Passaro indictment: why him?

You’ve probably read about David Passaro, the 38-year-old former contract employee for the CIA in Afghanistan who was charged Thursday with assaulting a prisoner during three days of interrogation there and the prisoner then died…
Have you asked yourself why David Passaro, of all the possible number of people involved in just such incidents in Afghanistan–where the number of deaths under interrogation goes into, I believe, at least the double digits–gets indicted?
Today, an excellently researched and reported story in the WaPo by Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest gives one possible answer.
You see, the person killed in that incident was a man called Abdul Wali who last June 21 voluntarily gave himself up for questioning at the CIA/Special Forces base at Asadabad–and he had been accompanied to the base by the Hyder Akbar, the 18-year-old, US-eduacted son of a nearby, US-installed provincial governor, Sayed Fazl Akbar.
Schmidt and Priest explain further that:

Portions of a tape-recorded diary that Hyder Akbar kept during a visit with his father were played Dec. 12 on National Public Radio.
Sayed Fazl Akbar, speaking into his son’s tape recorder, said he asked the Americans to hold off using military force to capture Wali, who he said “had been on the Americans’ and the coalition force’s most-wanted list for cooperating with terrorists or being a terrorist.” Wali was deeply fearful of turning himself in to the Americans, said the elder Akbar, so Akbar sent his son to go with him “as a sign of trust.”
Said Hyder Akbar: “So I took him to the Americans. And, like, they’re asking him where he was 14 days ago on the night of the three rockets. And this guy, like, don’t have calendars, you know? . . . I just put my hand on his shoulder and I let him know: ‘Just say the truth. Nothing is going to happen if you just say the truth.’ And he was absolutely petrified, and he could barely whisper the okay.”
Three days later, Hyder Akbar and his father returned to Asadabad to check on Wali. A translator named Steve and another American named Dave sat down with them, according to Hyder Akbar, and said, “Unfortunately, Abdul Wali passed away.” Hyder Akbar said: “My jaw dropped. It’s like ‘Oh, my God.’ . . .

Okay, I just went to the NPR website and dropped $4.95 to download the text of the segment of ‘Morning Edition’ that featured “Hyder Akbar’s audio diary”. And I’ll give you some (strictly ‘fair use’!) excerpts from it later on.
But it does certainly occur to me that, given the domestic-Afghan political angle on this whole story, the administration may well have felt virtually obliged–in this case, given Abdul Wali’s relationship with provincial governor Akbar–to take some action against his killers.
Another interesting question occurs to me, too:

According to the WaPo story,

Passaro was part of a clandestine paramilitary team made up of U.S. Special Forces and CIA personnel who capture and interrogate Taliban and al Qaeda members…
A member of the U.S. military who was based in Asadabad when the death occurred said three CIA workers — one full-time employee and two contractors — took part in interrogating Wali. Special Forces guards checked on him every several hours. About an hour after one interrogation session, guards entered the holding cell and discovered that “the man was dead,” he said.
Immediately after Wali’s death, he said, the CIA personnel left the base by helicopter. The soldier later learned that the CIA station chief in Kabul had been told that Special Forces troops had killed the man, according to the military source and an official in Washington. When the Special Forces team threatened to make the case public, the military source said, the CIA personnel admitted what had happened.

Oh, what a record of pathetic buck-passing and ignominy.
But here’s my question: if a CIA staffer and TWO contract people all took part in interrogating Wali, why has only this one contract person–Passaro–been indicted? Is he being hung out to dry by the agency?
I would have thought that if there was a staff person taking part too, then he would have had overall responsibility for the conduct of the “interrogation”, and should be held even more responsible than a contract worker for what happened in the course of it?
This is not to diminish in any way the seriousness of what Passaro may or may not have done. But evidently, if he has a half-way decent defense lawyer, this issue of ‘command responsibility’ would be the first thing she or he would raise.
And, still in the realm of buck-passing and ignominy, how about these further details of the case:

The CIA’s inspector general began an investigation shortly after Wali’s death and referred the matter to the Justice Department in November for criminal prosecution. The department sent the case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Raleigh, N.C., earlier this year. Passaro was relieved of his duties and sent back to the United States after Wali died, Justice Department officials said.

