The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (19 page)

CIA detainee Asadallah was left in the standing sleep deprivation position despite a sprained ankle. Later, when Asadallah was placed in stress positions on his knees, he complained of discomfort and asked to sit. Asadallah was told he could not sit unless he answered questions truthfully.
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2. CIA Detainees Exhibit Psychological and Behavioral Issues

Psychological and behavioral problems experienced by CIA detainees, who were held in austere conditions and in solitary confinement, also posed management challenges for the CIA.
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For example, later in his detention, Ramzi bin al-Shibh exhibited behavioral and psychological problems, including visions, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm.
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CIA psychologists linked bin al-Shibh’s deteriorating mental state to his isolation and inability to cope with his long-term detention.
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Similarly, ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri’s unpredictable and disruptive behavior in detention made him one of the most difficult detainees for the CIA to manage. Al-Nashiri engaged in repeated belligerent acts, including throwing his food tray,
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attempting to assault detention site personnel,
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and trying to damage items in his cell.
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Over a period of years, al-Nashiri accused the CIA staff of drugging or poisoning his food and complained of bodily pain and insomnia.
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As noted, at one point, al-Nashiri launched a short-lived hunger strike, and the CIA responded by force feeding him rectally.
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An October 2004 psychological assessment of al-Nashiri was used by the CIA to advance its discussions with National Security Council officials on establishing an “endgame” for the program.
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In July 2005, CIA Headquarters expressed concern regarding al-Nashiri’s “continued state of depression and uncooperative attitude.”
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Days later a CIA psychologist assessed that al-Nashiri was on the “verge of a breakdown.”
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Beginning in March 2004, and continuing until his rendition to U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay in September 2006, Majid Khan engaged in a series of hunger strikes and attempts at self-mutilation that required significant attention from CIA detention site personnel. In response to Majid Khan’s hunger strikes, medical personnel implemented various techniques to provide fluids and nutrients, including the use of a nasogastric tube and the provision of intravenous fluids. CIA records indicate that Majid Khan cooperated with the feedings and was permitted to infuse the fluids and nutrients himself.
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After approximately three weeks, the CIA developed a more aggressive treatment regimen “without unnecessary conversation.”
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Majid Khan was then subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration, which included two bottles of Ensure. Later that same day, Majid Khan’s “lunch tray,” consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was “pureed” and rectally infused.
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Additional sessions of rectal feeding and hydration followed.
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In addition to his hunger strikes, Majid Klian engaged in acts of self-harm that included attempting to cut his wrist on two occasions,
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an attempt to chew into his arm at the inner elbow,
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an attempt to cut a vein in the top of his foot,
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and an attempt to cut into his skin at the elbow joint using a filed toothbrush.
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J. The CIA Seeks Reaffirmation of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program in 2003

1. Administration Statements About the Humane Treatment of Detainees Raise Concerns at the CIA About Possible Lack of Policy Support for CIA Interrogation Activities

On several occasions in early 2003, CIA General Counsel Scott Muller expressed concern to the National Security Council principals, White House staff, and Department of Justice personnel that the CIA’s program might be inconsistent with public statements from the Administration that the U.S. Government’s treatment of detainees was “humane.”
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CIA General Counsel Muller therefore sought to verify with White House and Department of Justice personnel that a February 7, 2002, Presidential Memorandum requiring the U.S. military to treat detainees humanely did not apply to the CIA.
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Following those discussions in early 2003, the White House press secretary was advised to avoid using the term “humane treatment” when discussing the detention of al-Qa’ida and Taliban personnel.
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In mid-2003, CIA officials also engaged in discussions with the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and attorneys in the White House on whether representations could be made that the U.S. Government complied with certain requirements arising out of the Convention Against Torture, namely that the treatment of detainees was consistent with constitutional standards in the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
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In late June 2003, after numerous inter-agency discussions, William Haynes, the general counsel of the Department of Defense, responded to a letter from Senator Patrick Leahy stating that it was U.S. Policy to comply with these standards.
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According to a memorandum from the CIA’s
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CTC Legal,
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, the August 1, 2002, OLC opinion provided a legal “safe harbor” for the CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
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The August 1, 2002, opinion did not, however, address the constitutional standards described in the letter from William Haynes.

In July 2003, after the White House made a number of statements again suggesting that U.S. treatment of detainees was “humane,” the CIA asked the national security advisor for policy reaffirmation of the CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques. During the time that request was being considered, CIA Headquarters stopped approving requests from CIA officers to use the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
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Because of this stand-down, CIA interrogators, with CIA Headquarters approval, instead used repeated applications of the CIA’s “standard” interrogation techniques. These “standard” techniques were coercive, but not considered to be as coercive as the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation techniques. At this time, sleep deprivation beyond 72 hours was considered an “enhanced” interrogation technique, while sleep deprivation under 72 hours was defined as a “standard” CIA interrogation technique. To avoid using an “enhanced” interrogation technique, CIA officers subjected Khallad bin Attash to 70 hours of standing sleep deprivation, two hours less than the maximum. After allowing him four hours of sleep, bin Attash was subjected to an additional 23 hours of standing sleep deprivation, followed immediately by 20 hours of seated sleep deprivation.
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Unlike during most of the CIA’s interrogation program, during the time that CIA Headquarters was seeking policy reaffirmation, the CIA responded to infractions in the interrogation program as reported through CIA cables and other communications. Although █████████, the chief of the interrogations program in RDG, does not appear to have been investigated or reprimanded for training interrogators on the abdominal slap before its use was approved,
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training significant numbers of new interrogators to conduct interrogations on potentially compliant detainees,
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or conducting large numbers of water dousing on detainees without requesting or obtaining authorization;
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the CIA removed his certification to conduct interrogations in late July 2003 for placing a broom handle behind the knees of a detainee while that detainee was in a stress position.
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CIA Headquarters also decertified two other interrogators, ████████████ [CIA OFFICER 1] and ███████, in the same period, although there are no official records of why those decertifications occurred.
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2. The CIA Provides Inaccurate Information to Select Members of the National Security Council, Represents that “Termination of This Program Will Result in Loss of Life, Possibly Extensive”; Policymakers Reauthorize Program

