Hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, Panel I - Rendition to Torture: The Case of Maher Arar

Interview

Hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, Panel I - Rendition to Torture: The Case of Maher Arar

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REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I do appreciate you holding this hearing. After all, when our other witness said mistakes are made, it is our job in oversight to take a look at those mistakes. And obviously we are looking at one of those mistakes, and I would hope sometimes we might have a chance to look at some of the successes of the program as well.

But this is a mistake. And I would join you in offering an apology, and I would hope our government could do so officially, for making a mistake and not owning up to it. When we make mistakes, we should tell the truth and own up to it. Today we are making sure that we will on the record so that our executive branch is on notice that, yes, we believe that a mistake was made here and an official apology, as well as perhaps some compensation, is justified.

However, let us note this is an opportune moment to be having a hearing on the issue of Rendition, because it just happens to be the subject of a movie that is about to come out; what a coincidence.

So today we will hear in great detail about this tragic mistake, this tragic case of Maher Arar. He is a citizen, a dual citizen of Syria and Canada. He was on his way home to Canada from a trip to Tunisia, where he was stopped at JFK Airport -- and this is important -- in September of 2002. I'm not sure -- Mr. Arar, I'm going to be asking you exactly what date that was in September, but let us note how close that was to 9/11.

The Canadian government had told our FBI Mr. Arar was under investigation for possible terrorist activities and ties to al Qaeda. Further, they said Mr. Arar had refused to cooperate with the Canadian authorities -- that's what they said to us -- and had suddenly left the country for Tunisia.

We now know that our FBI was given erroneous information. Today we see this tragedy for what it is -- a probable mistake caused by human error resulting in the heart-breaking ordeal of Mr. Arar.

So we need to make sure that we acknowledge that and offer our apologies and make sure that the other people who work for our government know that we expect a higher level of expertise and responsibility than to permit these type of mistakes to be made, realizing that in any human endeavor there will be such mistakes.

But let us not ignore, while we're looking at this mistake, what was going on at that time, as I just mentioned. This was one year, one year after the most brutal and bloody foreign attack on American soil in the history of our country. Three thousand of our citizens, less than a year before, had been slaughtered in front of our face.

Our government then had in custody a man who the Canadian authorities were telling us was probably a terrorist with al Qaeda connections. To complicate the situation, the Canadian government informed our FBI that they didn't have enough evidence to charge him with terrorism. Thus he would most likely go free if returned to Canada.

So our government rendered him to his other country of citizenship, which was Syria. And, as we will hear today, Mr. Arar's experience in Syria was a nightmare, was something that, yes, the Syrian government should be ashamed of, and yes, we should be ashamed that we had something to do with that as well.

My friends on the other side of the aisle believe that the Rendition program must be stopped because of errors like the one that led to Mr. Arar's ordeal. To them I ask, should we halt every government program that, due to a human error, results in a tragedy?

Consider this. A recent study of our health care found that 195,000 Medicare deaths per year are completely preventable and due to human error. Mr. Chairman, this is not a case of one person's tragedy resulting from bureaucratic error but hundreds of thousands of people die because of human error in the Medicare system. Thus far I haven't heard anyone ever suggest that that means we should end this whole government involvement in taking care of our senior citizens' health care.

Another example: Just in the past two months, U.N. peacekeepers have been killed or wounded by friendly fire in peacekeeping operations in East Timor and Lebanon. Last year four U.N. peacekeepers were killed by friendly fire in Israel, and nine were killed by likely friendly fire in the Congo.

Have our friends on the other side of the aisle been calling for an end to U.N. peacekeeping missions? Is that something we should take as the lesson when we have errors like friendly fire and other human errors that happen and mistakes that happen, the downright bad judgment that happens when involved in this type of government program? No, we don't do that.

We haven't, for example, put the dead families of these deceased peacekeepers in front of committees to advocate that we end peacekeeping missions. We shouldn't, and we shouldn't do that. But we should recognize the errors that have been made and try to correct them, but realizing that an error in a program does not mean that program, in and of itself, is a wrong program.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, when we become aware of the dangerous or deadly errors in government programs, we should do our best to fix those programs and minimize those errors. We should keep such programs alive because we believe that whatever programs we're talking about, including our military operations overseas, which always result in some friendly-fire casualties, but we must not cancel programs or missions which we believe are important for the safety, security and well-being of the people of the United States and, yes, the world.

