Gold Block, ICE Man, and Mom: Welcome to Guantanamo Bay
Babbin, Jed
"Gold Block, ICE Man, and Mom" Cuba UT FOR THE LONG BEARDS and hair, the 520 terrorists held at Gitmo would probably not arouse suspicion in most big cities. Most could, as they have in the past,...
...Only doing what's in the manual, and refusing to do any-thing else...
...Thank goodness for Japan...
...But what about the 70 percent of the high-value prisoners who are uncooperative...
...and Saudi governments: "I will arrange for the kidnapping and execution of U.S...
...It has all-wheel-drive, gets good gas mileage, is reliable, safe, and has "toy" in the name...
...He's not rude, just multi-tasking, obviously thinking about each of the ongoing interrogations at the same time...
...Nope...
...citizens will be kidnapped, held, and executed...
...She's someone who knows how to fight the kind of war she's in, and takes a great deal of pride in the results she's getting...
...His intel teams usually include one interrogator and interpreter who sit in one of the stark white rooms with the prisoner...
...He said they were "clamped up," meaning they were reluctant to push the interrogations, and not doing all they could within the law and Defense Department regulations...
...Found it again...
...Should've done this last winter...
...Short hair, big glasses, and bursting with pent-up energy...
...It too offered a clutch and a great lease deal—until I calculated that taxes take all the "great" out of such deals...
...Some detainees, who were al Qaeda recruiters or facilitators—helping terrorists move internationally—have given information on how they performed their tasks...
...and other countries who follow the U.S.," and that "it is not the quantity of power, but the quality of power, that will win in the end...
...All of them—from the lowliest would-be suicide bomber to the guy who has a graduate degree from Embry-Riddle aviation school in Arizona—are eager to return to their chosen life's work: murder...
...Small groups of four or five U.S...
...Known throughout the camps, she has so gained their confidence that sometimes, when an uncooperative detainee finally decides to talk, he asks for "Mom...
...Actually he's a mechanic-confessor (when not racing his specialty—Ferraris...
...Another identified a complex detonation system for improvised explosive devices that had been used in Chechnya, assisting American forces in Iraq to defeat this weapon...
...Call them "ICE Man" and "Mom...
...She has, according to her bosses, gotten long-silent detainees to talk sometimes by the simplest tactic of switching the interrogator who's assigned to a given detainee...
...It offered the perfect car—what it calls a "truck," even though it is really an SUV...
...A very un-homogeneous bunch of civilian and military interrogators, intelligence analysts, and linguists...
...They will have their heads cut off...
...By sheer accident I sampled France...
...significant and prolonged aid to support both the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan...
...Not that I would ever invest in a brand I have already owned...
...Only one problem: he's 300 miles away...
...Consider just a few examples of what they've learned...
...My usual haunts don't include a new car showroom...
...Large and ice-blue, there's a fire burning behind them...
...Most could, as they have in the past, fit in all too well in polite society...
...Or so I thought...
...I have had my fill (so to speak) of radiators, radiator fluid, alternators, head gaskets, brake pads, CV boots, exhaust systems...
...Looking at me like I was a little nuts, he said that there was no fear of investigators, because his people were doing the right thing all the time...
...RATHER, I KNOW WHAT NEEDS FIXING...
...In the brief time I visited with her, I got the same feeling that I often get talking to one of the SEALs or Green Beanies...
...Plus driving a Wolfswagen was like sitting in a cockpit...
...And it had the most wonderful feature any car can have...
...His voice is soft, but when he talks to you, his eyes drift...
...The rest are uncooperative BY JED BABBIN 16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2005 and refuse to tell our interrogators anything of value...
...Others provided information on people involved in al Qaeda's pursuit of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons...
...My non-gas-guzzling 1992 Honda had been great until the 125,000 mile mark...
...Some of the latter, about 30, are proving to be a virtual gold mine of information on how terrorists operate, who they are, how they move, and how they move money to pay for their terrorist acts...
...The ICE Man is just what you'd expect a military intelligence officer to be...
...We can never turn terrorists we capture loose again in the world...
...Several detainees have provided details 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2005about al Qaeda, Taliban, and other terrorists operating in Central Asia, Europe, and in the United States...
...She, the ICE Man, and the others are producing a treasure trove of intelligence...
...If you're in the neighborhood, come by SWH and check it out...
...It's how much...
...Time to go new, no more used...
...For them, there's the calming influence of the lady many of them call "Mom" SHE BEARS NO PHYSICAL RESEMBLANCE to Barbara Bush...
...I'll even let you test drive it...
...LAST CALL A M Y K . M I T C H E L L Come On Down CAN FIX A CAR...
...The crook would have had to take the engine apart to figure that out, which he most certainly had not...
...One detainee—a senior member of an international "charitable" organization—detailed how that organization provided, according to one report...
...But reality set in...
...But with one phone call, he warned me that I was being ripped off by a local mechanic who had claimed, just by looking under my car, that my clutch needed replacing...
...Nope...
...All was well, until an astute friend characterized the vehicle as "a mediocre choice in a field of great cars...
...Multilingual, she can communicate directly with the prisoners, which gives her an edge most of the interrogators don't have...
