Last
summer, the Obama administration announced that, as a replacement for
the Bush administration's secret CIA terrorist detention and
interrogation program, it would create a SWAT-style team of
interrogation experts to travel the world squeezing terrorist suspects
for vital information. Administration officials say that the
interrogation unit, known as the HIG (for High-Value Detainee
Interrogation Group) is now operational. But for reasons that are
unclear, the administration has not deployed HIG personnel to question
Afghan Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arguably
the most important terrorist suspect captured since the detention of
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in spring of 2003.
Mullah Baradar was captured by Pakistani security forces in Karachi
earlier this month following a tip-off from U.S. intelligence about a
planned meeting involving some of his cohorts; as we reported,
U.S. officials have acknowledged that Baradar's arrest was a lucky
break, since the intelligence tip-off did not indicate he would be
present at the meeting. As we also reported,
some sources say that U.S. intelligence personnel in Pakistan, who are
believed to include both CIA and military counterterrorism experts,
were not given access to Baradar until more than a week after his
capture. Obama administration officials now say that Baradar is talking
a little, that U.S. personnel in Pakistan do have access to him, and
that any intelligence that has been squeezed out of him has been shared
with American representatives.
But five U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing
sensitive information, tell Declassified that the HIG—which the Obama
administration has billed as a less-controversial alternative to the
Bush administration's use of secret CIA prisons and "enhanced"
interrogation techniques that human rights advocates had described as
torture—is not being deployed to participate in the questioning of
Mullah Baradar. Some of the officials say they find this puzzling,
since Baradar, who before his capture served as the Afghan Taliban's
top military commander, is widely believed to possess information that
might be very useful to U.S. and allied forces fighting his Taliban
comrades in Afghanistan.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/02/26/exclusive-new-obama-interrogation-unit-not-deployed-to-question-captured-taliban-chief.aspx