In the 2012 Hollywood hit Zero Dark Thirty, a red-haired Central Intelligence Agency analyst, played by Jessica Chastain, travels to a secret CIA prison and watches a colleague fight a screaming al Qaeda suspect, then locks him in a box. bigger than a mini fridge to make him talk.
In 2002, red-haired CIA analyst Alfreda Schoyer, then known by her maiden name Bikowski, traveled to a secret CIA prison to watch the torture of al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubayda, who was drenched in water and locked in a “dog box.” “Senate investigators said.
The CIA gave the filmmakers unprecedented access to agency staff, and NBC News to the New Yorker reported that Chastain’s character was part of Shoyer’s model, citing her position but omitting her name because the agency said her work is secret.
For two decades, Shoyer was a central figure in some of the main controversies in America’s war against Islamist extremist groups, including secret detention centers and brutal interrogations. CIA operatives usually work in a dark, shadowy world, but Schoyer’s experience has found the spotlight.
Schoyer resigned from his last role as deputy chief of internal affairs and strategic threats at the end of 2021 and agreed to talk to Reuters this year.
This is the first interview she has ever conducted, she said, and decided to speak to clarify that she was not forced to leave the agency, but left on her terms. CIA policy does not discuss individual employees or confirm whether they have worked for the agency.
During several conversations lasting two and a half hours, Schoyer said he could not discuss individual cases because they were classified. But in a broader sense, she said the use of water cited in government reports was not torture, insisted that such techniques could work, and said any criticism of it was largely the result of taking risks to fight with terrorism.
Former CIA analyst Alfreda Schoyer is shown on a screenshot of her beauty and life coaching website YBeU beauty personal coaching. Photo: YBEU / Reuters
“I was bleeding,” she said, alluding to criticism of her agency in government and media reports, “and I kept coming back to try again and again.” I am proud that I was not on the sidelines. I didn’t bury my head in the sand. “
The New Yorker once called Scheuer, citing her position again, but omitted her name as “Queen of Torture” by writing that “she happily participates in torture sessions.”
Shoyer called the description, which found a place in many media reports, false and caricatured. She believes that the male operative would not be described in the same way.
“I won this title because I was in the arena,” she said. “I actually raised my hand loudly and proudly, and you know, I’m not sorry at all.
A Senate investigation does not claim that Schoyer personally tortured the suspects. She said her role was as an “expert on the subject” and not as an interrogator.
“There is a very clear line between interrogator and interrogator,” she said. “The dibrifer is an expert on the subject who asks questions.”
CIA spokeswoman Susan Miller declined to comment on Schoyer, but said simply: “The CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques ended in 2007.
Now outside the CIA, Shoyer’s career has turned: she is a life coach, running a business called YBeU Beauty, focused on helping women “look good, feel good and do well.” This is a world removed from her previous life, as the website includes photos of her, thoughtful and confident.
Schoyer says she was recruited to the CIA while a student at Tuftus University’s Fletcher School in 1988 by the late CIA officer Dwayne “Dewey” Claridge, who founded the agency’s counterterrorism center.
Claridge would be charged with perjury for his testimony about the Iran-Contra affair. He was pardoned by President George W. Bush before the court.
In 1996, the CIA set up a unit specifically for Osama bin Laden, which emerged as a new phenomenon in extremism. Zero Dark Thirty’s protagonist is believed to be based on an amalgam of CIA operatives, including Shoyer, although she was not central to the pursuit of bin Laden.
The new unit was called Alec Station, headed by a CIA analyst named Michael Schoyer. She told Reuters she joined Alec Station in 1999 after Michael Shoyer left as boss. They married in 2014 and she took his name.
In recent years, Michael Schoyer has supported conspiracy theories and called on then-President Donald Trump to impose martial law after losing the 2020 election. the imaginary “deep state” was often true.
Michael Schoyer rejected a request for an interview. Schoyer will not say whether she agrees with her husband’s ideas, but said she is discussing some issues.
After joining Alec Station, Shoyer rose to deputy chief and then, she says, to his chief.
A 2005 CIA inspector general’s report said the CIA “failed to provide travel information” to the FBI for al Qaeda attackers before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. guilty.
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