...First was icy Sweden, maker of a funny, zippy sedan that's supposedly great in the snow—and it had a clutch...
...More than that, we have to prove, by word and deed, to those still at large, and the nations that support them, that the quality of our power is equal to the quantity...
...The JTF-GTMO commander, Brigadier General Jay Hood, told me that the detainees believe we'll have to close Gitmo because of all the political heat --- ---- --- ---i we're taking...
...And while they give up this information, many of the detainees condemn themselves with their own words...
...citizens living in Saudi Arabia...
...Physically, emotionally, financially, I was on a bumper-car roller-coaster: Thought I'd found it...
...I knew people were behind me, but I couldn't see them...
...They want to talk to her, and no one else...
...When you capture one, and he talks about his extended family and friends, he's naming people who need to be checked out and are good candidates to be captured...
...It's got every-thing a girl could want—except a clutch...
...I took that to mean I should sample Germany...
...It needs to be reliable and safe, and, if I'm lucky, have air-conditioning that doesn't go on vacation for the summer...
...The inter-rogations usually last up to three hours...
...Another, a self-confessed al Qaeda member, said that "his group will shake up the U.S...
...Of the 520 about 100 are identified, for intelligence purposes, as high-value detainees...
...Back in the '90s, my cars (note plural) and I became the very best of friends—we had no choice, spending lots of time together stranded alongside Interstates in Alabama, California, and New Jersey...
...Gold Plock, Guantanamo Ba ; Cuba UT FOR THE LONG BEARDS and hair, the 520 terrorists held at Gitmo would probably not arouse suspicion in most big cities...
...Jed Babbin, an American Spectator contributing editor, is also author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004...
...The thing you can't escape noticing about "Mom" is her eyes...
...I don't need fancy—just a simple automobile to convey me to and from Spectator Worldwide Head-quarters (SWH), out to Virginia to seek out cheaper goods, and around what to some is still known as the District of Columbia...
...That quality is being demonstrated daily by our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen...
...We wouldn't publish their names or ranks because any identification could put them or their families in danger...
...An intelligence analyst monitors the inter-rogation, recording the results by various means and occasionally communicating with the interrogator...
...I asked the ICE Man: Are your guys like the Volvo repairman...
...A few months ago, one of the investigators of alleged abuses at Gitmowhich represent a handful of incidents out of about 28,000 interrogations—told me he feared all the investigations were creating a paranoia among theinterrogators...
...82 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2005 But where...
...summer...
...According to accounts published by the Gitmo Joint Task Force (JTF-GTMO), some of the detainees were trainers in al Qaeda camps, and have identified former students who are—for the moment—still on the loose...
...A manual transmission...
...They take breaks to consult or to let the prisoner answer the call to prayer that comes every few hours...
...But Munich or Stuttgart and their luxury lines were out of my league...
...Up against the cream of the terrorist crop, we have our best...
...Luckily we always have Wolfsburg...
...About 10 percent of them are medical doctors, aircraft pilots, engineers, aviation experts, and lawyers...
...She spends every waking moment planning, con-ducting, and analyzing interrogations...
...That'll be $895, lady...
...It even came with a great lease deal...
...There was no need to push the envelope, said one of his commanders, because they are getting an almost steady flow of good info from the cooperative captives...
...It doesn't need a DVD Navigation System with Voice Recognition or a six-disc interchangeable CD player with MP3 capability...
...She speaks in bursts, packSEPTEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 17 GOLD BLOCK, ICE MAN, AND MOM ing a lot of thought into very few words...
...Cruel D.C...
...Before I knew it I was bouncing from dealership to dealership to CarMax and back to a whole array of other dealerships...
...The Embry-Riddle grad is anal Qaeda weapons smuggler...
...And by people such as the ICE Man and Mom...
...According to JTF-GTMO re-ports, one detainee said that he would take revenge on the U.S...
...But I have been fortunate as well...
...Won't happen...
...They are the ones we need to reach...
...This time it's a keeper...
...So about three months ago, knowing that my current car was on its last set of wheels, I started doing some field research into the motorcars of the 21st century...
...The Gitmo interrogators understand what few of us do: terrorists are a clannish bunch...
...He runs one of the "Interrogation Control Elements" on Gitmo's "gold block," an air-conditioned cement block building where the high-value detainees are brought for questioning...
...Surely you must be joking...
...I visited with several, but two of them are firmly etched in my mind...
...It was nice...
...In our bountiful car and driver paradise, it seems the slogan "you pay what we pay" has given way to "just buy it, don't test drive it...
...She makes her own luck: by gradually winning the trust of these hard cases, she seems to be getting some to talk even after years of silence...
...To protect the guilty, I'll not name the actual cars I tried on, just the countries of their birth...
...I have a wonderful mechanic...
...Even in the confines of the pot-holed and traffic-gutted streets of D.C., being able to use the clutch to shift just once between red lights was pure joy...
...So long, Honda...
...Faster than you could say Champs d'Elysees I cruised over to the New World—vive le difference...
...Now if only I could get my fix on a new car as easily...
...Which leaves out the best part of car shopping: trying out a very new, very expensive, very fun, very fast car—that's not yours...
Vol. 38 • September 2005 • No. 7