Today's hearing is an attempt to do away with Rendition. That's my interpretation. Maybe I'm wrong. You'll have to let me know whether or not that's a wrong interpretation. A government program, Rendition, is used to fight our war against radicals who want to end our way of life and are willing to murder thousands, if not millions, of civilians in order to terrorize the populations of the western democracies into retreat and submission.

Those of us who want to end this program will use Mr. Arar's tragic case, which resulted from government error and error of those people who were involved in the program, to prove that the rendition program has no merit. As I say, we do have to, number one, admit the error; also understand that this was one year after 9/11.

But I challenge anybody to compare the error rate of Rendition, this program, with the error rate in any other government program. And, yes, it did result in a horrible circumstance for this individual we're talking to today, and we should make sure that we offer our apologies and recognize that and try to make our system more efficient, but yet the Rendition program may actually be more effective than programs that caused the death of many other and many more people.

As we are embroiled in an historic struggle against an enemy that is committed to destroying our way of life and murdering our citizens to terrorize our populations, we are using Rendition to stop it. And it works. There has not been a single major terrorist attack on America since 9/11.

I would suggest that that isn't just a coincidence, that we have a Rendition program that was obviously in play one year from 9/11 because of what we're hearing today, and the fact that the radicals, who have already declared that they are willing to commit this and shown they are willing to slaughter Americans, have not been able to succeed in doing so.

There's no such thing as perfection. And when you're dealing with human beings, to cut off a valuable tool in this war against radical Islam because of human error, is foolish and is dangerous. We are dealing with an enemy who does not honor treaties; an enemy who has but one code of ethics: destroy American and Western civilization. They do not wear uniforms on the battlefield. They do not identify with any country of origin and they care nothing for diplomacy or human life, let alone the conventions or treaties that will be discussed today.

I support the honest efforts of my friends to put forth any type of effort to improve the rendition program and to admit mistakes and to offer apologies when mistakes are made. But that, again, is no reason -- is no excuse to end a program which has perhaps protected the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans and people in Western democracies.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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REP. ROHRABACHER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Arar, what date was it when you originally were taken into custody at JFK? Do you remember what date that was?

MR. ARAR: September 26th, 2002.

REP. ROHRABACHER: September 26th. It just dawned on me earlier, when we were looking at this, that September was just one year later after 9/11. And do you think that what you went through reflects the values of the American and Canadian people? Or do you accept the fact that this was a mistake and the Canadians have already apologized -- a lot of Americans, but the government has yet to apologize. But do you accept that as a reflection that we as a people do not really go along with the type of treatment that you went through, for someone who was a innocent person and someone who is not engaged in terrorism?

MR. ARAR: Well, I can tell you, I lived in the states for almost two years -- Massachusetts -- and the people I've worked with, my former colleagues, they are very nice people. They had the same values that I had as a Canadian. But even then they were shocked after they learned that I was sent to Syria. They started sending letters to senators and congress people.

What is troubling about what happened to me -- I would have believed this was an innocent mistake; this was not happening to others. There seems to be a pattern where other -- a number we heard are hundreds of people are being sent to countries where they are tortured. And this is, again, regardless of whether those people are true terrorists or not. To send people to torture under any circumstances is wrong. We now know that most of the information the Americans had is inaccurate or false. But even if all this information was true, it does not justify sending me to Syria. I should have been sent back to Canada.

REP. ROHRABACHER: I think that's a central --

MR. ARAR: And what is troubling -- what is troubling, even if we assume this was an innocent mistake, a civilized country like the United States, they should take action to try to remedy the situation. They should not take the position that they have been taking in courts to try to dismiss my case using state secrets claims. That -- I call that the abuse -- it's still ongoing, because they have not allowed me to pursue justice in courts. Normally, when any person is wronged, the best place to go is to courts. Unfortunately, so far I have not been able to establish trust in the system because of this.

