The level of interrogation required to protect Americans from viscous, well trained terrorists is a tough subject. One which is, thankfully, being monitored and has an established protocol of escalation based on potential risk and ability of the detainees to resist nominal interrogation techniques.

Mohamed al-Kahtani was captured along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in December 2001. Officials believe he was to have been to 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks, but he was denied entry into the United States at Orlando International Airport in August 2001.

Kahtani was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in February 2002. Since then, he has provided insights into al Qaeda’s methods and criteria for recruiting operatives and the logistics involved in carrying out attacks, Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, the chief of U.S. Southern Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“He described the facilitators he met along the way, the methods of financing the ( Sept. 11 ) operation, the way he obtained his U.S. visa, and the logistics involved in traveling to the United States and communicating with his handlers along the way,” Craddock said.

By the fall of 2002 Kahtani had successfully resisted all interrogation techniques for eight months, so interrogators at Guantanamo requested, and received, permission to use more aggressive techniques. Craddock said officials were particularly interested in information about any possible attacks on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The application of these more aggressive techniques between November 2002 and January 2003 “led to breaking Kahtani’s resistance and to solid intelligence gains,” Craddock said.

Some aggressive techniques used against Kahtani were reviewed in an internal investigation into alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay. Craddock and other senior officers were on Capitol Hill to discuss the results of this investigation.

Investigators ultimately found that the cumulative effect of “creative,” aggressive interrogations over the course of several months amounted to “abusive” behavior, but that it did not amount to torture or “inhumane” treatment since Kahtani suffered no injuries or was never denied food, shelter or medical care.

Craddock and Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, the chief investigator of the abuse allegations, said it’s important to keep in mind who interrogators were dealing with. “This is not a person that we have any compassion for, and it was difficult to find any pity for this man,” Schmidt, commander of U.S. Southern Command’s air component, told committee members. “He admitted to being the 20th hijacker, and he expected to fly on United Airlines Flight 93 ( which was hijacked and crashed in rural Pennsylvania on Sept. 11 ). He proved to have intimate knowledge of future ( al Qaeda ) plans.”

I am distressed that the terrorists are so determined to (a) kill us and (b) die trying to achieve their goal that we are forced to go to these lengths. But given the cold hearted brutality and open declarations of their intentions, it is the Islamic Fascist Terrorists themselves who have created the need for these types of actions.