Op-Ed Contributor: Portrait of a Despot

I SAT across from President Hafez al-Assad of Syria in his newest palace overlooking Damascus, on a hill at the end of a gently twisting road.

“You know, Mr. President,” I said, “on the road from the airport and throughout the capital, I couldn’t help but notice posters with your portrait everywhere, in all of the shops, in every window of every bus, every pole and lamppost, the back of the windshields of all the cars. It is quite remarkable.”

“Yes,” he replied, managing to sound even more sincere than I did. “I protest, but the people hold me in such affection, it’s almost embarrassing. Sometimes I feel like going out after dark, just quietly taking them down.”

The New York wise guy in me couldn’t resist. “Well, Mr. President, if one night you can’t fight that urge, do call me,” I said. “I’d love to take a picture of you climbing up a pole ripping down your posters.” The laughter all around seemed genuine.

I’ve thought more about that brief exchange than I have about anything else in our two-and-a-half-hour meeting in December 1997. More than I have about the Golan Heights; about how to revive peace talks with the Israelis; about the proposal of my travel companion S. Daniel Abraham, of the Center for Middle East Peace, to build a desalinization plant; about what Mr. Assad wanted us to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel; or about Syria’s playing host to terrorist organizations.

The omnipresent posters — of Mr. Assad, and of his successor and son, Bashar al-Assad — are starting to come down. Statues of the father have been toppled. But the posters are not being removed quietly in the night by a humble leader.

Posters of despots all over the Arab world are being torn down by their not-so-adoring peoples — protesters who have been emboldened by freedom’s fervor but are being slaughtered by those who want to keep the posters in place.

The United States is paralyzed: unable to match our rhetoric about standing with people who demand freedom, cautious because we don’t have each of their résumés, and faced with so many such causes at once.

Hafez al-Assad never intended to take these portraits down. It seems the Syrians no longer want to keep them up. It’s anyone’s guess whether they will be there in the morning. But it is going to be a very long night.

Gary L. Ackerman, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens and Nassau County, is the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

 

The Guantanamo Files: In Dossier, Portrait of Push for Post-9/11 Attacks

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Paracha, 63, was one of a small circle of Al Qaeda operatives who explored ways to follow up on the hijackings with new attacks, according to the classified Guantánamo files made available to The New York Times.

Working with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 planner who in early 2002 gave him $500,000 to $600,000 “for safekeeping,” Mr. Paracha offered his long experience in the shipping business for a scheme to move plastic explosives into the United States inside containers of women’s and children’s clothing, the files assert.

“Detainee desired to help Al Qaeda ‘do something big against the U.S.,’?” one of his co-conspirators, Ammar al-Baluchi, told Guantánamo interrogators, the files say. Mr. Paracha discussed obtaining biological or nuclear weapons as well, though he was concerned that detectors at ports “would make it difficult to smuggle radioactive materials into the country,” the file says.

Mr. Paracha’s assessment is among more than 700 classified documents that fill in new details of Al Qaeda’s efforts to make 9/11 just the first in a series of attacks to cripple the United States, intentions thwarted as the Central Intelligence Agency captured Mr. Mohammed and other leaders of the terrorist network.

The plots reportedly discussed by Mr. Mohammed and various operatives, none of them acted upon, included plans for a new wave of aircraft attacks on the West Coast, filling an apartment with leaked natural gas and detonating it, blowing up gas stations and even cutting the cables holding up the Brooklyn Bridge.

For the small circle of Qaeda operatives described in the December 2008 assessment of Mr. Paracha, terrorism appears to have been a family affair. There was Mr. Mohammed, the terrorist network’s top plotter, and his nephew, Mr. Baluchi, who was married to another militant, an American-trained neuroscientist, Aafia Siddiqui. And there was Mr. Paracha and his son, Uzair.

The newly revealed assessments, obtained last year by the group WikiLeaks and provided by another source to The Times, have revived the dispute, nearly as old as the prison, over whether mistreatment of some prisoners there and the prison’s operation outside the criminal justice system invalidate the government’s conclusions about the detainees.

Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the assessments “are rife with uncorroborated evidence, information obtained through torture, speculation, errors and allegations that have been proven false.”

Likewise, David H. Remes, a lawyer who represents the elder Mr. Paracha, said in an interview on Monday that while he had not seen the assessment, its conclusion that Mr. Paracha posed a “high risk” to American interests was without foundation.

“The notion that he ever did anything that justified his detention, or ever was or is any kind of threat to the United States, is preposterous,” Mr. Remes said. “He is a 63-year-old man with a serious heart condition and severe diabetes, and?he has been nothing but cooperative with the authorities.”

