets you ee. “When I heard him say that, I knew the tth wouldn’t set me ee, bee ‘<em>Arbe</em> ’ didn’t set the Jews ee,” Salahi relled. (The phrase “Work sets you ee” appeared on the gat of Achwz and other Nazi ncentratn mps.)</p><p class="paywall">Each taee was given a number, and, on Augt 4th, thirty-four of those numbers were lled, cludg Salahi’s. The men were dragged out of their cells. Milary police officers put blackout goggl over their ey and mtens on their hands, then hood them, led them up, and tied each taee to the one ont of him and the one behd him. Then the men were load onto an airplane. “When my turn me, two guards grabbed me by the hands and feet and threw me toward the receptn team,” Salahi wrote. “I don’t remember whether I h the floor or was ught by the other guards. I had started to lose feelg and would have ma no difference anyway.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-10 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">For some thirty hours, Salahi was strapped to a board. Medil rerds dite that he weighed a hundred and ne pounds—around thirty per cent ls than his normal weight. He was belted so tightly that he stggled to breathe, but he didn’t have the English vobulary to tell the guards.</p><p class="paywall">Then, he wrote, the plane land, the doors opened, and “the warm Cuban sun h me gracefully. It was such a good feelg.”</p><h2 class="paywall">ENEMY COMBATANTS</h2><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A kg and queen s on the screen porch addn to their large stle." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“The screen porch mak a home.”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In the mut before the first tae set foot on Guantánamo, “you uld lerally hear a p drop,” Brandon Neely, a ary-police officer, relled, an terview wh the Guantánamo Ttimonials Project, at the Universy of California, Davis, 2008. “Everyone, cludg myself, was very nervo,” he said. It was January 11, 2002. The Bh Admistratn had cid that the Geneva Conventns did not apply to the war on terror, which meant that the men ptured abroad uld be prived of the rights of prisoners of war. That day, Neely’s job was to hl ptiv om a b to a holdg area for procsg, and then to small, outdoor g, where they would spend nearly four months sleepg on rocks, and relievg themselv buckets, while soldiers nstcted more permanent cellblocks. “I keep thkg, Here —I am fixg to see what a terrorist looks like face to face,” Neely, who was twenty-one at the time, said.</p><p class="paywall">The first man off the b had only one leg. He wore handcuffs, leg shackl, earmuffs, blackout goggl, a surgil mask, and a bright-orange jumpsu. As two M.P.s dragged him to the holdg area, someone tossed his prosthetic leg out of the b. All afternoon, guards screamed at the tae to shut up and walk faster, lled them “sand niggers,” and said that their fay members and untri had been oblerated by nuclear bombs.</p><p class="paywall">Later that day, Neely and his partner brought an elrly taee to the holdg area and forced him to his kne. When they removed his shackl, the man, who was shakg wh fear, sudnly jerked to the left. Neely jumped on top of him, and forced his face to the ncrete floor. An officer shouted “Co Red!” to a rad, and the Internal Reactn Force team raced to the scene and hog-tied him. He was left for hours the Caribbean sun.</p><p class="paywall">Neely later found out that the elrly taee had jerked bee, when he was forced to his kne, he thought he was about to be shot the back of the head. In his home untry, Neely said, “this man had seen some of his iends and fay members executed on their kne.” The man’s rponse was hardly unique; a ary document, drafted ten days later for the base manr, noted that “the tae thk they are beg taken to be shot.”</p><p class="paywall">Officially, the job of the Internal Reactn Force was to rtra unly tae, to prevent them om jurg themselv or the guards. But, practice, “<em class="small">IRF</em>g” was often done as a form of revenge, iated liberally—for example, when a taee was found to have two plastic cups stead of one, or refed to drk a bottle of Ensure, bee he thought that he was beg given poison. <em class="small">IRF</em>g typilly volved a team of six or more men drsed rt gear: the first man would pepper-spray the taee, then charge to the cell and, g a heavy shield and his body weight, tackle the taee; the rt would jump on top, shacklg or bdg the taee until he was no longer movg. Although many of the tae arrived malnourished, wh their bodi marked by bullet wounds and broken bon, some <em class="small">IRF</em> teams punched them and slammed their heads to the ground until they were bloody and unnsc. “You uld always tell when someone got <em class="small">IRF</em>ed, as the tae throughout the mp would start chantg and screamg,” Neely relled. Once, he watched an <em class="small">IRF</em> team lear beat a taee so badly that he had to be sent to the hospal and the floor of his cell was staed wh blood; the next time the team lear was the cellblock, another taee yelled out, “Sergeant, have you e back to fish him off?”</p><p class="paywall">In Islam, the Quran is nsired the transcribed word of God; some Mlims keep the book wrapped cloth, never lettg touch unclean surfac. To dispel notns that the Uned Stat was at war wh Islam, tae were allowed to have private meetgs wh a Mlim ary chapla, and were given pi of the Quran. Some guards saw an opportuny to torment the tae—by tossg the Quran to the toilet, for example, or by breakg the bdg unr the guise of searchg for “weapons.” Decratn of the Quran provoked rts the cellblocks, which rulted <em class="small">IRF</em> teams stormg to the cells and beatg up tae.</p><p class="paywall">One day, after an terrogator kicked a Quran across the floor, tae anized a mass suici attempt. “Once every fifteen mut, a prisoner tried to hang himself by tyg his sheet around his neck and fasteng through the mh of the ge wall,” Jam Yee, an Army pta who served as the Mlim chapla Guantánamo, relled his memoir, “For God and Country,” om 2005. “As soon as the prisoner was taken to the hospal, another taee would be found—his sheet wound around his neck and tied to his ge wall. The guards would sh to save him and the chaos would start aga. The prott lasted for several days as twenty-three prisoners tried to hang themselv.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="vgabhi"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="xt82ks"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Milary-police officers so equently abed the Quran durg cell search that tae mand that the books be kept the library, where they would be safe. Yee, who had nverted to Islam the early neti, sent a requt up the cha of mand, but was rebuffed. “I felt this cisn stemmed om the mand’s sire to be able to tell the media that we gave all tae a Quran out of sensivy to their relig needs,” he wrote. The tae protted, and so “ was cid that every taee who refed the Quran would be <em class="small">IRF</em>ed.” While the tae were receivg medil treatment for their post-<em class="small">IRF</em> juri, the Qurans were placed back their cells.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-11 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In time, Yee me to believe that “Islam was systematilly ed as a weapon agast the prisoners.” Guards mocked the ll to prayer, and manipulated Islamic prcipl of mosty—by havg female guards watch naked tae the showers, for example—to create tensn as an exce to exact vlence. Durg terrogatns, tae were forced to perform mock satanic ruals, or were draped the Israeli flag.</p><p class="paywall">Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that the men Guantánamo were “among the most dangero, bt-traed, vic killers on the face of the earth.” But after Brandon Neely’s first shift, on the day the tentn mp opened, “no one really spoke much,” he relled. “I went back to my tent and laid down to go to sleep. I was thkg, Those were the worst people the world had to offer?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Invtigators had the same qutn. Shortly before the first tae arrived, Robert McFadn, an N.C.I.S. special agent, was eager to receive the flight manift. “I jt uldn’t wa to see who the tae were,” he told me. He had spent much of the past fifteen months Yemen, vtigatg Al Qaeda’s bombg of the U.S.S. Cole, and hoped that some of the men who were beg shipped to Guantánamo would have rmatn about the se. But, when the list of tae fally arrived, he relled, “my reactn was, What the fuck? Who are the guys?” Most of the nam were Afghan or Pakistani, “and the Arabs who were on the list certaly weren’t regnizable to me and my lleagu who had been workg Al Qaeda for years.” A few weeks later, after McFadn vised the tentn mp, he nclud that the tae were “sentially nobodi.” He told me, “There was not anyone approachg even the most liberal terpretatn of a ‘high-value taee.