So, here’s what seems to have happened:

• June 21, 2003, Wali dies.
• “After” June 21–but how soon after?– Passaro is relieved of his duties and sent back to the US.
• “Shortly” after June 21, CIA I-G begins an investigation into the death.
• Not till November: the I-G refers the case to John Ashcroft’s glorious Justice Dept. (Did they know the Hyder Akbar audio diary was in the works at NPR at that point?)
• December 12: NPR airs Hyder Akbar’s amazing audio diary.
• April-May 2004: the whole Abu Ghraib / Afghanistan / Gitmo prisoner abuse scandal breaks out.
• June 17, 2004: Passaro receives his four-count indictment for “assault”.

Well, it sure doesn’t look like keen investigatorial and prosecutorial minds at work there, does it? In fact, if it hadn’t been for (1) the NPR story, in december, and (2) the Abu Ghraib revelations, I would bet you anything that we’d never have heard yet of the case of the late Abdul Wali. He would have been just one more of those numerous “ghost” detainees who get disappeared by the US detention system.
Except that in Wali’s case, the abusers made a big mistake. Wali wasn’t a good person to try to disappear–because well-connected people there in Kunar province knew who he was and where he was.
Evidently, the big question here has to be: Exactly how big is the iceberg of people ‘disappeared’ and then snuffed out by US interrogators in Afghanistan or other parts of the global gulag, of which Abdul Wali has been only the visible tip?
I believe that Human Rights First (to whose report on secret detention facilities I referred in this post, yesterday) and other rights group are starting to try to get an estimate of the size of this problem…
So anyway, back to the NPR story:

Profile: Hyder Akbar’s audio diary when he went to Afghanistan
December 12, 2003
BOB EDWARDS, host: Eighteen-year-old Hyder Akbar capped an unusual auto diary last summer. Akbar grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. He listened to U2, shops at Banana Republic, but the Akbar family is from Afghanistan where Hyder’s father had been politically active. After the Taliban fell, Hyder’s father, Sayed Fazl Akbar, returned to Afghanistan as governor of Kunar province. Hyder went to visit him and took along a tape recorder. Because of the nature of his father’s new job, Hyder witnessed events few journalists could. He recorded US forces as they tried to get local Afghans to obey the new government. He saw rocket attacks and ambushes and he watched American soldiers interrogate a suspected terrorist after three rockets were fired at US forces in Kunar. Soldiers wanted to bring in a suspect named Abdul Wali for questioning, by force if necessary. Here’s an excerpt from Hyder Akbar’s audio diary…

Okay, that was Bob Edwards’ introduction… What would have been nice to have known, as you will see from what follows, is what date did Hyder actually record the following:

Mr. HYDER AKBAR : Abdul Wali’s brother got in contact with my dad and they were really worried. They’d heard all kinds of horror stories about what the Americans do. And, you know, my dad talked to them and said, you know, `Don’t worry.’
Mr. SAYED FAZL AKBAR: (Foreign language spoken)
Mr. H. AKBAR : `Abdul Wali had been on the American’s and the coalition force’s most-wanted list for cooperating with terrorists or for being a terrorist himself. American forces were ready to use military force to capture this person, and I told them to please hold on and let me try and get ahold of him myself. And since this man trusted me and since they trusted our family name, the man did arrive to Kunar and did turn himself in to us. He claimed his innocence but he was incredibly fearful of what the Americans might do to him. And since he was so fearful, I’ve sent you along to prove to him that there’s no trouble and that I’ll send my own son with you as a sign of trust.’

It seems to me that what Hyder is saying in English there is his intepretation of what his father had just said in whatever his Dad’s local language is.