What Mr. Paracha wants, Mr. Remes added,?is either a transfer back to his native country, Pakistan, or “a definitive adjudication of his case.”

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, condemned on Monday the publication of what he called “documents obtained illegally” and noted the military’s findings about some detainees had been changed by a new review under President Obama. The detailed results of that review, however, remain secret.

Mr. Carney said the president remained committed to closing the Guantánamo prison someday. But Mr. Obama’s review identified about 50 detainees his advisers said could not be tried and were too dangerous to release, and Congress has imposed restrictions on bringing prisoners to the United States.

The portrait of Mr. Paracha is one of the striking ones to emerge from the files. The documents say he attended the New York Institute of Technology in the early 1970s and worked as a travel agent in New York for 13 years.

He was arrested in Bangkok in July 2003 after Uzair, who was already in F.B.I. custody in New York, “acknowledged” his father was a militant, the assessment says. Uzair Paracha was convicted in a 2005 trial on charges including material support for terrorism and is serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison.

According to his Guantánamo assessment, Saifullah Paracha had “provided useful information concerning senior Al Qaeda members” but “attempted to deceive and misinform intelligence and law enforcement personnel about his own activities.” As a result, the assessment draws heavily on statements by others, notably Mr. Mohammed, who was subjected to waterboarding and other brutal treatment during his interrogation by the C.I.A.

But Mr. Paracha’s assessment suggests that he did not deny militant connections at the highest level. “Detainee claimed he met UBL on a trip to Afghanistan in December 1999 or January 2000,” the documents say, using the government’s initials for Osama bin Laden. It says he offered to let Mr. bin Laden use his broadcasting business in Pakistan to generate propaganda films for Al Qaeda.

Later, Mr. bin Laden dispatched Mr. Mohammed to talk further about the idea, and Mr. Paracha explained “his vision of dedicating a program on his broadcasting network depicting UBL quoting Koranic verses.”

After 9/11, Mr. Paracha’s discussions focused on new plots, the files say. A Casio digital diary he was carrying when he was arrested “contained references to military chemical warfare agents, and their effects on humans,” according to the classified assessment. The document says Mr. Paracha told interrogators he had worked with Abdul Qadeer Khan, considered to be the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and a major proliferator of nuclear technology.

Edward D. Wilford, a lawyer who represented the son at his 2005 trial, said his client had played no “witting” role in his father’s arrest.

“He was not a part of it in any way,” he said. “He didn’t make any calls. He didn’t make any contact. In fact, he was being held incommunicado. He didn’t have any way of knowing what was going on.” The son had been jailed in Manhattan on a material-witness warrant after his questioning by the F.B.I. in March 2003. He was charged criminally in August 2003, after his father’s arrest.

The relationship between father and son is only hinted at in the assessment report. It says that analysts concluded that Saifullah Paracha was “hiding aspects of his son’s extremist activities.” The son, though, talked about his father and his father’s relationship with Mr. bin Laden while testifying in his own defense.

A prosecutor asked whether Uzair Paracha had told F.B.I. agents that his father admired Mr. bin Laden. “I don’t remember if my father actually said that he admired bin Laden,” the son testified. “He said that bin Laden was a humble person and he had a simple way of life.”

 

The Guantanamo Files: In Dossier, Portrait of Push for Post-9/11 Attacks

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Paracha, 63, was one of a small circle of Al Qaeda operatives who explored ways to follow up on the hijackings with new attacks, according to the classified Guantánamo files made available to The New York Times.

Working with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 planner who in early 2002 gave him $500,000 to $600,000 “for safekeeping,” Mr. Paracha offered his long experience in the shipping business for a scheme to move plastic explosives into the United States inside containers of women’s and children’s clothing, the files assert.

“Detainee desired to help Al Qaeda ‘do something big against the U.S.,’?” one of his co-conspirators, Ammar al-Baluchi, told Guantánamo interrogators, the files say. Mr. Paracha discussed obtaining biological or nuclear weapons as well, though he was concerned that detectors at ports “would make it difficult to smuggle radioactive materials into the country,” the file says.

Mr. Paracha’s assessment is among more than 700 classified documents that fill in new details of Al Qaeda’s efforts to make 9/11 just the first in a series of attacks to cripple the United States, intentions thwarted as the Central Intelligence Agency captured Mr. Mohammed and other leaders of the terrorist network.