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">In Afghanistan, the U.S. ary was advertently pridg over a kidnappg-and-ransom dtry. Helipters dropped flyers remote Afghan villag, offerg “wealth and power beyond your dreams” to anyone who turned a member of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. “You n receive lns of dollars,” one of the flyers said. “This is enough money to take re of your fay, your village, your tribe for the rt of your life.” A mon bounty was five thoand dollars—far more money than most Afghans earned a year—and “the rult was an explosn of human traffickg” by var armed groups, Mark Fallon, the puty manr of Guantánamo’s Crimal Invtigatn Task Force, wrote his memoir, “Unjtifiable Means,” which was heavily redacted before beg published, 2017. As Michael Lehnert, a Mare Corps major general who briefly served as the tentn mp’s first manr, later ttified to Congrs, “What better way to enrich yourself, while rolvg old gdg, than to fger a neighbor who was your enemy, regardls of his support for eher Al Qaeda or the Taliban?”</p><p class="paywall">Acrdg to Fallon, “The Northern Alliance would jam so many tae to Conex shippg ntaers that they started to die of suffotn. Not wantg to lose their bounti, the ptors sprayed the tops of the box wh mache guns to open ventilatn hol. A lot of the prisoners were actually lookg forward to beg hand over to the Amerins, figurg would be pretty obv they weren’t Al Qaeda.” Yet hundreds of them were sent to Guantánamo Bay, which end up hog seven hundred and eighty people.</p><p class="paywall">In public, the Bh Admistratn and s ary learship asserted that Guantánamo was filled wh men who would stop at nothg to stroy the U.S. But, on the base, Fallon and his lleagu referred to most tae as “dirt farmers.” Lehnert lamented, “It tak an Army pta to send someone to Gmo, and the Print of the Uned Stat to get them out.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Salahi was no dirt farmer. But the C.I.A., which spent the next few years shufflg s “high-value tae” among so-lled black s Ai, Asia, and Eastern Europe, had seen f to transfer him to ary ctody. By the time Salahi arrived at Guantánamo, on Augt 5, 2002, Fallon’s éle teragency crimal-vtigatn task force had been siled, and Lehnert had been replaced.</p><p class="paywall">The learship at Guantánamo was more terted telligence llectn than prosecutg tae for terrorism crim. But, when the new manr asked Stuart Herrgton, a retired lonel and Army telligence officer, to asss operatns at the facily, Herrgton found that most terrogators lacked the trag and the experience required to be effective. Only one of the twenty-six terrogators was pable of workg whout an terpreter. Herrgton later reported that the terrogators were unsure of the real nam of more than half the tae.</p><p class="paywall">Acrdg to Fallon, most of the terrogators were “basilly nscripts” who would “walk to a room for the first time thkg the taee was jt wag to be cracked open and they were the next Jack Ber,” the fictnal protagonist of “24,” who ed abive tactics to elic rmatn and save his cy om terrorist attacks. They went through checklists of qutns that had been veloped by their superrs, and seemed imperv to nuance, or to the notn that some tae may have been sent there error. In rponse, tae would stop öperatg and start chantg or prayg; an attempt to reassert ntrol, Fallon wrote, “the terrogators would duct-tape their mouths, further guaranteeg that they wouldn’t get any rmatn—and so would go.” Neverthels, he relled, each failed terrogatn “was taken as proof that the tae were both Al Qaeda and traed to rist the methods.” In 2000, vtigators northern England had disvered a jihadi field manual that clud advice on lyg to ptors. Now, faced wh their own petence, Fallon wrote, terrogators “were quick to blame ‘classic Manchter ristance tactics!’ ”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Dr. Frankenste and Igor celebrate his monster which is ma out of rks." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“I’ve done , Igor! I’ve fally found a way to rse all our we rks!”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Salahi’s taee dossier lists his “reasons for transfer” to Guantánamo: “to provi rmatn” on the Al Qaeda trag mp he had attend 1992; a separate Afghan ia, which had received substantial backg om the C.I.A.; mosqu Duisburg; and his Abu Hafs al-Mrani. (They were no longer brothers--law, as Salahi and his wife had divorced.) Notably absent is any mentn of the Millennium Plot, or any allegatn that Salahi had mted a crime.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-12 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">After Salahi was procsed, he spent thirty days a ld isolatn cell, a practice that the U.S. ernment nsired “a ma buildg block of the exploatn procs,” as “allows the ptor total ntrol over personal puts.” When the isolatn perd was over, Salahi learned om other tae that there was a difference opn between those who had lived European mocraci and those who had lived only Mlim untri, wh the latter group argug that Ameri’s war on terror was an anti-Mlim csa. Salahi tried to nvce the skeptics that their arrival Cuba was “a blsg,” and that they would be treated fairly and exonerated by the Amerin jtice system. But, “wh every day gog by, the optimists lost ground,” he wrote. Bh Admistratn lawyers had taken the posn that “enemy batants” uld be held fely, whout trials, and that orr for somethg to qualify as “torture” “mt be equivalent tensy to the pa acpanyg ser physil jury, such as an failure, impairment of bodily functn, or even ath.” By the end of the followg year, Salahi knew more about classified secury operatns than any private Amerin cizen. The gulf between the U.S. ernment’s public disclosur and s secret practic was etched to his body and his md.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In 1967, Mart Seligman, a twenty-four-year-old Ph.D. stunt psychology, nducted an experiment that volved liverg electric shocks to dogs var stat of rtrat. The goal was to asss whether pable pa uld ndn an animal to “learned helplsns,” whereby simply accepts s fate. Thirty-five years later, the Uned Stat ernment drew spiratn om this experiment s approach to terrogatg terror spects.</p><p class="paywall">The plan, nceived by Jam Mchell, a psychologist workg on ntract for the C.I.A., was to duce learned helplsns humans by bg an dividually tailored regimen of torture techniqu wh environmental manipulatn. The techniqu—which ernment documents intify as “omnipotence tactics,” “gradatn tactics,” “bilatn tactics,” and “monopolizatn of perceptn tactics”—had been veloped by Communist forc durg the Korean War, to erce prisoners to makg false nfsns, for propaganda purpos. Sce then, the U.S. ary has exposed some éle soldiers to the techniqu, to prepare them for the kds of ab they might enunter should they be ptured by terrorist groups or ernments that don’t abi by the Geneva Conventns. Mchell argued that, by reverse-engeerg this program, terrogators uld overwhelm whatever ristance trag a taee might have absorbed om the Manchter manual. What followed was a perd of experimentatn—overseen by psychologists, lawyers, and medil personnel—at C.I.A. black s and ary facili. In September, 2002, Army officers started referrg to Guantánamo as “Ameri’s Battle Lab.”</p><p class="paywall">Early the afternoon of October 2, 2002, a group of teragency lawyers and psychologists met to e up wh a amework that ed “psychologil strsors” and environmental manipulatn to “foster pennce and pliance.” The C.I.A. had been torturg tae at black s for several months; now the Guantánamo learship wanted to unrstand the legal gymnastics that would be required to implement a program of their own. “Torture has been prohibed by ternatnal law, but the language of the statut is wrten vaguely,” Jonathan Fredman, a senr C.I.A. lawyer, said, acrdg to the meetg mut. “It is basilly subject to perceptn. If the taee di, you’re dog wrong.” (Fredman has disputed the accuracy of the meetg mut.)</p><p class="paywall">Later that month, a ary lawyer named Diane Beaver drafted a legal jtifitn—scribed later by a ngrsnal quiry on torture as “profoundly error and legally sufficient”—for a set of abive terrogatn techniqu. Among such methods as forced nakedns, dietary manipulatn, daily twenty-hour terrogatns, waterboardg, exposure to eezg temperatur, and the whholdg of medil re, Beaver endorsed “the e of scenars signed to nvce the taee that ath” was “imment.” (She later exprsed surprise that her legal opn had bee “the fal word on terrogatn polici and practic wh the Department of Defense.”) An acpanyg memo, drafted by a ary psychologist and a psychiatrist, explaed that “all aspects of the environment should enhance pture shock, dislote expectatns, foster pennce, and support exploatn to the fullt extent possible.