Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | 921 CARLE | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
To his friends and neighbors, Glenn L. Carle was a wholesome, stereotypical New England Yankee, a former athlete struggling against incipient middle age, someone always with his nose in an abstruse book. But for two decades Carle broke laws, stole, and lied on a daily basis about nearly everything. "I was almost never who I said I was, or did what I claimed to be doing." He was a CIA spy. He thrived in an environment of duplicity and ambiguity, flourishing in the gray areas of policy.
The Interrogator is the story of Carle's most serious assignment, when he was "surged" to become an interrogator in the U.S. Global War on Terror to interrogate a top level detainee at one of the CIA's notorious black sites overseas. It tells of his encounter with one of the most senior al-Qa'ida detainees the U.S. captured after 9/11, a "ghost detainee" who, the CIA believed, might hold the key to finding Osama bin Ladin.
As Carle's interrogation sessions progressed though, he began to seriously doubt the operation. Was this man, kidnapped in the Middle East, really the senior al-Qa'ida official the CIA believed he was? Headquarters viewed Carle's misgivings as naïve troublemaking. Carle found himself isolated, progressively at odds with his institution and his orders. He struggled over how far to push the interrogation, wrestling with whether his actions constituted torture, and with what defined his real duty to his country. Then, in a dramatic twist, headquarters spirited the detainee and Carle to the CIA's harshest interrogation facility, a place of darkness and fear, which even CIA officers only dared mention in whispers.
A haunting tale of sadness, confusion, and determination, The Interrogator is a shocking and intimate look at the world of espionage. It leads the reader through the underworld of the Global War on Terror, asking us to consider the professional and personal challenges faced by an intelligence officer during a time of war, and the unimaginable ways in which war alters our institutions and American society.
Author Notes
Glenn l. Carle was a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty-three years and retired in March 2007 as deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats. He lives in Washington, DC.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Carle, who retired in 2007 after 23 years as a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service, recounts his toughest assignment: interrogating a top-level al-Qaeda detainee at two different overseas locations a year after 9/11. As deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats, Carle was one of the three most senior officers for terrorism in the intelligence community focused on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden before 9/11. The detainee, referred to as CAPTUS, was kidnapped off a street in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, and after interrogating him day after day, Carle begins to suspect that the CIA grabbed the wrong man. His colleagues remain unconvinced, and against Carle's recommendation, move CAPTUS to the "Hotel California," a notorious detention facility that holds the most dangerous, recalcitrant suspects. Following CAPTUS to the new location, Carle struggles to figure out how far he should push the interrogation and whether he is now an unwilling witness to torture. Carle captures the spirit of the CIA-its bureaucracy, dedication, machismo-in a voice that manages to be descriptive, analytical, reflective, and philosophical in turn. Despite the CIA's numerous redactions (the author notes that the CAPTUS story is even darker than he can say), the narrative raises pointed, timely, and important questions about the policies of the CIA and the U.S. government as they ramped up the global war on terror. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When CIA operatives are being assessed for their capabilities to perform dangerous assignments, they're given a questionnaire that contains numerous questions, in different phrasings, about how upset would they be if they were in the jungle, a prison, a desert, without a bar of soap. Only a CIA operative would know this bizarre bit of testing, and only someone as witty as Carle would divulge it. Carle was a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service, working on the Sandinista-Contra war, the Kosovo war, Lebanese issues during the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, and counterterrorism since 9/11. He retired as deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats in 2007. His insightfu. tell-mos. memoir traces the agency from when he was first hired in 1985. The focus is on his interrogation of a senior al-Qaeda detainee, a process during which he was encouraged to get information by any and all methods, including torture. Carle writes with great power about the chaos and lack of moral compass in these methods and his own crisis over what he was asked to do. By turns enlightening, disturbing, and funny, this is a must-read on the CIA and the War on Terror.--Fletcher, Conni. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
