WASHINGTON — When CIA officials subjected the man they considered their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods after his capture in 2002, they were certain he was an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of future operations. And they were facing pressure from the White House to get those secrets.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, no significant plots were foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior officials who followed the interrogations. His case presents the Obama administration with one of its most difficult decisions as it reviews the files of the 241 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida — chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates — was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as “al-Qaeda’s chief of operations,” and other top officials called him a “trusted associate” of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.
Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda, according to a portrait that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a “fixer” for radical Muslim ideologues. He ended up working directly with al-Qaeda only after the 2001 attacks, and that was because the United States was set to invade Afghanistan.
Abu Zubaida — a nom de guerre for the man born Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein — was never charged in a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, but some U.S. officials are pushing to have him charged now with conspiracy. His fate now rests with the Obama administration.
The Palestinian, 38 and in captivity for more than seven years, had alleged links with Ahmed Ressam, an al-Qaeda member dubbed the “Millennium Bomber” for his plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Jordanian officials tied him to terrorist plots to attack a hotel and Christian holy sites in their country. And he was involved in discussions, after the Taliban government fell in Afghanistan, to strike back at the United States, including with attacks on American soil, according to law enforcement and military sources.
His treatment at the hands of the CIA has raised questions among human-rights groups about whether Abu Zubaida is capable of standing trial and how the taint of torture would affect any prosecution. Some in the U.S. government, including CIA officials, would prefer to send him to Jordan.
Other U.S. officials remain steadfast in their conclusion that Abu Zubaida possessed, and gave up, plenty of useful information about al-Qaeda.
“He was one of the terrorist organization’s key facilitators, offered new insights into how the organization operated, provided critical information on senior al-Qaeda figures . . . and identified hundreds of al-Qaeda members,” said a U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much about Abu Zubaida remains classified. “How anyone can minimize that information — some of the best we had at the time on al-Qaeda — is beyond me.”
Abu Zubaida’s attorneys want the U.S. government to arrange for his transfer to a country besides Jordan — possibly Saudi Arabia, where he has relatives.
The Justice Department declined repeated requests for comment for this article.
About Abu Zubaida
Abu Zubaida was born in 1971 in Saudi Arabia to a Palestinian father and a Jordanian mother, according to court papers.
• In 1991, he moved to Afghanistan and joined mujahedeen fighting Afghan communists, part of the civil war that raged after the 1989 withdrawal of the Soviet Union. He was seriously wounded by shrapnel from a mortar blast in 1992, suffering head injuries that left him with severe memory problems.
• In 1994, he became the Pakistan-based coordinator for the Khalden training camp, outside the Afghan city of Khowst. He directed recruits to the camp and raised money for it, according to testimony he gave at a 2007 hearing in Guantanamo Bay.
• When the 2001 terrorist attacks occurred in the United States, Abu Zubaida was in Kabul, the Afghan capital. In anticipation of an American attack, he allied himself with al-Qaeda, he said at a 2007 hearing, but he soon fled into hiding in Pakistan.
• On the night of March 28, 2002, Pakistani and American intelligence officers raided the safe house where Abu Zubaida had been staying. A firefight ensued, and he was captured after jumping from the building’s second floor.