REP. ROHRABACHER: There is --

MR. ARAR: So not only I was sent against my will then, but I'm not being given the chance to clear my name in the states and to try to obtain justice.

REP. ROHRABACHER: We are -- many of us believe that we are in a state of war in the United States. I mean, we have, after all, suffered the reality of what happened perhaps just one year before you were taken into custody where 3,000 of our citizens were slaughtered right in front of us. And by the way, those terrorists that slaughtered those 3,000 Americans -- their intention was to slaughter 50,000 to 100,000 people, not 3,000. It's just that they got the timing wrong in terms of when those planes landed in those buildings. And that does -- when you are at war with people who are willing to slaughter those numbers of people, that does affect the way you do business. And when you are trying to combat that type of terrorism, innocent people get hurt. You were one of those innocent people.

And the difference, I think, is not -- the difference between a free society, and I'll say an honorable society, is not whether they've committed themselves to getting those terrorists, but what they do when they make a mistake and whether they acknowledge that mistake.

And I would have to suggest to you, that the primary injustice that has been done to you is that our country made a mistake and it's not willing to own up to it now. Not that, after -- you know, within less than a year and one month after 9/11, that we made a serious error when trying to track down people who were connected to al-Qaeda, which was the terrorist network that had just slaughtered our people.

So whether or not -- are you, you are a father? Do you have children?

MR. ARAR: Yes.

REP. ROHRABACHER: How many children do you have?

MR. ARAR: Yes. I have two -- a daughter and a son.

REP. ROHRABACHER: And how old are they?

MR. ARAR: My daughter is 10 years old and my son is 5 years old.

REP. ROHRABACHER: All right. You know, I have three children, and I -- and they're all, my life was blessed with triplets three and a half years ago, one boy and two girls -- and I would hope that whatever our government does, that your children are safe and my children are safe.

And I would hope that, number one, we -- I don't believe that we go out, and our people who were involved in the rendition program, went out and just, "Oh, we're going to go out and get somebody who is an ethnic Arab or is a Muslim and we're just going to use this person as an example to -- as some sort of punishment against other Arabs who may have committed violent crimes against us." I don't believe that's what it was.

I think they made a mistake. They did not do a professional job. The Canadians who provided them the information about your case did not do their professional job, and we should own up to that. But to the degree that we continue a program, and that will make sure that a terrorist doesn't explode a bomb in the city where your children are located, where my children are located, I think it's important that we understand that that's the stake.

And while -- and I sympathize with your family because your children just went through, and I know, a horrendous situation where you now have, and I can understand, the psychological scars that you bear, and I'm sorry about that and I -- but I want to make sure that we all know that the safety of America's children and families will not be furthered for us, to step away from responsibilities of doing -- of conducting operations even knowing the mistakes will be made within those operations.

So with that said, Mr. Chairman, I -- I don't know what more I can say on this. I think that he's made his case. I think it is -- by the way, what -- the man that you were accused of, Mr. Almaliki (sic), is that his name?

MR. ARAR: Yes. Mr. Almalki.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Is he -- is he part of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, or is he just someone that, again, was misidentified?

MR. ARAR: Well, let's establish facts here. Mr. Almalki is back in Canada, sound and safe. He has not been charged with any crime in any country. In fact, most all the people they tried to associate me with, they have not been charged with any crime in any country. So this is a fact. And this is despite five or six years of intensive international investigation. So he's back in Canada, he's not charged with any crime. And I could tell you, definitely, that my relationship with him was overstated.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay, and you don't believe that he is a part of a terrorist network then, you just -- you think that's a --

MR. ARAR: I can -- I can tell you -- I can tell you that I do not know anyone who belongs to any terrorist group, whether it's al- Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay, well I accept that. And I'm sorry that you weren't able to come here today. Again, that reflects an arrogance that I don't like to see in our government. The fact that you were -- you're kept on the list so you can't even come here and explain your story, and that doesn't reflect a good attitude.

And to the degree that I may disagree with you about to what degrees and how (extensively?) we should go, how far we should go in a rendition program -- or any other effort to make sure that terrorists don't blow up buildings in the United States, or blow up a nuclear weapon, or something like that, or a chemical- biological weapon -- to the degree that we are trying to do that, we may disagree to how far we can carry that fight.