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="2fl93d"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In November, 2002, the set of proposed techniqu land on Donald Rumsfeld’s sk. He signed . “Why is standg limed to 4 hours?” he wrote the marg, referrg to a proposed strs posn. “I stand for 8-10.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">By the sprg of 2003, Salahi had been vised Guantánamo by vtigators om Canada and Germany, and qutned by var U.S. ernment agenci. He had e to thk of himself as “a ad mel the sert, when all kds of bugs start to eat .” Most of the terrogatns were nducted by the F.B.I., whose qutns now centered on tablishg a nnectn between Salahi and 9/11. They showed him photos of var hijackers, and one of Ramzi b al-Shibh, the attack ördator, who had been ptured Pakistan. “I figured I’ve seen the guy, but where and when?” Salahi wrote his diary.</p><p class="paywall">Eventually, Salahi unrstood that b al-Shibh was one of the three men who had stayed at his apartment Germany for a night, October, 1999; the other two had bee 9/11 hijackers. Now b al-Shibh, who was beg tortured C.I.A. ctody, claimed that Salahi had reced him to Al Qaeda. “In fact, I’d say, whout you, September 11th would never have happened,” one of Salahi’s terrogators told him. Salahi was horrified. “I was, like, Maybe he’s right.” (In fact, the 9/11 plot was anized more than a year before b al-Shibh vised Duisburg.) For the rt of the terrogatn ssn, he was forced to look at photos of rps om the aftermath of the attacks.</p><p class="paywall">On May 22nd, Salahi’s lead F.B.I. terrogator told him that the ary would take over his terrogatn. “I wish you good luck,” the agent said. “All I n tell you is to tell the tth.” They hugged. The F.B.I. team left Guantánamo, and the torture began.</p><h2 class="paywall">Special Projects</h2><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>The cell—better, the box—was oled down to the pot that I was shakg most of the time. I was forbidn om seeg the light of the day; every once a while they gave me a rec-time at night to keep me om seeg or teractg wh any tae. I was livg lerally terror. For the next seventy days I wouldn’t know the sweetns of sleepg.</p></div></blockquote><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Twenty-hour terrogatns. “You know, when you jt fall asleep and the saliva starts to e out of your mouth?” Salahi said. No prayers, no rmatn about the directn of Mec. No showers for weeks. Force-feedg durg the daylight hours of Ramadan, when Mlims are supposed to fast. “We’re gonna feed you up your ass,” an terrogator said.</p><p class="paywall">Medil personnel had noted that Salahi had sciatic-nerve issu; now terrogators kept him strs posns that exacerbated them. No chairs, no lyg down, no more accs to his prcriptn pa meditn. “Stand the fuck up!” an terrogator said. But Salahi was shackled to the floor, so he uld do so only hunched over. He stayed that way for hours. The next time the Red Cross legatn vised Guantánamo, a reprentative reported that “medil fil are beg ed by terrogators to ga rmatn velopg an terrogatn plan.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-13 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Female terrogators groped him. They stripped, and bbed their bodi all over his, and threatened to rape him. “Oh, Allah, help me! Oh, Allah, have mercy on me!” one of them said, mockgly. “Allah! Allah! There is no Allah. He let you down!” An terrogatn memo listed plans to shave Salahi’s head and beard, drs him a burqa, and make him bark and perform dog tricks, “to rce the taee’s ego and tablish ntrol.”</p><p class="paywall">The terrogators head-butted him, and ma gradg remarks about his relign and his fay. They kept him alternately hot and ld cells, blasted him wh strobe lights and heavy-metal mic, and poured ice water on him. One day they would prive him of food, and the next they’d force him to drk water until he vomed. Acrdg to terrogatn memos, they rated the walls wh photos of genalia, and set up a baby crib, bee he was sensive about the fact that he had no children.</p><p class="paywall">On July 17, 2003, a masked terrogator told Salahi that he had dreamed that he saw other tae diggg a grave and tossg a pe sket wh Salahi’s taee number to . The terrogator add that, if Salahi didn’t start talkg, he would be buried on “Christian, sovereign Amerin soil.”</p><p class="paywall">On Augt 2nd, ary rerds show, an terrogator told Salahi that he and his lleagu “are sick of hearg the same li over and over and over and are serly nsirg washg their hands of him. Once they do, he will disappear and never be heard om aga.” Salahi was told to image “the worst possible scenar he uld end up ,” and that he would “soon disappear down a very dark hole. His very existence will bee erased. His electronic fil will be leted om the puter, his paper fil will be packed up. . . . No one will know what happened to him, and eventually, no one will re.”</p><p class="paywall">That day, the lear of Salahi’s terrogatn me . He intified himself as Capta Colls, a Navy officer who had been sent to Guantánamo by the Whe Hoe. (His name was actually Richard Zuley; he was a Chigo police tective, workg as a ary ntractor, who has an extensive rerd of abg spects until they nfsed to crim that they hadn’t mted. He did not rpond to requts for ment.) Zuley read Salahi a letter, later shown to be fed, statg that his mother was U.S. ctody and might soon be transferred to Guantánamo. Acrdg to ernment rerds, “the letter referred to ‘the admistrative and logistil difficulti her prence would prent this prevly all-male prison environment,’ ” implyg that she would be raped.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Four panels pict a patient readg her fil makg origami and bidg time until the doctor ." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 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11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">On Augt 13th, Donald Rumsfeld thorized the terrogatn plan for Salahi. The document he signed listed one aim of the abe as to “replite and explo the ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ ” which kidnappg victims e to tst and feel affectn for their ptors.</p><p class="paywall">Twelve days later, a group of men charged to Salahi’s cell wh a snarlg German shepherd. They punched Salahi the face and the ribs, then vered his ey wh blackout goggl, his ears wh earmuffs, and his head wh a bag. They tightened the chas on his ankl and wrists, then threw him to the back of a tck, drove to the water, and load him to a speedboat. “I thought they were gog to execute me,” Salahi wrote.</p><p class="paywall">He was driven around for three hours, to make him thk that he was beg transported to a different facily. He was forced to swallow salt water, and, every few mut, the men packed ice cub between his cloth and his sk. When the ice melted, they punched him, then repacked the ice to eeze him aga. By the end of the boat ri, Salahi was bleedg om his ankl, mouth, and wrists. Seven or eight of his ribs were broken.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-14 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Back on land, Salahi was rried to Echo Special, the trailer, which would be his home for several years. For the next month, he was kept total darkns; his only way of knowg day om night was to look to the toilet and see if there was brightns at the end of the dra. “To be hont I n report very ltle about the next uple of weeks,” Salahi wrote, “bee I was not the right state of md.”</p><p class="paywall">Soon afterward, an terrogator e-mailed Diane Zierhoffer, a ary psychologist, wh ncerns about Salahi’s mental health. “Slahi told me he is ‘hearg voic’ now,” the terrogator wrote. “Is this somethg that happens to people who have ltle external stimul such as daylight, human teractn etc???? Seems a ltle creepy.”</p><p class="paywall">“Sensory privatn n e hallucatns, ually visual rather than dory, but you never know,” Zierhoffer replied. “In the dark you create thgs out of what ltle you have.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">“Had I done what they acced me of, I would have relieved myself on day one,” Salahi wrote his diary. “But the problem is that you nnot jt adm to somethg you haven’t done; you need to liver the tails, which you n’t when you hadn’t done anythg. It’s not jt, ‘Y, I did!’ No, don’t work that way: you have to make up a plete story that mak sense to the dumbt dummi. One of the harst thgs to do is to tell an untthful story and mata , and that is exactly where I was stuck.”</p><p class="paywall">On September 8th, Salahi asked to speak to Zuley. By now, he had enough rmatn about the kd of story he had to craft, bee, he wrote, “through my nversatns wh the FBI and the DoD, I had a good ia as to what wild theori the ernment had about me.”</p><p class="paywall">Zuley walked , and Salahi started lyg. But wasn’t enough; the ernment wanted him to lk other people Canada to var plots. Salahi figured that this was how b al-Shibh had end up namg him as a high-level Al Qaeda recer. He relled, “I took the pen and paper and wrote all kds of crimatg li about a poor person who was jt seekg refuge Canada and tryg to make some money so he uld start a fay. Moreover, he is handipped. I felt so bad, and kept prayg silently, ‘Nothg’s gonna happen to you ar brother.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">The abe wound down slowly—no more htg, but no “fort ems,” eher, and no unterpted perds of rt. Jam Mchell, the C.I.A. ntract psychologist who vised the enhanced-terrogatn program, scrib this perd as an element of “Pavlovian ndng,” which the taee se his suatn improve or terrate direct acrdance wh his level of pliance.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="2jq0r"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="qs58q"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">One day, Zuley walked to Salahi’s cell, rryg a pillow. In time, he was given back his pa meditn. Then he was prcribed antiprsants.</p><p class="paywall">In mid-November, Salahi voluntarily sat for a polygraph tt. The examer scribed Salahi, whose answers ntradicted everythg he had nfsed to Zuley the precedg weeks, as “eager to prove that he is providg accurate rmatn.” The rults were cisive: “No ceptn dited.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On Febary 14, 2004, Salahi received a short letter om his mother Mrania, rmg him that her “health suatn is OK.” It had been eight hundred and fifteen days sce he had seen her—an ailg woman the rearview mirror, wavg om the street as he drove to Deddahi Abllahi’s telligence headquarters. In all this time, his fay had had no official nfirmatn of his whereabouts. Salahi’s brother, who is a German cizen, had read <em>Der Spiegel</em> that he was Guantánamo, but Abllahi sisted that wasn’t te—that he was lookg after Salahi a Mranian prison. Meanwhile, his subordat ntued to llect brib om Salahi’s fay.</p><p class="paywall">Mohamed Elmotapha Ould Badre Edde, a left-wg member of the Mranian Parliament, nducted quiri of his own, but ma no progrs. Badre Edde had spent some four s anizg grassroots mpaigns agast the practice of slavery and other human-rights vlatns, and for this he had spent years remote tentn s, unr a succsn of thorarian regim. Throughout 2002 and 2003, whenever the foreign mister vised the parliamentary chamber, Badre Edde mand to know Salahi’s whereabouts. Each time, the mister lied—even after the Red Cross had started liverg Salahi’s letters om Guantánamo to his fay.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-15 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In 2005, Mrania had a ary up—the typil way which power has changed hands sce pennce. “Each ernment claims that has e to the rcue of the populatn, which had been neglected and abed by the prev ernment,” Badre Edde told me. “And then behav the same way as the last.” When he asked the new regime about Salahi, he said, “they jt replied, ‘We didn’t kidnap him— was the prev ernment that did . And now he belongs to the Amerins.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">From the floor of Parliament, Badre Edde noted that Mrania has no extradn treaty wh the Uned Stat. “He was a victim of an extremely rare crime: that a untry had kidnapped s own cizen and hand over to a foreign untry, outsi of the jtice system, outsi of all legal procs,” Brahim Ebety, the Salahi fay’s lawyer Nouakchott, told me. Unr the new regime, Abllahi, the spy chief, was moted, and given the task of vtigatg rptn and malfeasance wh the secury servic; the standard path for acuntabily required Abllahi to vtigate himself.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Steve Wood walked to Echo Special the sprg of 2004 unaware of everythg that had happened before. His was the first guard force that didn’t wear masks, that allowed Salahi to pray. Outsi of the polil discsns, he and Salahi passed the hours playg mmy, Risk, and chs. When Salahi’s female terrogators me for a game of Monopoly, Salahi always threw the match. “My tert is not to be tortured,” he said. “And Steve’s tert is to imprs the girls. So, pletely different goals life.”</p><p class="paywall">Sometim Wood opened Salahi’s Quran to a random page and told him the verse number, and Salahi would rece aloud om memory, first Arabic, then English. It was the first time Wood had enuntered the Quran. He wanted to ask Salahi more about s ntents, but he spected that there were microphon and meras the cell. Outsi Echo Special, Wood started readg about Guantánamo on activist Web s, but a lleague warned him that Inter traffic was monored on the base. He began to worry that awarens among his -workers of his creasgly plex feelgs toward Salahi might elic accatns that he was unpatrtic, or an sir threat. “I tried to make my time there morally ntral, whout beg lled a traor,” he told me. “I was sred to ask too many qutns, I was sred to read a book on Islam while I was there, or show too much tert.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Women talkg a break room." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“If you’d like, I n set you up wh a bullet I dodged.”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to 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class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Wood’s ncerns were not unjtified. While Salahi was beg tortured, Jam Yee, the Mlim ary chapla, disvered that he and the terpreters at Guantánamo—many of whom were Mlim Amerins, wh Middle Eastern backgrounds—were beg spied on by law-enforcement and telligence officers. When Yee went on leave, he flew to Jacksonville, Florida, where he was terrogated and arrted, then bldfold, earmuffed, and driven to a Navy brig South Carola. For seventy-six days, he lived solary nfement, a ld cell wh surveillance meras and the lights always on. Government officials suggted that Yee was nng an elaborate spy rg—that he and other Mlims had “filtrated” the ary, and reprented the gravt sir threat sce the Cold War. Based on a misreadg of materials his posssn, and the vague aspersns of Islamophobic ary officers, prosecutors acced him of treason and “aidg the enemy,” and threatened to pursue the ath penalty. (All charg were later dropped, and Yee was honorably discharged.)</p><p class="paywall">In October, 2004, Wood’s girliend gave birth to a dghter, Summer. Seven months later, his ployment end. Before leavg Guantánamo, he gave Salahi a novel by Steve Mart, “The Pleasure of My Company.” “Pillow, good luck wh your suatn,” he wrote si. “Jt remember Allah always has a plan. I hope you thk of as more than jt guards. I thk we all beme iends.” But he wasn’t sure that Salahi believed him. “The whole time I was thkg, you know, What do he really thk of ?” he relled. “What if he is, like, ‘I hate the sons of bch for lockg me up’? And Mohamedou probably thought I was thkg the same thg—that, to me, he was jt a job, and nothg more.” So, durg one of his fal shifts, Wood broke protol and showed Salahi a photo of Summer. “It was my way of tellg him, ‘Man, I tst you. This is my dghter. She is my life. This iendship is real.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">Salahi saw no path out of Guantánamo. Even if the ary believed he was nocent, he figured that he knew too much about classified torture programs to be let out to the world. By the time Wood left, he had e to accept his guards and terrogators as fay. “Te, you didn’t choose this fay, nor did you grow up wh , but ’s a fay all the same,” he wrote his diary. “Every time a good member of my prent fay leav feels as if a piece of my heart is beg chopped off.”</p><p class="paywall">He often turned to a verse by the Iraqi poet Ahmed Matar:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I stood my cell<br/>Wonrg about my suatn<br/>Am I the prisoner, or is that guard standg nearby?<br/>Between me and him stood a wall<br/>In the wall, there was a hole<br/>Through which I see light, and he se darkns<br/>Jt like me he has a wife, kids, a hoe<br/>Jt like me he me here on orrs om above.