Alfreda Frances Bikowsky
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Alfreda Frances Bikowsky (born 1965) is a
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) officer who has headed the
Bin Laden Issue Station The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. I ...
and the Global Jihad unit. Bikowsky's identity is not publicly acknowledged by the CIA, but was deduced by independent investigative journalists in 2011. In January 2014, the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the
extraordinary rendition Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism, euphemistically-named policy of state-sponsored abduction in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The best-known use of extraordinary rendition is in a United States-led program during th ...
of
Khalid El-Masri Khaled El-Masri (also Khalid El-Masri and Khaled Masri, Levantine Arabic pronunciation: , ) (born 29 June 1963) is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Ce ...
. The
Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detent ...
, released in December 2014, showed that Bikowsky was not only a key part of the
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
program but also one of its chief apologists, resulting in the media's giving her the moniker "The Unidentified Queen of Torture."


CIA career

Bikowsky started her CIA career in the 1990s as a Soviet analyst. She was brought into the Bin Laden Issue Station when it was created in 1996 by its first chief,
Michael Scheuer Michael F. Scheuer (pronounced "SHOY-er"), (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and S ...
. Sometime after the USS ''Cole'' bombing in October 2000, she was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station. By March 2003, she had been appointed Chief of the station. The station was closed in late 2005.
Ken Silverstein Ken Silverstein is an American journalist who worked for the ''Los Angeles Times'' as an investigative reporter, for The Associated Press in Brazil, and has written for ''Mother Jones'', ''Washington Monthly'', ''The Nation'', ''Slate'', and ...
reported that Bikowsky was a top candidate to be CIA Deputy Chief of Station in Baghdad in 2007. However, a CIA spokesman later wrote to Silverstein to say Bikowsky was not considered for the position and to dispute the characterization of her in the post. In 2008,
Jane Mayer Jane Meredith Mayer (born 1955) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the Un ...
reported that Bikowsky held "a top post handling sensitive matters in the Middle East." It was reported in 2011 that Bikowsky had been promoted to the head of the CIA's Global Jihad unit. She was characterized as a "top CIA official," equivalent to a
general A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...
in the military. According to the
Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detent ...
, Bikowsky was at the center of the CIA's effort to justify its use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques. She testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2007 that enhanced interrogation saved at least hundreds of American lives. The report listed three other claims Bikowsky made in that hearing, calling them all inaccurate. Bikowsky's pseudonym was redacted at least three dozen times in the report.


Blocking intelligence sharing before September 11, 2001

Bikowsky was a senior staff member at the Bin Laden Issue Station in January 2000. She was the direct supervisor of Michael Anne Casey, a CIA staff operations officer who was assigned to track future 9/11 hijacker
Khalid al-Mihdhar Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar (; also transliterated as AL Mihdhar; 16 May 1975 – 11 September 2001) was a Saudi terrorist hijacker. He was one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon as ...
at an al-Qaeda operatives' meeting in
Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
in early January 2000. Casey blocked a draft cable written by Doug Miller, an
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
agent detailed to the Bin Laden Issue Station, to the FBI warning that al-Mihdhar had a multiple-entry visa for travel to the U.S. Michael Anne Casey is "Michelle," Doug Miller is "Dwight," and Mark Rossini is "Malcolm."
Mark Rossini Mark Rossini is a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who played a major role in trying to track al-Qaeda before its attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Role in tracking al-Qaeda operatives in the US "The Spy Fac ...
, another FBI agent first assigned to the Bin Laden Issue Station in 1999, testified that Casey also verbally ordered him to not share information with FBI headquarters about al-Mihdhar or
Nawaf al-Hazmi Nawaf Muhammad Salim al-Hazmi (; 9 August 1976 – 11 September 2001)''9/11 Commission Report'', 9/11 Commission, p. 166 was a Saudi terrorist hijacker who was one of five Organizers of the September 11 attacks, hijackers of American Airlines Fli ...
, who was traveling with al-Mihdhar. Rossini further stated that Bikowsky told congressional investigators in 2002 that she hand-delivered al-Mihdhar's visa information to FBI headquarters. This was later proven false by FBI log books. The CIA shared some details about al-Mihdhar with the FBI at that time, but not that he had a valid visa to enter the U.S.


