The 20th HiJacker

Time has obtained a Gitmo interrogation log of the 20th hijacker, Mohammed al Qahtani.

He had tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001, allegedly to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks. But while Mohammed Atta, the eventual leader of the hijackers, was waiting outside in the Orlando, Fla., airport parking lot, al-Qahtani was detained inside--and then deported--by an alert immigration officer who didn't buy his story.

More than a year later, al-Qahtani had been captured in Afghanistan and transferred to Gitmo's Camp X-Ray.

The initial questioning by the FBI went poorly. "We were getting nothing from him," a senior Pentagon official says. "He had been trained to resist direct questioning. And what works in a Chicago police precinct doesn't work in war."

In the war on terrorism, the personal dignity of a fanatic trained for mass murder may be an inevitable casualty.