WASHINGTON — It didn't take long for Mohammed Al-Qahtani's American captors at the Guantanamo Bay naval base to conclude that he had mastered the art of resisting interrogations.
So they sought permission from Washington to treat the suspected Al Qaeda terrorist more harshly. And soon after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld authorized the use of stronger interrogation methods in late 2002, Al-Qahtani allegedly spilled some important secrets.
Until the Americans turned tough, White House and Pentagon officials said Tuesday, Al-Qahtani had maintained that he was in Afghanistan to practice falconry.
Afterward, he confessed that he had met with Osama bin Laden several times. He said he knew one of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, and that he was to have been the 20th. And he supplied information on other terrorism suspects -- including Jose Padilla, who allegedly was scouting targets for a "dirty bomb" in the U.S., and Richard C. Reid, who was convicted of trying to blow up a Miami-bound passenger jet with explosives in his shoes.
During a briefing Tuesday, called by the White House to try to blunt global condemnation of Iraqi prisoner abuse, senior Bush administration officials described how a get-tough policy on suspected top Al Qaeda operatives had produced useful information. That policy then was revised amid concerns over abusive behavior by the captors.
The officials, including White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, maintained that even as authorities coveted tougher interrogation techniques, they meticulously sought higher approval -- and stayed within President Bush's directive that interrogations be conducted in accordance with "American values," as well as U.S. laws and international treaty obligations.
Still, the officials said Tuesday, as the number of prisoners quickly multiplied -- first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq -- U.S. officials were uncertain how gingerly to treat them.
"We were in essence in uncharted waters," Daniel J. Dell'Orto, the Pentagon's chief deputy general counsel, said of the situation at Guantanamo.
Officials declined to specify the tougher methods used on Al-Qahtani to get him to talk. But among the memos they released were three categories of "GTMO interrogation techniques" approved by Rumsfeld, with the harshest being "use of mild, noninjurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger and light pushing."
