The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (61 page)

CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “As before, with these seven [enhanced interrogation techniques] we use the least coercive measures to create cooperation at a predictable, reliable, sustainable level. They are used to create a state of cooperation. Once the state of cooperation is created, we simply productively debrief the detainee. On average, we get to that state of cooperation in a period measured by about one to two weeks.”

“When we’re asking him questions during that period of increased stress, when we’re being more rather than less coercive,
we are generally asking him questions for which we know the answers
. Otherwise, how do we know we have moved him from a spirit of defiance into a spirit of cooperation? And only after we have moved him into this second stage do we then begin to ask him things we really think he knows but we don’t.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

This testimony is incongruent with CIA records. As is detailed throughout the Committee Study, CIA detainees were frequently subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques immediately after being rendered to CIA custody.
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CIA interrogators asked open-ended questions of CIA detainees, to which the CIA did not know the answers, while subjecting detainees to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. This approach began with Abu Zubaydah, whose interrogation focused on him being told to provide “the one thing you don’t want me to know,”
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and remained a central feature of the program. Numerous CIA detainees were determined never to have reached a “state of cooperation.” Several detainees, when subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, transitioned to normal debriefing, and were then subjected to one or more additional periods of being subjected to the techniques.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “Nothing that we get from the program, however, is used in isolation. It’s a data point that then has to be rubbed up against all the other data points we have available to us.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

The CIA regularly disseminated intelligence reports based on uncorroborated statements from CIA detainees. The reports, some of which included fabricated or otherwise inaccurate information, required extensive FBI investigations.
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For example, the CIA disseminated information that KSM had sent Abu Issa al-Britani to Montana to recruit African-American Muslim converts.
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In June 2003, KSM stated he fabricated the information because he was “under ‘enhanced measures’ when he made these claims and simply told his interrogators what he thought they wanted to hear.”
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Other KSM fabrications led the CIA to capture and detain suspected terrorists who were later found to be innocent.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “This proposed program you have in front of you has been informed by our experience and it has been informed by the comments of our detainees. It’s built on the particular psychological profile of the people we have and expect to get—al-Qa’ida operatives. Perceiving themselves true believers in a religious war, detainees believe they are morally bound to resist until Allah has sent them a burden too great for them to withstand. At that point—and that point varies by detainee—their cooperation in their own heart and soul becomes blameless and they enter into this cooperative relationship with our debriefers.”

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “Number one, we use the enhanced interrogation techniques at the beginning of this process, and it varies how long it takes, but I gave you a week or two as the normal window in which we actually helped this religious zealot to get over his own personality and put himself in a spirit of cooperation.”

VICE CHAIRMAN BOND: “Once you get past that time period, once you have convinced them that Allah gives them the green light, that’s when you get the 8,000 intelligence reports.”

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “That’s correct, Senator, when we get the subject into this zone of cooperation. I think, as you know, in two-thirds of the instances we don’t need to use any of the techniques to get the individual into the zone of cooperation.”

SENATOR NELSON: “How do you suspect that al-Qa’ida operatives are training in order to counter your techniques?”

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “You recall the policy on which this is based, that we’re going to give him a burden that Allah says is too great for you to bear, so they can put the burden down.”
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SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

The CIA made a similar representation to the Department of Justice in the context of Abu Zubaydah.
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CIA records do not indicate that CIA detainees described a religious basis for cooperating in association with the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
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The CIA has referred only to Abu Zubaydah in the context of this representation. As detailed, Abu Zubaydah referenced religion in the context of his cooperation prior to being subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. On May 14, 2002, more than two months before Abu Zubaydah began his August 2002 enhanced interrogation period, Abu Zubaydah told interrogators that “if he possessed any more information on future threats, then he would provide this information to us to help himself, claiming that ‘the sharia’ gives him permission to do so in his current situation.”
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Abu Zubaydah also made a similar statement to his interrogators approximately a week later—again, prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques—stating that he had “prayed his ‘Istikharah’ (seeking God’s guidance) and was now willing to tell what he really knew,” and “that he had received guidance from God” to cooperate to “prevent his captured brothers from having a difficult time.”
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Further, Abu Zubaydah maintained that he always intended to provide information and never believed he could withhold information from interrogators.
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In February 2003, he told a CIA psychologist that he believed every captured “brother” would talk in detention, and that these “brothers should be able to expect that the organization will make adjustments to protect people and plans when someone with knowledge is captured.”
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Abu Zubaydah stated he conveyed this perspective to trainees at a terrorist training camp.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “Many assertions [in the ICRC report] regarding physical or threatened abuse are egregious and are simply not true. On their face, they aren’t even credible. Threats of acts of sodomy, the arrest and rape of family members, the intentional infection of HIV or any other diseases have never been and would never be authorized. There are no instances in which such threats or abuses took place.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

This testimony is incongruent with CIA interrogation records.