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Havg accepted his guards, Salahi wrote, the next phase of ptivy was “gettg ed to the prison, and beg aaid of the outsi world.”</p><h2 class="paywall">The Outsi World</h2><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">A year Echo Special shattered Wood’s ias about his post-ary future. Before his ployment, he had aspired to bee a police officer. “But I changed my md after Guantánamo,” he told me. He wanted no part of a system which he might have ntrol over another person’s liberty. “I don’t like power,” he said. He left the Oregon Natnal Guard, and started workg night shifts at a twenty-four-hour gym near Portland. Few people worked out at two or three the morng, so he had plenty of time to ntue his self-tn on global affairs. He started on the books he had been too aaid to requt Guantánamo—on about Islam.</p><p class="paywall">Wood had e to see Islam much the same way that many of the tae did: as the only thg that uldn’t be stripped om them. The votn, the route of the five daily prayers—“that kept Mohamedou gog,” Wood told me. Now, as he read, “I saw how betiful the relign was,” he said. On most days, he searched Salahi’s name onle, hopg to learn more about the se, and to make sense of his own ployment to Echo Special, to no avail. He found almost impossible to rencile the news verage of Guantánamo Bay wh what he had wnsed there. As he read about Islamic history, he began to seek clary the Quran self.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-16 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In 2006, Wood removed his sho at the entrance to the Masjid As-Saber, Portland’s largt mosque. He wasn’t sure what he wanted out of the vis—he knew only that cursy eclipsed his misgivgs. Durg the next few months, Wood showed up between prayer tim, to avoid any prsure to participate. On his third vis, he told two Sdi stunts that he wanted to bee a Mlim. Conversn to Islam requir only that, the prence of Mlim wns, you clare the Shahada—“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet”—and that you believe your heart. The stunts acted as Wood’s wns.</p><p class="paywall">Wood started sporadilly attendg prayers. An elrly whe nvert warned him to avoid a uple of other whe nverts, who drsed relig clothg and talked about wantg to participate the jihad. When Wood told the old man that he had worked at Guantánamo Bay, the man suggted that he keep to himself. Soon afterward, Wood learned that the imam, a Somali immigrant who practiced a nservative stra of Islam known as Salafism, had been the subject of F.B.I. vtigatns and was on a no-fly list, and that several men who had attend the Masjid As-Saber had been nvicted on terrorism charg. “So that sred me away,” he said. He stopped prayg public. “I jt wanted this to be me and God.”</p><p class="paywall">By now, Wood was no longer datg Summer’s mother. In 2008, he met a woman named Wendy at a bar. They married 2010, and had a child six years later. He never told Wendy about his nversn.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The Uned Stat leas the land beneath the Guantánamo Bay tentn facily om Cuba, for four thoand and eighty-five dollars a year, unr an agreement signed after the Spanish-Amerin War. (For the past sixty years, the Cuban ernment has sought to nullify the agreement, and ref to sh the checks.) Bee tae are not U.S. terrory, the ernment has not allowed them to be tried U.S. urts. Instead, they are tried by secret ary missns—if they are tried at all. More tae have died at Guantánamo than have been nvicted of a crime.</p><p class="paywall">The prosecutor assigned to Salahi’s se was a litenant lonel named Stuart Couch, who had retired om the ary before 9/11. A close iend of his had been the -pilot of one of the plan that was flown to the World Tra Center, and Couch told the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> that he had reënlisted bee he wanted “to get a crack at the guys who attacked the Uned Stat.” When he saw the ernment’s file on Salahi, he nsired pursug the ath penalty.</p><p class="paywall">Couch never met Salahi, but, while Zuley was torturg him, Couch received summari of each new nfsn. In late 2003—a perd that Salahi scribed a letter as “where my brake broke loose”—Couch stggled to keep up wh the nstant stream of rmatn. In time, he beme spic that Salahi’s nfsns had been eliced through torture, and were therefore tated evince. When he disvered the fed letter om Zuley’s team, sayg that the Uned Stat had ptured Salahi’s mother, he rigned om the se.</p><p class="paywall">In June, 2004, the Supreme Court led that Guantánamo tae uld challenge the grounds for their tentn. It beme fashnable for high-profile rporate-law firms to reprent Guantánamo clients, pro bono, but many tae rejected reprentatn, bee they thought was a ploy to lend legimacy to an unjt tentn. Defense attorneys have acced the ernment of nyg them accs to evince, leavg secret rerdg equipment client meetg rooms, and filtratg their legal teams; a few years ago, Ramzi b al-Shibh, who may face the ath penalty, regnized a lguist on his own fense team om a C.I.A. black se.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="4oumgo"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">When Salahi’s lawyers wrote to him, askg that he rm them of everythg he had told the ernment, he wrote back, “Are you out of your md! How n I renr unterpted terrogatn that has been lastg the last 7 years. That’s like askg Charlie Sheen how many women he dated.” The important stuff was his diary, he said, which they uld read only si a secure facily near Washgton, D.C.</p><p class="paywall">In the ary hearg, Salahi scribed the torture program vivid tail. The transcript oms much of his ttimony, notg that, at the moment he started to scribe the abe, “the rerdg equipment began to malfunctn” and that the tap were “distorted.” The transcript ntu, “The Detaee wanted to show the Board his srs and lotn of juri, but the board cled the viewg.” (By now, the U.S. ernment was rollg back thorizatns for torture techniqu, and the ary and the C.I.A. were enterg a perd of self-reflectn; durg the next several years, ternal and ngrsnal vtigatns would expose many of the worst ab that had been flicted on Salahi and other men ctody.)</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-17 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The ernment no longer attempted to prosecute Salahi—nobody had touched the crimal se sce Couch whdrew—but argued that he should neverthels be taed fely. On March 22, 2010, a U.S. district-urt judge named Jam Robertson led on Salahi’s petn to be released. “The ernment’s se, sentially, is that Salahi was so nnected to al-Qaida for a begng 1990 that he mt have been ‘part of’ al-Qaida at the time of his pture,” Robertson wrote. But the ernment had “abandoned the theory” that Salahi knew about 9/11 before happened. As for his jihadi nnectns, Robertson ntued, the ernment’s classified filgs “tend to support Salahi’s submissn that he was attemptg to fd the appropriate balance—avoidg close relatnships wh al-Qaida members, but also tryg to avoid makg himself an enemy” of the group. In Robertson’s asssment, the ernment’s evince about Salahi was “so attenuated, or so tated by ercn and mistreatment, or so classified, that nnot support a succsful crimal prosecutn.” He nclud, “Salahi mt be released om ctody.”</p><p class="paywall">Steve Wood was elated when he heard the news. But the ernment appealed, and Salahi stayed Guantánamo. Wood ntacted one of Salahi’s lawyers, g a ma-up name and a new e-mail addrs, to quire about Salahi’s well-beg and the stat of his se. But he subsequently fot the log- rmatn, and so he never saw a reply. A uple of years later, he nsired visg Mrania, to track down Salahi’s fay and apologize for his role Salahi’s tentn. He no longer rived much solace om Islam, and rarely prayed. The cisn to keep his nversn a secret om everyone his life ma him feel at tim as if beg Mlim were wrong, even though, his heart, he still believed.</p><p class="paywall">In 2012, Salahi’s lawyers won a seven-year legal battle to classify his diary. Government censors redacted nam, dat, lotns, and other sensive or embarrassg rmatn. When they fished, Salahi’s lawyers livered a CD-<em class="small">rom</em> wh the snned pag to Larry Siems, a wrer and a human-rights advote, who has wrten extensively on ernment misnduct the aftermath of 9/11. “There was a really profound sense of rponsibily and ethil risk which me wh edg the mancript of someone who was alive but unable to participate that procs,” Siems told me. “I petned the Defense Department to allow me to show him the eded mancript, but they turned me down.” In 2015, was published, by Ltle, Brown, as “Guantánamo Diary.”