WASHINGTON--A former chief investigator at the Guantanamo Bay detention center is accusing the Pentagon of blocking publication of his book on the use of brutal interrogation techniques and top U.S. officials' advocacy of what he calls "torture."
Mark Fallon, a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) veteran, said his book "Unjustifiable Means" reveals no classified information or new detainee abuse cases but details internal deliberations about interrogation methods, identifies officials who advocated "torture" and describes how he and others objected.
"This is more of an inside view of the fight to try to stop torture," he said in an interview this week with Reuters. "There was a tremendous opposition within the government itself believing these were war crimes, and I name names."
The use of the brutal interrogation methods made the country less safe, he said.
Fallon said that he was told it would take no more than six weeks for the Defense Department office that scrubs manuscripts for unauthorized information to review his book. That was more than seven months ago. He has since missed his submission deadline, had to cancel a book tour and enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union and Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute to fight what he contends is a Pentagon effort to suppress his work and stifle his right to free speech.
Darrell Walker, chief of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, denied blocking Fallon's book. The delay, he said, is the result of 10 federal agencies having to scrub the manuscript. Two have yet to complete their assessments, including one outside the Defense Department, which he did not identify.
"We are definitely not trying to keep him from publishing," Walker told Reuters, adding that a staff shortage also has contributed to the delay. "We are trying to push it out."
Now the ACLU and the Columbia University institute are taking Fallon's case to Congress.
