Harry Harris (admiral)

Rear Admiral Harry Harris is director of operations (J-3), United States Southern Command. He formerly served as commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo and Guantanamo Bay detainment camp commander until March 29, 2007.

Early life

Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., was born in Yokosuka, Japan, and reared in Tennessee and Florida.cite web
url=http://www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio.asp?bioID=136
title=Official biography: Harry Harris
publisher="US Department of Defense"] He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1978. After flight training, he was assigned to Patrol Squadron FORTY FOUR (VP-44), homeported at Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine where he flew the P-3C Orion, deploying throughout the Atlantic and Mediterranean. His subsequent operational tours include assignment as a Tactical Action Officer onboard USS "Saratoga" (CV-60), when CV-60 participated in the Achille Lauro incident and strikes against Libya; Operations Officer in Patrol Squadron FOUR (VP-4) at Naval Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii, deploying to Southwest Asia during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm; and three tours with Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 1/CTF57/CTF 72, the latter tour as the wing's Commodore, homeported in Kami Seya, Japan. In 2002, he reported to Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command|U.S. Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, serving as Assistant Chief of Staff (ACOS) for Operations, Plans, and Pol-Mil Affairs (N3/N5), where he was responsible for the planning and execution of the Naval component’s portion of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

His command assignments include Patrol Squadron FORTY SIX (VP-46) at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, and Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 1/CTF57/CTF 72 at Kami Seya, Japan. While in command of PATRECONWING 1 and Task Force 57, he was heavily involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, flying nearly 1,000 P-3 and EP-3 combat sorties over Afghanistan.

Rear Admiral Harris’ shore assignments include Aide and Flag Lieutenant to the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Japan, in Yokosuka, Japan; duty on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations as a strategist in the Strategy and Concepts Branch; and Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

His educational assignments include selection for the Navy’s Harvard/Tufts Program, where he graduated with a master's of Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1992. Subsequently selected as an Arthur S. Moreau Scholar, he studied international relations and ethics of war at Oxford and Georgetown Universities, earning a master of Arts in National Security Studies from the latter in 1994. While at Georgetown, he was also Fellow in the School of Foreign Service.

Rear Admiral Harris has logged 4400 flight hours, including over 400 combat hours, in U.S. and foreign maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft. His personal decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (3 awards), the Bronze Star (2 awards), the Meritorious Service Medal (4 awards), the Air Medal, the [Joint Service Commendation Medal] , the Navy Commendation Medal (5 awards), the Navy Achievement Medal, and various campaign and unit decorations.

Director, Information, Plans and Security

In August 2004, in his first Flag assignment, he reported to the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations as Director, Information, Plans and Security Division, responsible for Navy current operations and anti-terrorism/force protection policy.

Commander, Joint Task Force Guantanamo

In March 2006, he assumed command of Joint Task Force Guantanamo in Cuba.

Harris's comments about the first three captives deaths

Following the reports that three of the Guantanamo captives had committed suicide on, June 10 2006, Harris triggered controversy with widely quoted comments, including characterizing their deaths as "acts of asymmetric warfare".A Blue Ribbon panel of independent forensic pathologists was unable to independently determine a cause of the three captive's deaths, because the Guantanamo camp authorities had failed to hand over all evidence the forensic experts needed. The camp authorities had failed to provide access to the improved ropes that the Americans claimed they had used to hang themselves, and all they had failed to hang over the men's throats.

Harris gave a long interview to ABC nightline host Terry Moran on June 27 2006. [http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/print?id=2126364 No Innocent Men in Guantanamo: Man in Charge of Guantanamo Says Detainees Belong There] , "ABC News", June 27 2006]
* Harris characterized the Combatant Status Review Tribunals as "a very rigorous procedure".
* In answer to the question: "So no man who ever came to Guantanamo Bay came there by mistake was innocent?" Harris replied he believed this to be true.
* Harris assured Moran that no detainees had ever been tortured at Guantanamo.
* Harris said he did not regret calling the three suicides reported on June 10 2006, "an act of asymmetric warfare."
* Harris acknowledged that he had read the detainee's suicide notes, and, in his opinion, it would be fine to release them, once the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation had concluded. But he said the decision to release the notes did not lay within his authority.