• As documented in the May 2004 Inspector General Special Review and other CIA records, interrogators threatened ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, KSM, and Abu Zubaydah with harm to their families.
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• Rectal exams were standard operating procedure for security purposes. A June 2002 cable noted that Abu Zubaydah was mildly “tense,” “likely an anticipatory reaction given his recent unexpected rectal exam” the previous day.
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• At least five detainees were subjected to rectal rehydration or rectal feeding. There is at least one record of Abu Zubaydah receiving “rectal fluid resuscitation” for “partially refusing liquids.”
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  According to CIA records, Majid Khan was “very hostile” to rectal feeding and removed the rectal tube as soon as he was allowed to.
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  KSM was subjected to rectal rehydration without a determination of medical need, a procedure that KSM interrogator and chief of interrogations, ████, would later characterize as illustrative of the interrogator’s “total control over the detainee.”
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  Marwan al-Jabbur was subjected to what was originally referred to in a cable as an “enema,” but was later acknowledged to be rectal rehydration.
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  Both al-Nashiri
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  and Majid Khan were subjected to rectal feeding.
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• Three detainees, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khallad bin Attash and Adnan al-Libi, were threatened with rectal rehydration.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “Punches and kicks are not authorized and have never been employed.”
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SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

This testimony is incongruent with CIA records. Interviews conducted for two CIA internal reviews related to Gul Rahman’s death provided details on CIA interrogations at the CIA’s DETENTION SITE COBALT. In an interview report, CIA contractor DUNBAR described the “hard” or “rough” takedown used at DETENTION SITE COBALT. According to the interview report of DUNBAR, “there were approximately five CIA officers from the renditions team . . . they opened the door of Rahman’s cell and rushed in screaming and yelling for him to ‘get down.’ They dragged him outside, cut off his clothes and secured him with Mylar tape. They covered his head with a hood and ran him up and down a long corridor adjacent to his cell. They slapped him and punched him several times. [DUNBAR] stated that although it was obvious they were not trying to hit him as hard as they could, a couple of times the punches were forceful. As they ran him along the corridor, a couple of times he fell and they dragged him through the dirt (the floor outside of the cells is dirt). Rahman did acquire a number of abrasions on his face, legs, and hands, but nothing that required medical attention. (This may account for the abrasions found on Rahman’s body after his death. Rahman had a number of surface abrasions on his shoulders, pelvis, arms, legs, and face.)”
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The use of the “hard” or “rough” takedown, as used on Gul Rahman, was described by the CIA officer in charge of the CIA’s DETENTION SITE COBALT as “employed often in interrogations at [DETENTION SITE COBALT] as ‘part of the atmospherics.’ ”
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “Detainees have never been denied the means—at a minimum, they’ve always had a bucket—to dispose of their human waste.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

This testimony is incongruent with CIA records. CIA detainees, particularly those subjected to standing sleep deprivation, were routinely placed in diapers. Waste buckets were not always available. In the interrogation of Abu Hazim, a waste bucket was removed from his cell for punishment. According to a CIA cable, Abu Hazim “requested a bucket in which he could relieve himself, but was told all rewards must be earned.”
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “The medical section of the ICRC report concludes that the association of CIA medical officers with the interrogation program is ‘contrary to international standards of medical ethics.’ That is just wrong. The role of CIA medical officers in the detainee program is and always has been and always will be to ensure the safety and the well-being of the detainee. The placement of medical officers during the interrogation techniques represents an extra measure of caution. Our medical officers do not recommend the employment or continuation of any procedures or techniques.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

CIA records detail how throughout the program, CIA medical personnel cleared detainees for the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in deciding whether to continue, adjust, or alter the use of the techniques against detainees. For example:

• Prior to the initiation of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against Abu Zubaydah, CIA Headquarters, with medical personnel participation, stated that the “interrogation process takes precedence over preventative medical procedures.”
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• Abu Ja’far al-Iraqi was provided medication for swelling in his legs to allow for continued standing sleep deprivation.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “The allegation in the report that a CIA medical officer threatened a detainee, stating that medical care was conditional on cooperation is blatantly false. Health care has always been administered based upon detainee needs. It’s neither policy nor practice to link medical care to any other aspect of the detainee program.”

SENATOR HATCH: “Has there been any use of any kind of drug or withholding of any kind of drug or medication?”

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “No, absolutely not.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

This testimony is incongruent with CIA records. For example, as CIA interrogators prepared for the August 2002 “enhanced interrogation” phase of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation, the CIA’s DETENTION SITE GREEN noted, and CIA Headquarters confirmed, that the interrogation process would take precedence over preventing Abu Zubaydah’s wounds from becoming infected.
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DETENTION SITE GREEN personnel also stated that delaying a medical session for 72 hours after the start of the new phase of interrogation would convey to Abu Zubaydah that his level of medical care was contingent upon his cooperation.
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On August 10, 2002, the medical officer at DETENTION SITE GREEN stated that, under the model of medical intervention that the detention site was following during the most aggressive interrogation phase, Abu Zubaydah’s medical status was likely to deteriorate to an “unacceptable level” over the next two weeks.
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On August 25, 2002, the Base stated that the “combination of a lack of hygiene, sub-optimal nutrition, inadvertent trauma to the wound secondary to some of the stress techniques utilized at that stage, and the removal of formal obvious medical care to further isolate the subject had an overall additive effect on the deterioration of the wound.”
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