Classified Woman Read Online Free PDF

they “can and did,” assuring him I would be OK.
    By the time I pulled up in front of the FBI Wilmington field office’s nondescript brick building it was almost eleven.
    I went inside and gave the receptionist my name and that of the agent given to me by Feghali. Less than two minutes later, a man in his mid thirties, dressed in wrinkled khakis and looking exhausted, came to get me. On the way to what he referred to as “the interrogation room,” he explained that they had detained two men under suspicious circumstances; they were here illegally and did not speak any English.
    Inside the room, under harsh fluorescent lights, men were seated around a gray aluminum desk. It was easy to identify the two detainees: each was chained to a chair by his wrists and ankles. The older, in his late thirties, had a dark olive complexion and black mustache; the other, in his late twenties, had fair skin and honey brown hair. Three agents sat across from them; no one was speaking. They all looked exhausted. I was thanked for getting there on such short notice, offered the desk and chair, and given a yellow legal notepad and an FBI pen.
    The session started immediately. An older agent, who seemed to be in charge, asked me to interpret his questions and translate their responses into English. His questions were straightforward, and the men’s answers were mostly “yes,” “no,” and “I don’t understand,” with a few that were a bit longer.
    The session lasted almost two hours, during which one of the detainees requested a bathroom. One of the agents removed his cuffs and walked him there. I was impressed with the level of respect with which the FBI agents treated both men, and their professional and courteous manner. It was 1 a.m. by the time the session ended. The agent in charge asked me to walk out with him, and after we left the room, asked me what I thought of the men’s answers and their attitudes in general. I gave him my assessment: one seemed a bit more evasive than the other; one was from a particular region known for nationalism but not religious fanaticism; the other seemed of Kurdish descent from that particular region with the following characteristics … The agent listened carefully. Would I come to the Philadelphia field office and do the same thing there? I said I could. I was to meet them in front of the building at eight o’clock, less than seven hours away!
    We were joined in Philadelphia by several other men, some of them from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), others from the FBI Philadelphia and New Jersey field offices. From their looks and what they talked, about I could tell they had been working around the clock since 9/11. They seemed exhausted yet eager to get things done, to accomplish something. Their dedication was worthy of respect.
    “What we want to do is this: question, interrogate these guys, check out their background, and decide whether they are keepers or not,” one of the younger agents told me. “If not, let them go, and go back and chase the real bad guys until we get ’em.” He shook his head in disgust. “The jerks at HQ have issued an order for us to go and round up as many people as we can; chain ’em, lock ’em up, and send HQ the count. The larger the number the better; they’ve set a quota. They’re not after the bad guys, they just want to show the press and the Hill this number, to be able to say, today we arrested this many; yesterday we arrested that many …”
    That surprised me.
    The other agent added, “We get these guys on a simple INS violation. What do we do? We have to arrest ’em, sit around and baby-sit ’em while they’re interrogated and locked up, instead of being out there and doing what we’re good at doing.”
    This interrogation lasted three hours. Before they began the questioning, the agents first asked me to interpret the detainees’ Miranda rights. One of the detainees shook his head. “How can that be?” he said,