Change in interrogation policy

Early in the history of the Guantanamo interrogations there was a serious dispute within the American counter-terrorism community over the proper approach to interrogation. The FBI argued that the best approach for acquiring reliable intelligence was for captives to be assigned long term interrogation teams, who they saw consistently, who conducted non-coercive interrogations, that focussed on building rapport with the captives. The CIA and Military Intelligence analysts favored the use of coercive interrogation techniques. FBI agents observed the use of interrogation techniques they judged to be (1) likely to result in unreliable information, false denunciations, false confessions; (2) would result in information that could not be used in a court of law.cite web| url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15361462/| title=Can the ‘20th hijacker’ of Sept. 11 stand trial? Aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo may prevent his prosecution| month=Oct. 23| year=2006| accessdate=2006-11-05]

The FBI chose to withdraw from the interrogation efforts, rather than leave its agents exposed to the possibility of later criminal prosecution for abusing captives.

Later, it emerged that the coercive interrogations of high profile captives such as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi and Mohamed al-Kahtani, had resulted in serious intelligence failures.

After being subjected to coercive interrogation Al Libi confessed that Iraq had supplied his terrorist training camp with trainers who had trained al Qaeda terrorist trainers how to employ Iraq's arenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction for terrorist purposes.cite news | url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30909-2004Jul31.html | title=Al Qaeda-Iraq Link Recanted | publisher=Washington Post | author=Dana Priest |date=August 1, 2004] [http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5305085/site/newsweek Iraq and Al Qaeda: Forget the 'Poisons and Deadly Gases'] , "Newsweek", July 5 2005] Al Libi's coerced confession apparently established two of the key claims the Bush administration used to justify invading Iraq: (1) That there were clandestine ties between Iraq and al Qaeda; (2) That Iraq did, after all, have active WMD programs and a ready arsenal of WMDs. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell based much of his key speech to the United Nations, justifying the United States plans to invade Iraq, on Al Libi's coerced confession.

"Time magazine" acquired a copy of al-Kahtani's interrogation log, where it was recorded that he had been subjected to almost two months of sleep deprivation, and other "extended interrogation techniques". [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1169322,00.html Exclusive: "20th Hijacker" Claims That Torture Made Him Lie] , "Time", March 3 2006] [http://www.time.com/time/2006/log/log.pdf Interrogation log] , "US Department of Defense", November 23 2002 through January 11 2003] [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B16F9395D0C728EDDAF0894DC404482 U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees] , "New York Times", June 21 2004 - [http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/062204C.shtml - mirror] ] Al-Kahtani eventually "broke", and denounced thirty fellow captives as Osama bin Laden's bodyguards. An FBI observer recorded observing al-Kahtani "gibbering in a corner" during the use of these extended interrogation techniques.

When Harris assumed the command of JTF-GTMO he continued the DoD's criticism of the rapport-building approach to interrogation, and continued to speak in favor the coercive approach. In the fall of 2006, Harris began to describe the camp's interrogation approach as the rapport building approach, and criticized the coercive approach.