But when we make a mistake in any endeavor, we should admit it. And our government doesn't seem to have admitted that now. And not letting you here adds insult to injury, and I think you should have been permitted to -- should be taken off that list, given compensation, be permitted to come here and tell your story.

And in the meantime, those of us who want to -- who do believe there's a fundamental difference between the terrorists and democratic peoples, that we'll try to make it a better world. But sometimes, you know, and when you're at war mistakes happen, people die. And as I just told in my opening statement, we have friendly-fire -- people are killed by friendly-fire all the time, in every military operation we have, but if we never conducted those military operations, we might have put our -- the whole people of the United States, including our children -- and your children in Canada even, in jeopardy.

So I thank you for your testimony. Your ordeal -- look, I visited, I have visited some of the jails where communists kept their political prisoners, in Hungary and elsewhere, and what you are describing is just a gruesome reminder of that type of tyranny and mind-set. So I'm sorry that you had to go through that. And hopefully, no innocent person would ever have to go through that.

So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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REP. ROHRABACHER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And, again, I appreciate this hearing and I appreciated getting to know Mr. Arar personally. And I think he has presented his case very well today.

And thank you very much for letting us get to meet you and I wish you and your family all the best. Today the case is not -- you know, we're discussing your case, be we are also taking about rendition as a, as a strategy in this war, and also about what legal parameters that we will conduct ourselves within in this war against people who would commit mass murder against Americans and other people in Western democratic countries.

One of the underlying issues is whether or not people who are, as in Mr. (laughs) -- our friend Mr. Nadler described, whether or not people who are even non-U.S. citizens, do they have a right to due process even though they are not citizens and they are suspected of terrorism?

In a war in which we are engaged in, we are -- certainly criminal behavior always, we always believe in due process, et cetera, due process is basically something that is designed in America to protect someone who is accursed of a crime that has already happened -- one of the problems that we've got in this war against terrorism is that the strategy is to try to catch people before they'd murder hundreds of thousands of people, rather than (laughs) wait until the crime has already been committed. And structuring that within the due process laws that were set up to be an aftermath, after a crime has been committed, will not save the lives of those tens of thousands of people.

Within that context, if you are operating that way where -- in which due process is not being respected because you're trying to protect those thousands of people whose lives will be lost -- there are people like yourself who will be unjustly treated because there are mistakes that happen in every human endeavor (laughs) like this, whether it's a military effort or an intelligence effort, or even as I say, Medicare in the United States.

So the bottom line is, I guess, in terms of the underlying issue at hand, if you do believe as I believe, that due process is not -- should not be extended in this war on terrorism, especially to non- U.S. citizens, it is incumbent on people like myself to agree with the chairman and the other people who have been involved in this hearing that the United States should admit its mistakes, that we have to admit that we have a person here, that our government made a mistake.

And if we actually back down from that commitment, realizing that we don't believe that due process has happened, we are asking for more mistakes to happen. So I think that a commitment to honesty and truth is vital in this effort against terrorism if -- and not expanding the rights of suspected terrorists.

And one last note about torture. And of course, no one believes that any one (laughs) who would -- who was an innocent person like yourself, should ever be incarcerated, much less suffer physical abuse. Let us note that those people who are terrorists, if we do believe the issue is, you know, due process, you are not the one that we should have here. What we should have is a terrorist who had been planning to destroy a building or kill thousands of people at this -- at the hearing, saying, "I deserve due process," and make the decision based on that person rather than the exception to the rule.

REP. DELAHUNT: Would the gentleman yield for a moment?

REP. ROHRABACHER: Just one note and then -- and I'll finish my point. We have a terrorist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- who has admitted was the terrorist mastermind of 9/11, the man who planned this attack, but, as I say, he didn't want to kill just 3,000 people, he wanted to slaughter tens of thousands of Americans -- he was water-boarded, he was water-boarded. Now that's not physical torture where they're cutting his fingernails or toes off, or whatever they do with torture, he was water-boarded, and he admitted at that underwater-boarding, to other activities that were terrorist activities that would have caused the death of many people.