Rendition of Maher Arar

Former CIA officer
John Kiriakou John Chris Kiriakou ( ; born August 9, 1964) is an American whistleblower, author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of ''Political Misfits'' on Sputnik Radio. He was jailed ...
was interviewed about the arrest and
extraordinary rendition Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism, euphemistically-named policy of state-sponsored abduction in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The best-known use of extraordinary rendition is in a United States-led program during th ...
of an innocent Canadian citizen
Maher Arar Maher Arar () (born 1970) is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who has resided in Canada since 1987. Arar was detained during a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 on his way ...
, which occurred in September 2002 at
John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport is a major international airport serving New York City and its metropolitan area. JFK Airport is located on the southwestern shore of Long Island, in Queens, New York City, bordering Jamaica Bay. It is ...
. Kiriakou objected directly to a "senior female CIA counter-terrorism officer" (presumably Bikowsky), who did not know Arabic, after realizing that she confused Arar with another known Al-Qaeda operative whose name sounded similar in English but was completely different in Arabic. Kiriakou said that she overruled his objections and ordered the rendition anyways. Arar was sent to Syria, where he was tortured and held for almost one year. In reference to the episode, he referred to the film ''
Zero Dark Thirty ''Zero Dark Thirty'' is a 2012 American political action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. Produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, the film ...
''.


Interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Bikowsky has been identified as "the redheaded former Soviet analyst who had been in the Bin Laden Unit during
Michael Scheuer Michael F. Scheuer (pronounced "SHOY-er"), (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and S ...
's supervision" in
Jane Mayer Jane Meredith Mayer (born 1955) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the Un ...
's book, '' The Dark Side''. After
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaykh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born 14 April 1965), often known by his initials KSM, is a terrorist, and the former head of propaganda for the pan-Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. He ...
was captured in March 2003, Mayer writes of Bikowsky:
Despite the CIA's insistence on the professionalism of its interrogation program, according to two well-informed Agency sources, one particularly overzealous female officer had to be reprimanded for her role. After Mohammed was captured, the woman, who headed the Al Qaeda unit in the CTC, was so excited she flew at government expense to the black site where Mohammed was held so that she could personally watch him being
waterboarded Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water torture, water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method ...
. ... Coworkers said she had no legitimate reason to be present during Mohammed's interrogation. She was not an interrogator. "She thought it would be cool to be in the room," a former colleague said. (p. 273)
The Senate torture report claims Bikowsky participated in the interrogation and that claims she made about the results were "almost entirely inaccurate."


Rendition of Khalid El-Masri

In late January 2004, Bikowsky, as head of the Bin Laden Issue Station, made the decision to extraordinarily render
Khalid El-Masri Khaled El-Masri (also Khalid El-Masri and Khaled Masri, Levantine Arabic pronunciation: , ) (born 29 June 1963) is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Ce ...
to Afghanistan for four months without any evidence in hand. El-Masri's name was a different
transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...
of
Khalid al-Masri Khalid al-Masri (; other transcriptions: '', , Khaled, El-Masri''  ) is the name of a person alleged to have approached two 9/11 hijackers on a train in Germany and suggested that they contact an alleged al Qaeda operative in Duisburg. The ...
, the name of a person who had supposedly met
Ramzi bin al-Shibh Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh (; born May 1, 1972) is a Yemenis, Yemeni Terrorism, terrorist who served as al-Qaeda's communications officer. He has been detained by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (NSGB) since 200 ...
and
Marwan al-Shehhi Marwan Yousef Mohamed Rashid Lekrab al-Shehhi (; 9 May 197811 September 2001) was an Emirati terrorist hijacker from al-Qaeda who served as the hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, crashing the Boeing 767 into the South Tower of the ...
on a train in Germany. Even after El-Masri's passport was checked and his identity as a different person was confirmed in March, Bikowsky still wanted him held in detention in Afghanistan. El-Masri was eventually released in late May on a country road in Albania. The CIA Inspector General determined that there was no legal justification for rendering El-Masri. Bikowsky received no reprimand for the incident, because then-CIA Director Michael Hayden said he didn't want to deter the initiative of
counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...
employees. In 2015, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, a German non-profit human rights organization, filed a criminal complaint in Germany asking for a federal criminal investigation of Bikowsky for the rendition and torture of El-Masri. Germany's Code of Crimes against International Law does not require the accused to be in Germany or the crime to have been committed there. The complaint cited the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture as proof of Bikowsky's involvement.