Mr. H. AKBAR : So I took him to the Americans. And, like, they’re asking him where he was 14 days ago on the night of the three rockets. And this guy, like, don’t have calenders, you know? Somebody asks you where you were 14 days ago, especially if you didn’t do anything, like, you’re not going to be able to tell. They’re, like, `Oh, no, you fired three rockets. How could you not know the night three rockets fired where you were? And, like, we already think you’re lying. And your situation is getting worse by the minute.’
That was hard to watch. And then as I told them, like, `I have one last thing to say to him.’ I just put my hand on his shoulder and I let him know, `Just say the truth. Nothing is going to happen if you just say the truth.’ And he was absolutely petrified and he could barely whisper the OK. And that was, like, my last words to him, and then I walked out. I just hope everything goes OK, but in due time, we’ll find out probably in about three days. I’m going to go to an American base to check up on him.

Okay, I’d love to know if that part above was recorded on the same day as the part that follows… My sense is, most likely not, though in the transcript the paragraphs just flow together through this transition point.
Young Hyder’s use of tenses and grammar in general is teenage-ially “idiomatic”, but still, it seems clear to me that he recorded that former portion of his audio diary shortly after delivering Abdul Wali, and then the portion that follows maybe in the afternoon or evening of the day, three days later, when he and his Dad had gone to check up on their friend:

Today it’s been a hectic day to say the least. Around I’d say 5:30 or 6, a translator from the Americans come over and say that Steve wants to talk and he wants to talk now and he’s wondering if you could come to the base. So we arrive there, and we’re waiting in the chair, me and my dad, and Steve and Dave arrive. They come in, exchange greetings. They sit down, and then they go, `Unfortunately, we have some bad news. So I’m thinking. `Oh, man, what happened, you know? Is Abdul Wali no cooperating or did he admit to having a part in missile attacks? What happened?’ And they’re, like, `Unfortunately, Abdul Wali passed away.’ My jaw dropped. It’s, like, `Oh, my God,’ and my dad was, like, `What?’ They said that at 3:30, 4, he just collapsed and they tried to make him stand again. And he stood for a second, but then he fell again, and then they did the whole routine with the CPR and they said no expenses were held, just like they would have treated an American life.
And then we went into, like, the torture and everything like that, and nothing like that was done. He was being treated right and given, like, power bars and stuff like that. He’d put rocks in his mouth, but then they thought maybe ’cause he’s used to chewing tobacco, and he had tried it with, you know, like, the shackles that had binded his feet together. He tried to break those and he hit his head against the wall a couple of times trying to work with that. And just for our sake, they wanted us to see the body to make sure nothing had happened to it.
So we go see his body. His body was kept in his cell or whatever it was, and this cell was in pretty bad condition, I have to be honest. I don’t think it would be acceptable by American standards. It was a small, like, hut kind of thing, like, made out of mud, and they had, like, number five on it. And inside lay him with a sheet over his body. It was extremely hot and damp, and my dad took the towel off his face. One of his eyes was, like, open and the other was closed. No marks on him. I touched his face. I touched his, like, chest and he was dead. And it’s, like, `This is extremely good propaganda for, like, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Hey, guys, don’t go to Americans. Don’t listen to Sayed Fazl Akbar or you’ll end up like Abdul Wali. You remember Abdul Wali? You’re going to die like him if you go to him.’
So, so bad for us, but so, so good for the bad guys. That’s what the Americans call them, the bad guys. But aside from politics, this feels so personal for me. This guy was saying bye to me, like, `Make sure nothing happens to me.’ It was like the day before yesterday, you know? It’s hard not to feel responsible. Poor guy was only 28. He was just so scared. How’d he die? That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

Pretty amazing radio content, huh? And a pretty amazing coincidence, that whoever had the idea to have young Hyder Akbar primed to start recording an audio diary for possible broadcasting use later had picked on a guy who came across such an important story to tell?
I am so glad they did. I am so glad we have all been given the chance to learn more about the fate of Abdul Wali.
But my question still is, how many more Abdul Walis are there out there, dead or maimed or harmed forever by members of “clandestine paramilitary teams” working on our government’s payroll in Afghanistan or elsewhere?
As I’ve said before, it is time for all this torture and abuse to END.