The plots reportedly discussed by Mr. Mohammed and various operatives, none of them acted upon, included plans for a new wave of aircraft attacks on the West Coast, filling an apartment with leaked natural gas and detonating it, blowing up gas stations and even cutting the cables holding up the Brooklyn Bridge.

For the small circle of Qaeda operatives described in the December 2008 assessment of Mr. Paracha, terrorism appears to have been a family affair. There was Mr. Mohammed, the terrorist network’s top plotter, and his nephew, Mr. Baluchi, who was married to another militant, an American-trained neuroscientist, Aafia Siddiqui. And there was Mr. Paracha and his son, Uzair.

The newly revealed assessments, obtained last year by the group WikiLeaks and provided by another source to The Times, have revived the dispute, nearly as old as the prison, over whether mistreatment of some prisoners there and the prison’s operation outside the criminal justice system invalidate the government’s conclusions about the detainees.

Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the assessments “are rife with uncorroborated evidence, information obtained through torture, speculation, errors and allegations that have been proven false.”

Likewise, David H. Remes, a lawyer who represents the elder Mr. Paracha, said in an interview on Monday that while he had not seen the assessment, its conclusion that Mr. Paracha posed a “high risk” to American interests was without foundation.

“The notion that he ever did anything that justified his detention, or ever was or is any kind of threat to the United States, is preposterous,” Mr. Remes said. “He is a 63-year-old man with a serious heart condition and severe diabetes, and?he has been nothing but cooperative with the authorities.”

What Mr. Paracha wants, Mr. Remes added,?is either a transfer back to his native country, Pakistan, or “a definitive adjudication of his case.”

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, condemned on Monday the publication of what he called “documents obtained illegally” and noted the military’s findings about some detainees had been changed by a new review under President Obama. The detailed results of that review, however, remain secret.

Mr. Carney said the president remained committed to closing the Guantánamo prison someday. But Mr. Obama’s review identified about 50 detainees his advisers said could not be tried and were too dangerous to release, and Congress has imposed restrictions on bringing prisoners to the United States.

The portrait of Mr. Paracha is one of the striking ones to emerge from the files. The documents say he attended the New York Institute of Technology in the early 1970s and worked as a travel agent in New York for 13 years.

He was arrested in Bangkok in July 2003 after Uzair, who was already in F.B.I. custody in New York, “acknowledged” his father was a militant, the assessment says. Uzair Paracha was convicted in a 2005 trial on charges including material support for terrorism and is serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison.

According to his Guantánamo assessment, Saifullah Paracha had “provided useful information concerning senior Al Qaeda members” but “attempted to deceive and misinform intelligence and law enforcement personnel about his own activities.” As a result, the assessment draws heavily on statements by others, notably Mr. Mohammed, who was subjected to waterboarding and other brutal treatment during his interrogation by the C.I.A.

But Mr. Paracha’s assessment suggests that he did not deny militant connections at the highest level. “Detainee claimed he met UBL on a trip to Afghanistan in December 1999 or January 2000,” the documents say, using the government’s initials for Osama bin Laden. It says he offered to let Mr. bin Laden use his broadcasting business in Pakistan to generate propaganda films for Al Qaeda.

Later, Mr. bin Laden dispatched Mr. Mohammed to talk further about the idea, and Mr. Paracha explained “his vision of dedicating a program on his broadcasting network depicting UBL quoting Koranic verses.”

After 9/11, Mr. Paracha’s discussions focused on new plots, the files say. A Casio digital diary he was carrying when he was arrested “contained references to military chemical warfare agents, and their effects on humans,” according to the classified assessment. The document says Mr. Paracha told interrogators he had worked with Abdul Qadeer Khan, considered to be the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and a major proliferator of nuclear technology.

Edward D. Wilford, a lawyer who represented the son at his 2005 trial, said his client had played no “witting” role in his father’s arrest.

“He was not a part of it in any way,” he said. “He didn’t make any calls. He didn’t make any contact. In fact, he was being held incommunicado. He didn’t have any way of knowing what was going on.” The son had been jailed in Manhattan on a material-witness warrant after his questioning by the F.B.I. in March 2003. He was charged criminally in August 2003, after his father’s arrest.

The relationship between father and son is only hinted at in the assessment report. It says that analysts concluded that Saifullah Paracha was “hiding aspects of his son’s extremist activities.” The son, though, talked about his father and his father’s relationship with Mr. bin Laden while testifying in his own defense.

A prosecutor asked whether Uzair Paracha had told F.B.I. agents that his father admired Mr. bin Laden. “I don’t remember if my father actually said that he admired bin Laden,” the son testified. “He said that bin Laden was a humble person and he had a simple way of life.”