A date and images forever engraved in memories. On September 11, 2001, attacks on an unprecedented scale struck right in the heart of an America that thought it was safe. After the fall of the Twin Towers, the United States engaged, with the support of its foreign intelligence agency, the CIA, in a frantic fight against terrorism.
CIA, the secret wars after September 11, directed by Antoine Mariotti and Manuel Guillon, recounts the errors of the American administration and certain excesses of the CIA after the trauma of the attacks. This documentary series in three episodes, broadcast Sunday September 6 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5, revisits certain operations carried out by the American intelligence agency over the last twenty-five years.
From Afghanistan to the intervention in Iraq, via the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the neutralization of Bin Laden, this documentary, nourished by the testimony of many leading actors, goes behind the scenes of the most notable, but also the most obscure, feats of arms of the CIA in its fight against terrorism.
Widespread use of torture
In 2001, US President George W. Bush called for “a war on terror”. Determined to eradicate the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and capture Osama Bin Laden, considered to be the sponsor of the September 11 attacks, the United States launched an offensive in Afghanistan in October 2001, then decided to invade Iraq in March 2003 on the basis of false information, the supposed weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein. A few months later, a scandal broke out: photos of Iraqi detainees from Abu Ghraib prison, exposed in shameful situations, went around the world.
The documentary recalls that in 2006, the press discovered that there were secret prisons, called "black sites", located on American and European soil, in which incarcerated people, who did not have the status of prisoners of war, would be mistreated with complete impunity by members of the CIA and by the American army.
John Kiriakou was, at the time, a CIA officer. He remembers the day he discovered that agents were using torture. "I arrive at headquarters and I see messages coming from 'black sites'. People writing: 'I never signed up for this, it's torture, I'm resigning'. A secretary attended a session and fainted, she was so upset," says the former analyst of the intelligence agency in charge of the Middle East, who sees in these acts a misuse of the agent's function.
The Washington Post decided, at this time, to publish an in-depth investigation which denounced in great detail the abuses committed by CIA agents in these secret locations. “Shortly after, the head of the clandestine services, José Rodriguez, decided on his own to destroy the video recordings of certain interrogations,” explains Dana Priest, journalist at the Washington Post from 1984 to 2023. According to Tim Weiner, journalist at the New York Times from 1993 to 2008, this desire to erase all traces proves the seriousness of the acts perpetrated, because if these videos were made public, they “would make Abu Ghraib look like a picnic", in his own words.
A CIA whistleblower
During a press conference, George W. Bush, questioned on this question, asserted with confidence that "the government does not torture anyone." John Kiriakou, outraged by this lie, comes out of the reserve imposed on him by his role as a CIA agent, and decides to denounce in the media what is really happening in these secret prisons. He assures that these tortures are really taking place and are not the work of zealous CIA members.
“In this interview, I say three things,” said the former officer. “I say that the CIA tortures its prisoners, I say that torture is the official policy of the American government (…) and I say that this policy was approved by the president himself.” After his allegations, the CIA launched an investigation against John Kiriakou, followed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI. For a year, he was placed under surveillance, before being arrested in January 2012.
John Kiriakou was then charged with five crimes, including three counts of espionage. He managed to find common ground with the authorities, as he reports in the documentary. “Finally, I accept a deal which provides for thirty months in prison, I will do twenty-three and the case is closed.” But his revelations do not remain a dead letter. The American Senate took up the subject and investigated for several years.
“Just obtaining the documents took three years,” recalls Daniel J. Jones, chief investigator of the Senate committee from 2007 to 2016. “One of the main conclusions of the Senate report was that there were at least 119 detainees in the hands of the CIA. At least 39 of them were subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.” He discovers, in the thousands of pages of this file, the different methods used by CIA agents which are in every way similar to acts of torture: waterboarding (simulacrum of drowning), sleep deprivation, feeding through a probe inserted into the rectum… In 2014, Barack Obama, who wanted to restore order in the CIA, publicly acknowledged that the United States, under the presidency of George W. Bush, had indeed tortured prisoners.
The documentary series CIA, the secret wars after September 11, directed by Antoine Mariotti and Manuel Guillon, is broadcast on Sunday September 6 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5 and visible on the france.tv platform.