</p><p class="paywall">Soon afterward, Guantánamo Bay, Salahi saw his own face on a TV screen. Siems was dog an terview about the diary, and that moment Salahi fally felt as if he was begng to take back the narrative of his life. “My cell expand, the lights beme brighter, lors more lorful, the sun shone warmer and gentler, and everyone around me looked iendlier,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Another year passed. Every time there was a hurrine warng Guantánamo Bay, Salahi dreamed that the storm had wiped away the prison mp, and everyone, tae and ptors alike, was “fightg si by si to survive,” he wrote. “In some versns I saved many liv, others I was saved, but somehow we all managed to pe, unharmed and ee.”</p><p class="paywall">Wood rennected wh Salahi’s lawyers, this time g his real name. When he learned that a ary review board would nsir releasg Salahi, he wrote a letter sayg that, “based on my teractns wh Mr. Slahi Guantánamo, I would be pleased to wele him to my home,” and offerg to ttify person. He also ntacted another guard om Echo Special. Acrdg to Wood, the guard drafted a note, but he cid not to subm . “All his iends and fay knew him as the guy who was guardg a high-value taee, and really proud of ,” Wood told me. “His whole reputatn rted on this fictn. But, after the diary me out, they learned that Mohamedou is not high value, he’s jt a guy who got fucked over for years.” He add, “Guantánamo has a long shadow for everyone—not jt the tae.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">One night October, 2016, Wood’s phone rang while he was a Safeway Portland. On the other end of the le was a man whose voice he hadn’t heard more than eleven years. Salahi told him that he was now home. So much had changed sce he had been taken to ctody, more than fifty-four hundred days earlier. His mother was ad, and so was one of his brothers, but there were teen-age niec and nephews whom he was meetg for the first time. The proceeds om his book were payg for a niece’s studi Dubai and a nephew’s master’s gree applied mathematics at a universy Kuala Lumpur. Salahi told Wood that he had wrten four more books tentn, but he hadn’t been allowed to take them out of Guantánamo. One was a self-help book about fdg happs a hopels place.</p><p class="paywall">Wood told Salahi that he was workg for his brother’s nstctn pany, repairg bridg. The hours were unpredictable, wh long driv and arduo shifts. As at Guantánamo, he often worked at night. But he rived immense satisfactn om the work, and saw the kd of moral clary that Guantánamo had lacked. When I vised Wood, last Augt, he and his team were layerg the surface of a bridge near Dayton, Oregon, wh epoxy, rocks, and primer. “The pot is to pave, seal, and waterproof , to prerve s lifpan,” he said. We got to the se at sunrise; the sky was a hazy, muted orange, om wildfir burng to the south. “It tak a lot of prep to start the job, but, when you’ve done your b, you’re leavg thgs better than when you arrived,” he said.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi’s eedom beme a stra on Wood’s marriage. Wood beme secretive about his lls wh Salahi; Wendy began to spect that he was havg an affair. When Wood agreed to talk about Salahi for a TV documentary, Wendy’s parents staged an terventn. “They said I was brgg shame upon the fay, and protectg a terrorist,” Wood relled. When he refed to back out of the terview, Wendy sisted that he wear an on-mera disguise. She told me that she thought he was dog somethg really dangero—that people might thk Steve was sympathetic to someone who was volved 9/11, and go after him, her, and their baby dghter. Soon afterward, Steve and Wendy separated.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-18 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Last May, one of Salahi’s s posted a note on Facebook that referred to Wood’s nversn. When Wendy saw the post, she was outraged—but also somewhat relieved, sce partly explaed his secretive behavr. “And I didn’t nfirm or ny anythg,” Wood told me. “I jt kd of shgged off, like, What do matter?” They cid to get a divorce. When I vised their hoe, a real-tate agent had removed all the fay photographs and replaced them wh talogue art, to make easier for prospective buyers to thk of the hoe as a blank slate.</p><h2 class="paywall">Dissonance</h2><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Larry Siems vised Salahi Mrania, and they set about fillg the redactns the book. In the first edn of “Guantánamo Diary,” Siems had clud an thor’s note:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>In a recent nversatn wh one of his lawyers, Mohamedou said that he holds no gdge agast any of the people he mentns this book, that he appeals to them to read and rrect if they thk ntas any errors, and that he dreams to one day s wh all of them around a cup of tea, after havg learned so much om one another.</p></div></blockquote></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="9e4fsk"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="vcua1m"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">In the rtored edn, Salahi add, “I want to repeat and affirm this msage here, and to say that now that I am home, that dream is also an vatn. The doors of my hoe are open.”</p><p class="paywall">This wter, Steve Wood set off for Mrania. The journey to Nouakchott took almost three days, wh long layovers New York and Casablan. Mranian immigratn officials taed him for an hour—here was a giant Amerin, all mcle and ves, sayg that he had met Salahi Guantánamo Bay—but eventually one of Salahi’s nephews persuad them to let Wood .</p><p class="paywall">Near the airport parkg lot, Salahi stood a light-blue boubou, the tradnal Mranian robe, wh a turban to obscure his inty. “Bet you’ll thk twice next time about sayg you know me,” he said, lghg. As they walked to the r, Salahi dug to Wood’s personal life. “Man, you’ve had a really tough time of ,” he said. “Like, really strsful.” They slept unr mosquo s Salahi’s bedroom, and woke up to the sound of a bleatg sheep. Salahi noted that “Steve snor like—how do you ll ?—a steam tra.”</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Image may nta Mohamedou Ould Slahi Soil Outdoors Nature Human Person Sand Face and Dune" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Steve Wood wh Salahi, his former prisoner, Mrania, January.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph urty Mohamedou Salahi</span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">It was January 11, 2019—exactly seventeen years sce the first tae had arrived at Guantánamo Bay. (Forty people rema the mp, at an annual st of some ten ln dollars a taee.) Salahi had spent the morng reviewg a speech he had prepared for events hosted by Amnty Internatnal and Physicians for Human Rights. In the two and a half years sce his return, he has received several profsnal visors—Siems, his lawyers, and the filmmaker Michael Bronner, who is adaptg Salahi’s diary—and also personal viss om a lawyer, whom I’ll ll Amanda. “We met like any cent person the days—on social media,” Salahi said. After she nverted to Islam, they married a relig ceremony. Now, a phone ll, Amanda suggted eds for Salahi’s speech—that he take out “lynchg,” for example, and make his remarks more “grac”—and Salahi accepted all of them.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi and Wood sat ont of a laptop, wh the Webm on, and Skyped to a room Washgton. “Everythg that happened to me—everythg I wnsed Guantánamo Bay—happened the name of mocracy, the name of secury, the name of the Amerin people,” Salahi told the dience at the Amnty event. He add that, as the world’s most powerful mocracy, the Uned Stat had “the means to uphold and prsure other untri to uphold human rights. But stead the Uned Stat is statg to the world very clear and loud that mocracy do not work—that when you need to get down and dirty, you need a dictatorship. That dictatorship was built Guantánamo Bay.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A man helps a pta dock a very large ship." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“You’ve still got, like, a solid eight ch.”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 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data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">In 2014, Salahi llapsed his cell and was shed to an operatg room for emergency gallbladr surgery. But the procre wasn’t rried out properly—he ntued to be pa—and by the summer of 2016 was clear that he required rrective laparospic surgery. Milary doctors offered to take re of , but Salahi cled; his release date was only a uple of months away, and he wanted to get the surgery on his own terms, once he was ee. Mranian hospals don’t have the pacy—they typilly send such patients to France—but what Salahi didn’t know was that his repatriatn would not amount to the rtutn of his rights. Acrdg to a senr U.S. diplomat, when the Uned Stat was negotiatg the terms of his return, “the Mranians did agree that they would not give him a passport for some <em>x</em> amount of time.” Two and a half years later, Salahi and his lawyers have no clary about the parameters of “<em>x</em>,” or about why the Uned Stat has any say whether the Mranian ernment issu a passport to a Mranian.