''Who is Rich Blee?''

In 2011, independent journalists Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy planned to release an audio documentary entitled ''Who is Rich Blee?'' The documentary focused on the CIA's Bin Laden Issue Station before 9/11 and how certain CIA officials blocked information on future 9/11 hijackers from reaching the FBI. They planned to be the first to reveal the identity of two CIA agents, including Bikowsky, who had previously only been identified as "Frances" in an AP news story from 2011 or as a red-headed CIA agent in Jane Mayer's '' The Dark Side''. However, after receiving threats of prosecution from the CIA under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Duffy and Nowosielski decided to release the documentary with the names redacted. They claim that their webmaster later posted an email containing the identities by accident. The identities then spread to the wider Internet.


Representations

Bikowsky's career and personality were the main models for the character Maya (portrayed by actress
Jessica Chastain Jessica Michelle Chastain (born March 24, 1977) is an American actress and producer. Known for primarily starring in projects with Feminism, feminist themes, she has received List of awards and nominations received by Jessica Chastain, various ...
) in the film ''
Zero Dark Thirty ''Zero Dark Thirty'' is a 2012 American political action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. Produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, the film ...
'' (2012), although Maya is a composite character of several women involved in finding
Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
. The film attracted controversy for its depiction of the use of torture to elicit information from terrorist suspects. She is represented by the Corrine Whitman character in the film '' Rendition'' (2007), which is based on the true story of the
Khalid El-Masri Khaled El-Masri (also Khalid El-Masri and Khaled Masri, Levantine Arabic pronunciation: , ) (born 29 June 1963) is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Ce ...
rendition. She is also a basis for the character Diane Marsh (portrayed by
Wrenn Schmidt Melinda Wrenn Schmidt (born February 18, 1983) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as NASA engineer, flight director, and later director of NASA Margo Madison in the Apple TV+ original science-fiction space drama ser ...
) in the
Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
miniseries ''
The Looming Tower ''The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11'' is a 2006 nonfiction book by Lawrence Wright, a journalist for ''The New Yorker''. Wright examines the origins of the militant organization Al-Qaeda, the background for various terrorist atta ...
'' (2018). In the dramatization, she is depicted as being one of the two people primarily responsible for the lack of intelligence sharing between the FBI and CIA in the lead up to 9/11. In '' The Report'', a film adaptation of the
Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detent ...
, a character played by
Maura Tierney Maura Lynn Tierney (born February 3, 1965) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on the sitcom ''NewsRadio'' (1995–1999), Abby Lockhart on the medical drama '' ER'' (1999–2009) and Helen Solloway on the myst ...
appears to be based on Bikowsky.


Personal life

Bikowsky married
Michael Scheuer Michael F. Scheuer (pronounced "SHOY-er"), (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and S ...
, in 2014. He was a fellow CIA employee and former Chief of the
Bin Laden Issue Station The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. I ...
, Under a variation of her married name, Freda Scheuer, she owns and operates her own business, YBeU Beauty, alternatively called YBeU Life Coaching for Women. As a
life coach Coaching is a form of development in which an experienced person, called a ''coach'', supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance. The learner is sometimes called a ''coa ...
she "helps women look good, feel good, and do good."


See also

*
Bin Laden Issue Station The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. I ...
*
Enhanced interrogation techniques "Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at ...
*
Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detent ...


References


External links

* *
ACLU sourceHistory Commons entry
* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bikowsky, Alfreda Frances 1965 births Living people People of the Central Intelligence Agency Place of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people)