The Black Banners (Declassified): How Torture Derailed the War on Terror after 9/11

Widely heralded on publication as a must-read (Military Review) and important window on Americas battle with al-Qaeda (Washington Post), Ali Soufans revelatory account of the war on terror as seen from its front lines changed the way we understand al-Qaeda and how the United States prosecuted the warand led to hard questions being asked of our leaders.

When The Black Banners was published in 2011, significant portions of the text were redacted. After subsequent review by the Central Intelligence Agency, those redactions have been lifted. Their removal corrects the record on how vital intelligence was obtained from al-Qaeda suspects and brings forth important new details on the controversial use of enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) to extract information from terror suspects. For many years, proponents of the use of these techniques have argued that they produced actionable intelligence in the war on terror. This edition of The Black Banners explodes this myth; it shows Soufan at work using guile and intelligent questioningnot force or violenceto extract some of the most important confessions in the war, and it vividly recounts the failures of the governments torture program. Drawing on Soufans experiences as a lead operative for the FBI and declassified government records, The Black Banners (Declassified) documents the intelligence failures that lead to the tragic attacks on New York and Washington, DC, and subsequently how torture derailed the fight against al-Qaeda. With this edition, eighteen years on from the first sanctioned enhanced interrogation technique, the public can finally read the complete story of what happened in their name after the events of 9/11.

The Black Banners (Declassified) includes a new foreword from Ali Soufan that addresses the significance of the CIAs decision to lift the redactions.