From a 27-year CIA veteran, a thoroughly documented insider's view of illegal activities undertaken on the "dark side" of the global war on terror.As an experienced CIA spy, Carle came to the conclusion that there was a major disconnect between the White House's Global war on terror and the reality he experienced. In the aftermath of 9/11, he was assigned to interrogate a suspected top al-Qaeda terrorist. He details the battles which followed, at least as much as possible under the conditions of CIA censorshipblack boxes in the text indicate the work of Agency redactors. At the beginning, Carle was asked what he would do if he was required to violate not only the letter of the law, but also his own standards of honor and duty. Previously acquired interrogation skills led to him to the conclusion that his prisoner was not the man his captors believed him to be. He was neither a leader of al-Qaeda nor someone who possessed useful information about terrorism. Nonetheless, Carle's conclusions were of no effect against the process that was underway. This was only one incident that the author considers indicative of a pattern of the CIA and the White House ignoring evidence that conflicted with the official policy narrative. By the end of the assignment, Carle was questioning how the United States had been reduced to such utter lawlessness. He believes there are still remedial steps that need to be taken to address what he calls a self-created problem of narrow perspective, hyped threats and deluded perceptions. Among them, he advocates the formation of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission," similar to the one legislated into existence by the South African parliament after the end of apartheid.Firsthand knowledge of what many have already suspected about the American intelligence community's methods.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In was late summer 2002 when Carle was offered a career-changing assignment-the type a CIA officer spends his or her career yearning for. He was asked to participate in the interrogation of a detainee called CAPTUS who was considered a High Value Target (HVT) connected with al-Qaeda. As Carle builds an odd relationship with CAPTUS, it becomes clearer to him that CAPTUS is not the HVT the U.S. government believed. Despite his misgivings, outlined in cables to superiors, Carle had to intensify his interrogations. Carle spends much of the book soul-searching, weighing his belief in duty to his country against his moral obligations to another human. -VERDICT Despite considerable CIA redactions of this text, readers will find a frightening picture of what has been taking place behind the scenes in the so-called war on terror, including incompetence, secrecy, and corruption. A well-written and highly engaging story.-Patti C. McCall, Pratt Inst. Lib., Brooklyn, NY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Preface: Lying, Honor, and the Gray World | p. ix |
| Introduction: Which Flag Do You Serve? | p. I |
| Part I Who's Ollie? | p. 31 |
| Thunderclaps and Growing Leaves | p. 41 |
| Part II The First Interrogation | p. 57 |
| Captus and Jacques | p. 65 |
| Fahimt?! | p. 71 |
| Manipulation, Intimidation, and Rapport | p. 75 |
| You Will Tell Me Things We Want to Know | p. 79 |
| Offering Hope | p. 83 |
| What Papers? | p. 87 |
| Send a Courier | p. 95 |
| An Assassin Coming After Us | p. 99 |
| I'm an Interviewer Now | p. 103 |
| A Futile Proposal | p. 109 |
| Rough Him Up Some? | p. 111 |
| AlThyria | p. 117 |
| A Recurring Headache | p. 127 |
| Propitiate the Gods | p. 131 |
| You Will Be Taken to a Much, Much Nastier Place | p. 137 |
| Grown Weary Top Soon | p. 143 |
| The Elegant Walk-In | p. 149 |
| There Is No Way Through This | p. 155 |
| Sincere, a Dupe, or a Liar? | p. 165 |
| Nibbling Oreos | p. 171 |
| I Do Not Know Why Allah Has Done This | p. 177 |
| Part III Methane Breathers | p. 185 |
| Point Zero Is Fucked Up | p. 193 |
| Redemptor | p. 197 |
| The Jihadi Bar | p. 203 |
| Had This Land Always Been So Bleak? | p. 209 |
| You Never Know What Is Waiting for Us | p. 223 |
| What Sins Might One Not Commit? | p. 231 |
| There's No Time for No "I Don't Know" | p. 235 |
| When to Say No | p. 247 |
| A Jaundiced Blur of Work and Fatigue | p. 255 |
| You Look Like a Ghost | p. 259 |
| Victims of Delusion | p. 269 |
| What a Poor Bastard | p. 277 |
| Afterword: Delusions, Consequences, Truth | p. 291 |
| Index | p. 307 |