On July 29, 2003, DCI Tenet and CIA General Counsel Muller attended a meeting with Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor Rice, Attorney General Ashcroft, and White House Counsel Gonzales, among others, seeking policy reaffirmation of its coercive interrogation program. The presentation included a list of the CIA’s standard and enhanced interrogation techniques. CIA General Counsel Muller also provided a description of the waterboard interrogation technique, including the inaccurate representation that it had been used against KSM 119 times and Abu Zubaydah 42 times.
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The presentation warned National Security Council principals in attendance that “termination of this program will result in loss of life, possibly extensive.” The CIA officers further noted that 50 percent of CIA intelligence reports on al-Qaida were derived from detainee reporting, and that “major threats were countered and attacks averted” because of the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA provided specific examples of “attacks averted” as a result of using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, including references to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, the Heathrow Plot, the Second Wave Plot, and Iyman Faris,
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As described later in this summary, and in greater detail in Volume II, these claims were inaccurate. After the CIA’s presentation, Vice President Cheney stated, and National Security Advisor Rice agreed, that the CIA was executing Administration policy in carrying out its interrogation program.
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The National Security Council principals at the July 2003 briefing initially concluded it was “not necessary or advisable to have a full Principals Committee meeting to review and reaffirm the Program.”
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A CIA email noted that the official reason for not having a full briefing was to avoid press disclosures, but added that:

“it is clear to us from some of the runup meetings we had with [White House] Counsel that the [White House] is extremely concerned [Secretary of State] Powell would blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what’s been going on.”
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National Security Advisor Rice, however, subsequently decided that Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should be briefed on the CIA interrogation program prior to recertification of the covert action.
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As described, both were then formally briefed on the CIA program for the first time in a 25 minute briefing on September 16, 2003.
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On September 4, 2003, CIA records indicate that CIA officials may have provided Chairman Roberts, Vice Chairman Rockefeller, and their staff directors a briefing regarding the Administration’s reaffirmation of the program.
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Neither the CIA nor the Committee has a contemporaneous report on the content of the briefing or any confirmation that the briefing occurred.

K. Additional Oversight and Outside Pressure in 2004: ICRC, Inspector General, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court

1. ICRC Pressure Leads to Detainee Transfers; Department of Defense Official Informs the CIA that the U.S. Government “Should Not Be in the Position of Causing People to Disappear”; the CIA Provides Inaccurate Information on CIA Detainee to the Department of Defense

In January 2004, the ICRC sent a letter to
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indicating that it was aware that the United States Government was holding unacknowledged detainees in several facilities in Country ██ “incommunicado for extensive periods of time, subjected to unacceptable conditions of internment, to ill treatment and torture, while deprived of any possible recourse.”
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According to the CIA, the letter included a “fairly complete list” of CIA detainees to whom the ICRC had not had access.
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This prompted CIA Headquarters to conclude that it was necessary to reduce the number of detainees in CIA custody.
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The CIA subsequently transferred at least 25 of its detainees in Country ██ to the U.S. military and foreign governments. The CIA also released five detainees.
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The CIA provided a factually incorrect description to the Department of Defense concerning one of the 18 CIA detainees transferred to U.S. military custody in March 2004. The transfer letter described CIA detainee Ali Jan as “the most trusted bodyguard of Jaluluddin Haqqani (a top AQ target of the USG)” who was captured in the village of
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on June
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, 2002.
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Although there was an individual named Ali Jan captured in the village of ██████ on June ██, 2002,
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CIA records indicate that he was not the detainee being held by the CIA in the Country
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facility. The Ali Jan in CIA custody was apprehended circa early August 2003, during the U.S. military operation
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in Zormat Valley, Paktia Province, Afghanistan.
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CIA records indicate that Ali Jan was transferred to CIA custody after his satellite phone rang while he was in military custody, and the translator indicated the caller was speaking in Arabic.
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After his transfer to U.S. military custody, Ali Jan was eventually released on July █, 2004.
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In response to the ICRC’s formal complaint about detainees being kept in Country ██ without ICRC access. State Department officials met with senior ICRC officials in Geneva, and indicated that it was U.S. policy to encourage all countries to provide ICRC access to detainees, including Country ██.
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While the State Department made these official representations to the ICRC, the CIA was repeatedly directing the same country to deny the ICRC access to the CIA detainees. In June 2004, the secretary of state ordered the U.S. ambassador in that country to deliver a demarche, “in essence demanding [the country] provide full access to all [country █████████] detainees,” which included detainees being held at the CIA’s behest.
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These conflicting messages from the United States Government, as well as increased ICRC pressure on the country for failing to provide access, created significant tension between the United States and the country in question.
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