All the News that Fits

The majority of the media's coverage of Guantánamo has been decidedly one-sided. Consider, as the latest example, the New York Times's account of Muhammad Saad Iqbal's story, which was published on Tuesday ("An Ex-Detainee of the U.S. Describes a 6-Year Ordeal"). Iqbal was a detainee at Guantánamo from 2002 until late last year when he was transferred to Pakistan. The Times's version is based almost entirely on Iqbal's word and, importantly, ignores most of the troubling allegations the U.S. government made against him. You would never know from reading the Times's article that Iqbal was accused of plotting to kill a U.S. official in Indonesia. There is no hint of the fact that Iqbal himself admitted to consorting with terrorists. Instead, Iqbal is portrayed as an obvious innocent who was wrongly tortured.

As with nearly all terrorism-related matters, there is ambiguity. The full truth of Iqbal's life may be impossible to piece together. Nevertheless, let us consider the available evidence found in the U.S. government's unclassified files, which were produced online by the Department of Defense and then republished by the Times in its own online database. Despite being freely available, the Times ignored most of the files' contents when reporting on Iqbal.

Here is a more complete version of Iqbal's story.

By his own account, Iqbal is a world champion at reciting and singing the Koran. Indeed Iqbal's full name is given as Hafez Qari Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni in the government's unclassified files. "Hafez" is, in actuality, not a name at all, but instead an honorific meaning one who has committed the entire Koran to memory. Similarly, "Qari" means one who is skilled in reciting the Koran according to prescribed rules. During his testimony at Guantánamo, Iqbal claimed he had won awards in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Iqbal explained: "In 1992 I won the World Championship for the recitation of the Quran. I got that reward in Jakarta, Indonesia. In 1996 I won [a] gold medal from government of Pakistan. In 1998 I won [the] King Fahd Award."

Iqbal's award-winning skills were highly sought after. He claims to have performed somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times, and made "regular" appearances on Pakistani television. During his performances, he consorted with the elite of the Pakistani world, including A.Q. Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program. Iqbal even had his picture taken with Khan.

However, in late 2001 Iqbal made a trip to Indonesia that led to his arrest. And this is where the Times's account really misses the mark. The Times makes it sound as if Iqbal was merely a braggart who boasted to some companions that he knew Osama bin Laden and that he could make a shoe bomb in order to make himself sound more important. The Times cites a lone anonymous intelligence official to back up this claim. But that is not what the U.S. government believed. In fact, Iqbal's own testimony at Guantánamo draws the Times's version into question.

According to the U.S. government's unclassified files, Iqbal was involved in an al Qaeda plot against an American official working in Jakarta. Iqbal denied this allegation, claiming he was simply taking care of some family business. But in the context of his denials, Iqbal also made some curious admissions. And a close examination of his story reveals a number of troubling details.

According to Iqbal, his father died in February of 2001 and he traveled to Jakarta in November of that year to square away his father's affairs. During his testimony before the ARB at Guantánamo, Iqbal explained that his father was a scholar at the Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University and was given honorary diplomatic status by the House of Saud. Because the university had a branch in Jakarta his father worked there from 1992 until 1998, during which time he established a second family. It was that family Iqbal claims he was visiting from November 18, 2001 until January 9, 2002, when he was arrested by Indonesian police.

Apparently, Iqbal was detained after he was fingered as the accomplice of a known al Qaeda agent. During his time at Guantánamo, Iqbal did not deny meeting four al Qaeda-affiliated operatives in Jakarta. But, and this is where Iqbal's testimony is especially fishy, he claimed he tried to get away from them when he learned they were plotting attacks.