Brave New Worlds

policy is, certainly. To some extent, we'll follow that. Certainly, we obey the Protocols. We'll track the White Papers to a point. And then, to some extent, we'll go our own way. There's a degree of autonomy. But the short answer is, yes. If there's usable intel, we will interrogate. We don't look to Culpability as an Entrance Criterion.
    That doesn't mean we don't wrestle with it. We make evaluations on a case-by-case basis.
    Last year, after the Ramadan attacks, the decision was made to go ahead with a Deep Program on a suite of CIs. Before we initiated that Program, we did ask ourselves , what are our obligations here. In the end, the determination was made to go ahead. And I stand by the decision. Why? Because we found the bomb. That's not to say it's simple—and there will be some people for whom that's not enough. Find the bomb, save a couple thousand lives, that's not enough, and I respect that. Where you are on that issue is, I think, largely an ethical matter, and something that will differ for you, depending on who you are personally. For me, the Objective is decisive. Without the CIs, the bomb explodes. The target was a metro station in central DC, which is maybe something to consider.
    Different Guidelines will apply, of course, if it's a CI in the Chair. That's literally—as in, there's a separate set of Guidelines printed off, everybody has a copy—and also in the—maybe just the attitude you take into the interrogation room.
    One difference—to start with one example—is when we're working a CI, we won't do the chin. That's not Protocol; that's our own rule. My rule, actually. And I enforce it just like any other policy, and I don't make exceptions. When Culpability isn't Indicated on the Profile, the chin becomes an organ.
    If we're doing a CI, we'll conduct the interrogation fairly. We'll make the Parameters clear. When the Objective is reached, we'll stabilize and Exit. Ideally, in a CI Session, it's a team process, where we're working with The subject to achieve a common goal. We'll never go into a CI Session blind— ever , that's the rule—and we won't do fishing expeditions.
    And that's obviously very different from the program we apply to CCs and Suspecteds. When a Suspected's in the Chair, we'll wring him out. When Ali thinks he's told us everything he knows, that's when the Session begins . Where the problem area starts is when a CI tells us something that alters his designation. This is tricky, because a lot of CIs will confess to things they haven't done. In that case, there's no way to avoid changing the subject's designation and reverting to the CC protocols. But it's something that we wrestle with.
    The suite last autumn, a lot of my CI Alis didn't lose a drop of blood. I'm not exaggerating. I say you can tell my guys from their hands, these guys, you can't, because it never got to that point.
    Others, it did. And that's tough. When you're dealing with a wife, a husband, and you're saying, where's Ali, where's the husband, the wife, the son, the uncle, that can be tough, because relatives are intransigent. The wives, sometimes, are more intransigent than the target CCs.
    And there's where a sense of delicacy, and a sense of balance, can be very helpful. Say you've got Ali's wife in the Chair. Okay: now she knows what Ali's in for. Or Thinks she knows; actually, she has no idea. But she knows Ali's going in the Chair. How bad, then, do you make it? You have to find a place where Mrs. Ali wants to end the Session, where she's ready to give her husband up—but not so far that she knows she won't be able to live with herself if she cooperates. You have to let her leave the Chair with dignity, let her feel she's made a choice that she can live with, morally.
    It's delicate. When a Confirmed Combatant's in the chair, there's no Good Cop-Bad Cop; there's no carrot and stick; it's Bad Cop-Worse Cop, and it's stick, razor, drill. CIs, it's different. With Ali's wife, there might be a carrot in there too.
    I'll give you an example.
    These CIs, most of them, they won't ever be going home. I say most, really it's all. If it's home, it's a prison in Pakistan—but that's not most cases. Most cases, the CI's done with the Chair, he or she is headed to the Low Restraint Unit, presumably for the remainder. One reason we keep them is, we'll be needing them again when their intelligence proves out: when my target Ali is in the Chair. And there's a host of other reasons.
    Ali's kid , though,