NEW YORK TIMES
Why'd The NY Times Publish His Name? [Greg Pollowitz]
The NY Times has a story out today on how the CIA broke Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The article focus on a CIA employee named Deuce Martinez (not interviewed for the article) and the debate on the use of harsh vs. non-harsh tactics in an interrogation. The CIA, however, asked that Martinez not be named in the article. Here's the response from the Editors:
The Central Intelligence Agency asked The New York Times not to publish the name of Deuce Martinez, an interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda prisoners, saying that to identify Mr. Martinez would invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency. [...]
After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr. Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article. [...]
Mr. Martinez, a career analyst at the agency until his retirement a few years ago, did not directly participate in waterboarding or other harsh interrogation methods that critics describe as torture and, in fact, turned down an offer to be trained in such tactics.
I actually read this Editor's note first, and then the article and was left with the impression that Mr. Martinez was "retired" on a golf course somewhere. Not so. Here are the details from the original article:
His life today is quiet by comparison with the secret interrogations of 2002 and 2003. But Mr. Martinez has not turned away entirely from his old world. He now works for Mitchell & Jessen Associates, a consulting company run by former military psychologists who advised the C.I.A. on the use of harsh tactics in the secret program.
And his new employer sent Mr. Martinez right back to the agency. For now, the unlikely interrogator of the man perhaps most responsible for the horrors of 9/11 teaches other C.I.A. analysts the arcane art of tracking terrorists.
Who is Mitchell & Jensen Associates? Well, according to Vanity Fair, they're the "Mormon mafia":
Interrogators who were sent for classified training inevitably wound up in a Mitchell-Jessen "shop," and some balked at their methods. Instead of the careful training touted by President Bush, some recruits allegedly received on-the-job training during brutal interrogations that effectively unfolded as live demonstrations.
Mitchell and Jessen's methods were so controversial that, among colleagues, the reaction to their names alone became a litmus test of one's attitude toward coercion and human rights. Their critics called them the "Mormon mafia" (a reference to their shared religion) and the "poster boys" (referring to the F.B.I.'s "most wanted" posters, which are where some thought their activities would land them).
Would the NY Times have revealed Mr. Martinez's name if he didn't go to work for one of these contractors the liberal media love to hate? I doubt it. Naming Deuce Martinez in the article provided absolutely no journalistic value whatsoever and it smells like the Times did so as retribution for his post government work.
06/22 11:13 AM
Share