Fifth Anniversary of Guantanamo

On January 11 2007, the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first 20 Guantanamo captives in Camp X-Ray, Harris's views on the camps' future was the subject of an article in distributed by the "American Forces Press Service".cite news
url=http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2666
title=Guantanamo Facility Needed ‘for Foreseeable Future,’ Admiral Says
author=Kathleen T. Rhem
publisher=American Forces Press Service
date=January 11 2007] According to the widely quoted article Harris said:
*"“I think that we’ll have a detention facility and a detention mission for the foreseeable future. The president has said that he would like to see Guantanamo closed when it’s no longer necessary, and we support that, of course, and we believe in that. The issue is when it’s no longer necessary. And I believe that today, as long as we’re in the fight, as long as we’re in the global war on terror, and as long as we have forces engaging the enemy in Afghanistan and in Iraq, there is a need for a facility like Guantanamo.”
*"“One of the things that I believe that we’ve learned over the years of our experience in Guantanamo is that the detainees are enemy combatants, and they never lose sight of that fact. They know who the enemy is, and the enemy is us, and they never forget that. We have a tendency to forget that they are enemies, and we have to always be on our guard.”
*"“I believe that the media coverage is shifting to be more factual and truthful about what is happening in Guantanamo. We’re seeing that as we expose Guantanamo to a broad range of media, international media as well as U.S. domestic media. The reporters are professionals who come there, and they get to see all the stuff that’s happening in Guantanamo. And when they see it, when the light of day shines on it, then it’s hard to say that the detainees are kept incommunicado in some black hole of Guantanamo and all these other misperceptions that you read from reporters who report on Guantanamo without having had the benefit of actually visiting Guantanamo. So this is a good thing. We should be transparent as possible, and we strive for transparency, and transparency is actually in our mission statement.”

February 8th statement

On February 8 2007 Harris repeated his comment that there were no innocent men in Guantanamo, during an interview with the "Australian Broadcasting Corporation's" Michael Rowland.cite news
url=http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/02/hicks-lawyer-says-dangerous-terrorist.php
title=Hicks lawyer says dangerous terrorist label will prevent fair trial at Guantanamo
publisher=The Jurist
date=Thursday February 8 2007
accessdate=February 10
accessyear=2007] Among his comments were:cite web
title=Radio interview with Harris
url=http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200702/r125618_409218.ram
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation's PM Program
date=February 8 2007
accessdate=February 10
accessyear=2007] cite news
title=Guantanamo chief labels Hicks a dangerous terrorist
url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1843445.htm
date=Thursday, February 8, 2007
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation News Online
accessdate=February 10
accessyear=2007] cite news
url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1843508.htm
title=Hicks's lawyer blasts 'security threat' comments
date=Thursday, February 8, 2007
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation News Online
accessdate=February 10
accessyear=2007]

After the interview David McLeod, Australian captive David Hicks Australian lawyers commented that if Hicks was being tried in an Australian court of law, Harris's prejudicial comments would trigger a mistrial:cite news
url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1843508.htm
title=Hicks's lawyer blasts 'security threat' comments
date=Thursday, February 8, 2007
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation News Online
accessdate=February 10
accessyear=2007] :"This suggestion that because detainees are there, that that is in itself evidence of terrorism, or their being a terrorist, simply puts the lie to any attempt to deal with them in a fair and open manner. To suggest that a prisoner in the Australian criminal courts is guilty would in itself amount to a mistrial or an inability to proceed appropriately and fairly before a court."

An article published on the "Australian Broadcasting Corporation's" web-site quoted Australian Senator Bob Brown described Brown as expressing "outrage" over Harris's comments.cite news
url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1843612.htm
title=Guantanamo chief 'judging Hicks guilty'
date=Thursday, February 8, 2007
publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation News Online
accessdate=February 10
accessyear=2007] :"The reports coming from other detainees who've come out of Guantanamo Bay - and they're verifiable - show that there's been inhumane treatment. We know anyway that the rights of Hicks have been removed, he's had no legal rights - he's been judged guilty by Admiral Harris himself."

On 26 March 2007, not being in an Australian court of law, Hicks entered a guilty plea to the charge of providing material support for terrorism. [cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6494281.stm |title=Guilty plea from detainee Hicks |publisher=BBC News |date=2007-03-27] [cite news |url=http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21454470-601,00.html |title=Hicks home 'in months' |publisher=The Australian |date=2007-03-27]

Anyone, Anytime, For Any Reason, Without Attribution

VADM Harris will present later today and will do an exceptional job. He, and the other presenters, remind you to please fill out the feedback forms. Did we mention there is a social after the workshop!

ee also

References