</p><p class="paywall">In addn to Salahi’s abdomal pa, and regular migra, he still suffers om night terrors. He often wak up shakg, cryg, and grdg his teeth. A private hospal Germany has offered to ver the sts of Salahi’s gallbladr surgery, pl a year of physil and psychologil rehabilatn, but whout a passport he nnot travel to Europe. “I am nied my eedom bee I was nied my eedom,” Salahi said. “A lot of wise people tell me, ‘Mohamedou, shut the fuck up, don’t ask for papers, don’t ask. Mrania is much bigger than Guantánamo Bay—you n move around.’ But I sist on eedom.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-19 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Another liberty Salahi intified as havg been taken om him is that of exprsg the full range of human feelgs. “If you say that you are angry, is unrstood as an emotn,” he said. “If I say that I am angry, is seen as a threat to natnal secury.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The next day, Salahi brought Wood and me to a iend’s weddg party, hosted by Mrania’s bt radlogist. As we walked to the hoe, Abu Hafs al-Mrani me out of a nearby mosque, drsed a whe turban and long rob. “<em>Assalaamu alaikum</em>,” he said to Mohamedou. “Peace be upon you.” They shook hands. Then Abu Hafs greeted Wood, who, appearg paralyzed by nfn, ldly took his hand. Abu Hafs walked to the hoe ahead of , and disappeared to the crowd. Salahi generally avoids Abu Hafs—they have fundamentally different views of Islam, and he worri that any associatn uld further plite his life. (Until 2007, a terrorist sanctns list clud Salahi’s name as an alias for Abu Hafs.)</p><p class="paywall">It was a grand pound, whe stone rated wh lavish rpets and chanliers. The anteroom was filled wh Mranian dignari and él, all men, stg on uch that led the perimeter. Salahi and Wood went around the room shakg hands wh bankers, merchants, prefects, doctors. There was a famo Mranian poet named Taki, the former mister of munitns, the current Mranian Ambassador to Sdi Arabia.</p><p class="paywall">Salahi and I sat on eher si of the lear of a polil party that has more than a hundred and fifty seats Parliament. He was a tall, regal bsman, and wore Ted Baker sunglass and a Rolex. Durg a lull nversatn, he turned to Salahi and, gturg toward Wood and me, said, “So, you studied the Uned Stat?”</p><p class="paywall">“No, I’m an ex-prisoner of Guantánamo Bay,” Salahi replied, stantly endg the nversatn.</p><p class="paywall">After lunch, I stood the receptn area, watchg Mranian policians and tribal lears kiss Abu Hafs on both cheeks and thank him for g. A former lear of several provc explaed to me that Abu Hafs, b Lan’s former Sharia adviser, is now an adviser to the Print.</p><p class="paywall">The next day, Abu Hafs ved me to his hoe, one of Nouakchott’s most expensive neighborhoods. Until recently, the former spy chief Deddahi Ould Abllahi lived directly across the street. I arrived jt before the sunset prayers. Thirty or forty of Abu Hafs’s followers filled a small woon shack next to his home, spillg to the street, while he led prayers through a microphone. It was a temporary facily, he explaed, while he rais money to build a mosque.</p><p class="paywall">After the prayer ssn, Abu Hafs led me to his livg room, and for four hours he tailed his fallg-out wh b Lan, his whereabouts and activi the aftermath of 9/11, and his relatnship wh Mrania’s Print. “It’s not a formal posn—there is no ntract,” he said. “But I give him advice, and he tak .”</p><p class="paywall">Mrania was the se of regular jihadi vlence the send half of the ghts, while Abu Hafs was livg Iran. But stopped abptly after a failed assassatn attempt agast the Print, 2011, which raised qutns about whether he was cuttg als wh Al Qaeda. That May, U.S. Navy <em class="small">Seal</em>s killed b Lan, and llected more than a ln documents om his pound northern Pakistan; among them was a letter om Al Qaeda the Islamic Maghreb, seekg the central learship’s blsg to enter to a “secret agreement” wh the Mranian ernment. “The Mujahien are mted to not rry out any ary activy Mrania,” the letter says—as long as the Mranian ernment released imprisoned fighters, abstaed om attackg Al Qaeda cells abroad, and paid the group between ten and twenty ln ros per year, “to pensate and prevent the kidnappg of tourists.” (The Mranian ernment has nied that negotiat wh terrorist groups.)</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="j630m"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Around that time, Abu Hafs explaed, beme clear to him that the Mranian Print would be open to his return om Iran. He and his fay had spent almost ten years unr the protectn of the Revolutnary Guard, but, wh talk of the Obama Admistratn’s thaw relatns wh Iran, Abu Hafs began to worry that he uld be trad to U.S. ctody. His wife and children left first; once they had settled Nouakchott, Abu Hafs said, the challenge was to transport himself thoands of whout beg tected, arrted, or subjected to rendn.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-20 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">One day the sprg of 2012, Abu Hafs slipped out of ctody durg a vis to the gym. He bolted through the changg room and to the street, drsed his gym cloth, and hailed a taxi to the Mranian Embassy Tehran. The Ambassador lled Nouakchott, and the foreign mister orred the Embassy to fabrite a passport, g a fake name.</p><p class="paywall">When the documents were plete, Abu Hafs said, the Mranian ernment booked him on a mercial route that nnected through three untri. The Ambassador drove him to Tehran’s ternatnal airport a diplomatic vehicle, and acpanied him through the diplomatic channel, through airport secury and immigratn, right up until the moment he got on the plane.</p><p class="paywall">Abu Hafs wouldn’t say which untri he had travelled through—only that, the first two, the Mranian Ambassador met him on the tarmac, walked him through the airport, and stayed wh him until he got on the next plane. In the third untry, the Mranian foreign mister greeted Abu Hafs, and acpanied him on the flight to Nouakchott. There, Abu Hafs spent two months ctody, as a formaly.</p><p class="paywall">When I shared Abu Hafs’s acunt of his return wh the senr U.S. diplomat, she replied, “It’s the first I’m hearg any of .” The Mranians didn’t rm the Uned Stat of his return until “probably weeks later,” she said. “There was no fanfare, no announcement.” The Amerins learned only that, “as a ndn for return, he agreed that he would renounce his former associatn and embark on a msage of nouncg terrorism and preachg a more tolerant and pacifist msage.” I asked whether the Uned Stat, after learng of his return, had sought to ta or rendn him. “What would we tell the Mranians?” the diplomat replied. “It’s their cizen, and ’s their untry.”</p><p class="paywall">The lson seemed to be that the right mix of atonement and senry a terrorist anizatn n give the kd of leverage that is unavailable to men like Salahi. I asked Abu Hafs to tell me the name prted his diplomatic passport, assumg that the inty was no longer valid. He refed, sayg that he didn’t want to jeopardize his future travel.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Wood stayed wh Salahi for four days. They prayed together, ate together, and enjoyed a piic of bread and tea the dun of the Sahara. One day, they had ffee at a hotel, by the pool, wh the legal team of a current Guantánamo taee. Soon afterward, a room at the same hotel, the U.S. State Department hosted a trag ssn for Mrania’s secury-telligence apparat, on “Interdictn of Terrorist Activi.” Salahi suffered night terrors, and Wood suffered a spltg headache om ffee whdrawal. “Out here, I’m probably only drkg seven or eight ffe per day,” he told me. (Durg the layover Casablan, he had dnk a Red Bull and twenty-two shots of prso.) Salahi hand him some leftover ibuprofen om the Guantánamo pharmacy.