Now obviously no one is suggesting that terrorism could be used against like -- a man like yourself or any other person who's an innocent person.

Should -- I'm going to ask our witness here, you have children at home, Mohammed Sheikh -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was planning terrorist activities that might have killed your children -- are you happy that we took him, out and got that information and saved your family?

MR. ARAR: (Off mike.) That's a question to me, right?

REP. ROHRABACHER: Yes -- yes, it is.

MR. ARAR: I really believe that existing domestic and international laws are sufficient to go after terrorists and prosecute them within the boundary of law. There are enough laws to allow the police to prevent terrorist activities before they happen. There are enough surveillance techniques that could be used. When we go and torture people, whether they're innocent or not, or whether they're going to -- they're about to commit an act of terrorism, what we are doing, we are actually demeaning ourselves and not them.

And the other fact here that I would like to point everyone attentions to is, how do we really know that this was true? We are assuming that the information obtained through torture techniques are reliable. We are told by the CIA that they have prevented many attacks, how do we really know?

MR. ROACH: Well, in the case of --

MR. ARAR: Isn't that the same agency?

REP. ROHRABACHER: I'm going to ask the gentleman --

MR. ROACH: In the case -- one last thing.

In the case of Sheikh -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we do know that they were accurate and there were other cases --

REP. ROHRABACHER: Well, we don't know that they're accurate and I'd like to have the CIA come here and testify as to the truth.

MR. ROACH: Good.

REP. ROHRABACHER: And maybe that's what we need because I will be able to quote to you a series statements by professionals that indicate that torture is counterproductive in the war on terror. And one individual stands out in my mind, and that's the former director of the CIA who served with -- Porter Goss. He said that unequivocally. Military expert after military expert immersed in intelligence have publicly stated that "torture leads us on wild goose chases." That's a quote. So I think that that's a subject of an additional hearing.

But I know that we are soon going to be cut off. Let me just note, Mr. Arar, that you made the comment that -- I think it was that the United States would send individuals overseas with possibly the intent to elicit information through torture. Let me inform you that if that's the case, that's a violation of United States law. There are existing federal statues which make it a crime and if that's the intent of those that made a decision to have you removed to Syria because of their history of torture, then that's a federal crime. And let me ask Mr. Roach -- and I know you have counsel with you, have you communicated with anybody in the Department of Justice seeking an investigation into how the decision was made to remove you to Syria over your objections?

And given the history, if you will, of Syria as related in our own country report, and let me -- let me just read briefly the -- this is from the United States government, the Department of State referring to Syria. "Torture and abuse of detainees is reported to be common. Methods of torture and abuse included electrical shocks, pulling out fingernails, burning genitalia, forcing objects into the rectum, beating sometimes while the victim was suspended from the ceiling." It's been documented that 38 types of torture and ill treatment were used against detainees. This is the reality that our own State Department reports to anyone that access to the -- to this particular publication. I would presume that all agencies within the federal government would have at least a minimal duty to examine this report prior to removing anyone to Syria. It amounts to a stain on our national honor to allow any individual to be removed to Syria given our own report that goes on and on and on.

But let me pose a question to Mr. Roach or to your counsel. Have you or anyone on your behalf requested a criminal investigation into the decision to have you removed to Syria rather than to Canada?

MS. : I think you're -- as you're aware, Mr. Arar's civil case was brought against top-level Department of Justice officials -- former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, as well as other U.S. officials. We haven't had any indication that -- considering the government's response in his civil suit, we haven't had any indication that criminal accountability is something they'd consider. But of course, we would welcome it.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Well, what I'm asking -- okay, is that has there been a correspondence or a communication based upon federal law and given the realities of Syria as evidence in the report that I just alluded to -- has there been a request to the Department of Justice? Not in terms of civil litigation, but possibly the appointment of a special prosecutor who would have access to this information to determine whether our laws -- U.S. laws -- against -- to (conspire ?) against torture have been violated?

MS. : There's been no such request. We would be happy to make one and we would be happy also if Congress could undertake that investigation as well.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Let me yield back to the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Ellison.

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