</p><p class="paywall">For Wood, the trip beme somethg more plited than a vis to a iend. Salahi was on a publicy mpaign, to draw attentn to the jtice of his whheld passport, and at tim seemed to Wood as if he were a prop—the former guard who regnized Salahi’s nocence. TV crews were prent at meals, and an terviewer showed up at Salahi’s apartment, rerr hand, and asked Wood, who still hadn’t told his brothers that he is a Mlim, to ment on his favore Quranic passag, and to share his thoughts on the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. Wood plied—he felt that was the least he uld do for Salahi. Durg the Amnty Internatnal live stream, someone on Twter mented that, of the two of them, Wood looked like the taee.</p><p class="paywall">Another dissonance was that Salahi’s eloquent oratns on fundamental human rights stopped short of nontg a realy that Wood noticed on the send day: as guts of Mranian él, they were served lavish meals by people who appeared to be slav. Although slavery was crimalized 2007, Mranian human-rights advot told me that the law was drafted to appease ternatnal anizatns—that virtually nothg has changed. At an event, I exchanged phone numbers wh an extremely submissive server who was drsed ragged cloth and had a cloudy, damaged eye. The host, who was a ernment official, grew agated, pulled me asi, and urged me not to mentn that I had ever been to his hoe. “And, by the way, I pay my boy,” he add, unprompted.</p><p class="paywall">I tried to prs the topic wh Salahi, but was as if his transfer om Guantánamo had rried wh a kd of transposn of rtrat, om shackl to self-policg. In 2005, durg the ary hearg, Salahi had urged the pridg officer not to send him back to Mrania. “I want to go to a untry where I n enjoy my eedom,” he said.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-21 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Wood left for the airport at 4 <em class="small">A.M</em>. Salahi spent much of the day watchg YouTube pilatns of the worst “Amerin Idol” dns. “It’s so empty, now that Steve left,” he said to me. “So empty.”</p><p class="paywall">In recent months, the ph for Salahi’s passport has taken on new urgency. Amanda, who liv Europe, was pregnant, and Salahi would miss the birth of his son. “Did you see what Steve brought me?” Salahi said, potg to some baby cloth. “They look like a prison uniform wh strip! I thk he still se any baby my fay as a future mate.” Brahim Ebety, Salahi’s Mranian lawyer, told me that he is nsirg a lawsu agast the Mranian ernment. “At the begng, Mohamedou wanted to be docile and sweet,” he said. “But wh the people you nnot be likable. You mt be very tough. You mt fet your fear to achieve anythg.”</p><p class="paywall">Last summer, Salahi pleted an onle urse to bee a certified life ach. He now has two Amerin clients, whom he helps to navigate personal and profsnal wo through weekly Skype meetgs. “I want to ask you a favor, if is O.K. wh you, and that is to tell me five thgs that you are grateful for today,” he told one of them. Sometim the ssns veer to his own pg mechanisms—the rout he ma up to fill his days Guantánamo, for example, “when we had nothg to look forward to except the world we created si my cell.”</p><p class="paywall">Earlier this month, Amanda gave birth to a son. They named him Ahmed, and Salahi asked Wood to be the godfather. “There are so many Ahmeds that ’ll be difficult for them to put him on the no-fly list,” Salahi joked. On paper, Salahi is not listed as the father. But Amanda is an Amerin, and so their son is now a cizen of the untry whose purported valu Salahi wants to believe but has never seen. ♦</p><p class="paywall">An earlier versn of this story misintified Canada’s Secury Intelligence Service.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="pv2nh"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2019/04/22" data-reactroot="">April 22, 2019</a>, issue, wh the headle “The Prisoner of Echo Special.”</footer></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/ben-tb"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/ben-tb">Ben Tb</a>, a staff wrer, is the recipient of the 2020 Pulzer Prize for feature wrg. His 2018 reportg on Iraq won a Natnal Magaze Award and a Gee Polk Award.</div><div class="ContributorBFooter-brqDlv ezUmSv"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="TagCloudWrapper" class="TagCloudWrapper-gGgndx ctyZyK ContentFooterTagCloud-krQmRG ZLGh"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudSectnHear-cOforY iUEiRd bPyAoD kQQRmu">More:</span><a href="/tag/tae" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Detae</span></a><a href="/tag/prisoners" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Prisoners</span></a></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="ContentFooterBottom" class="ContentFooterBottom-jwWZfC kcbyiW"><div class="ContentFooterNewsletterContentWrapper-bmjtna kixtae"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper-fCqqkN jKSBhE newsletter-subscribe-form ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper-fpMElW eglIBL"><h3 class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDangeroHed-kRwWjt feDzQf newsletter-subscribe-form__hed ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf">Weekly</h3><div class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDek-kXonvc grEaES newsletter-subscribe-form__k">Your gui to the latt magaze and our biggt stori of the week, pl highlights om podsts, humor, and more.</div></div><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormInputsWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormInputsWrapper-keARJE hVWbzr"><form class="form-wh-validatn NewsletterSubscribeFormValidatn-iCYa-Dt dweEln" id="newsletter" name="newsletter" novalidate="" method="POST"><span class="TextFieldWrapper-Pzdqp hNhevp text-field" data-ttid="TextFieldWrapper__email"><label class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TextFieldLabel-klrYvg iUEiRd stdEm fvoOvz text-field__label text-field__label--sgle-le" for="newsletter-text-field-email" data-ttid="TextFieldLabel__email"><div class="TextFieldLabelText-cvvxBl eeDYTb">E-mail addrs</div><div class="TextFieldInputContaer-jcMPhb oFrOs"><put type="email" aria-scribedby="privacy-text" aria-valid="false" tofoc="" id="newsletter-text-field-email" required="" name="email" placeholr="E-mail addrs" class="BaseInput-fAzTdK TextFieldControlInput-eFUxkf eGzzTT lglhcT text-field__ntrol text-field__ntrol--put" data-ttid="TextFieldInput__email"/></div></label><button class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv dwpimO button button--utily TextFieldButton-csBrgY edxbrw" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="subm"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN hzwRuG button__label">Sign up</span></button></span><div id="privacy-text" tabx="-1" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDisclaimer-bTVtiV bsgLJZ"><span><p>By signg up, you agree to our <a href=" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">User Agreement</a> and <a href=" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement</a>. 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class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="SummaryCollectnGridContent-eVUpRm jTGbEO"><div class="SectnTleRoot-dBGvdq hpRFVl SummaryCollectnGridSectnTle-fCmYwG izjbVn" data-ttid="SectnTle"><hear class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SectnTleHed-dKqZet dxqEAa jfOfxc jttyjJ">Read More</hear></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridItems-DZShR jBCYOL hi-read-more-ad" data-ttid="SummaryCollectnGridItems"><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/books/page-turner/guantanamo-diary-and-the-amerin-slave-narrative" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="“Guantánamo Diary” and the Amerin Slave Narrative" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Page-Turner</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/books/page-turner/guantanamo-diary-and-the-amerin-slave-narrative" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">“Guantánamo Diary” and the Amerin Slave Narrative</div></a><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Stt Korb</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/04/14/mp-jtice" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Camp Jtice" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Law</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2008/04/14/mp-jtice" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Camp Jtice</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">Everyone wants to close Guantánamo, but what will happen to the tae?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Jefey Toob</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Iphigenia Fort Hills" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Iphigenia Fort Hills</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">Anatomy of a murr trial.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Ja Mallm</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left 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