Find interesting excerpts from the recently declassified CIA IG report (direct link to PDF here) on the torture program and post them in the comments of this diary.
Here is one from p. 94:
Concerns over Participation in the CTC Program
- During the course of this Review, a number of Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action resulting for participation in the CTC Program. A number of officers expressed concern that a human rights group might pursue them for activities [REDACTED] Additionally, they feared that the Agency would not stand behind them if this occurred.
- One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some "wanted list" to appear before the World Court for war crimes stemming from activities [REDACTED] Another said, "Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this . . . [but] it has to be done." He expressed concern that the CTC Program will be exposed in the news media and cited particular concern about the possibility of being named in a leak.
p. 43:
An experienced Agency interrogator reported that the [REDACTED] interrogators threatened Khalid Shaykh Muhammad [REDACTED] According to thei interrogator the [REDACTED] interrogators said to Khalid Shaykh Muhammad that if anything else happens in the United States, "We're going to kill your children."
The full report is about 122 pages and does indeed contain significant redactions. I figure if we pool our resources here we can get the meat of this report rather quickly.
UPDATES
p. 44:
OIG received reports that interrogation team members employed potentially injurious stress positions on Al-Nashiri. Al-Nashiri was required to kneel on the floor and lean back. On at least one occasion, an Agency officer reportedly pushed Al-Nashiri backward while he was in this stress position. On another occasion, [REDACTED] said he had to inctercede after [REDACTED] expressed concern that Al-Nashiri's arms might be dislocated from his shoulders. [REDACTED] explained that, at the time, the interrogators were attempting to put Al-Nashiri in a standing stress position. Al-Nashiri was reportedly lifted off the floor by his arms while his arms were bound behind his back with a belt.
p. 83 (via sullivanst):
205.(TS/[REDACTED]) According to a number of those interviewed for this review, the Agency's intelligence on Al-Qa'ida was limited prior to the initiation of the CTC interrogation program. The Agency lacked adequate linguists or subject matter experts and had very little hard knowledge of what particular Al-Qa'ida leaders--who later became detainess--knew. This lack of knowledge led analysts to speculate about what a detainee "should know," vice information the analyst could objectively demonstrate the detainee did know. [REDACTED]
206.(TS[REDACTED]) [REDACTED] When a detainee did not respond to a question posed to him, the assumption at Headquarters was that the detainee was holding back and knew more; consequently, Headquarters recommended resumption of EIT.
(via Its the Supreme Court Stupid)
- [REDACTED] is evidenced in the final waterboard session of Abu Zubaydah. According to a senior CTC officer, the interrogation team [REDACTED] considered Abu Zubaydah compliant and wanted to terminate EITs. [REDACTED] believed Abu Zubaydah continued to withhold information, [REDACTED] at the time generated substantial pressure from Headquarters to continue use of EITs. According to this senior officer, the decision to resume use of the waterboard on Abu Zubaydah was made by senior officers of the DO [RECACTED] to assess Abu Zubaydah's compliance and witnessed the final waterboard session, after which, they reported back to Headquarter that the EITs were no longer needed on Abu Zubaydah.
Washington Independent: "CIA Withheld Medical Information From the Justice Department to Obtain Torture Approvals"
According to the Chief, Medical Services, OMS [the CIA's Office of Medical Services] was neither consulted nor involved in the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of EITs ["enhanced interrogation techniques," nor provided with the OTS report cited in the OLC opinion. In retrospect, based on the OLC extracts of the OTS report, OMS contends that the reported sophistication of the preliminary EIT review was probably exaggerated, at least as it related to the waterboard, and that the power of this EIT was appreciably overstated in the report. Furthermore, OMS contends that the expertise of the SERE psychologist/interrogators on the waterboard was probably misrepresented at the time, as the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant. Consequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe.
In June 2003,the U.S. military sought an Afghan citizen who had been implicated in rocket attacks on a joint U.S. Army and CIA position in Asadabad located in Northeast Afghanistan. On 18 June 2003, this individual appeared at Asadabad Base at the urging of the local Governor. The individual was held in a detention facility guarded by U.S. soldiers. During the four days the individual was detained, an Agency independent contractor, who was a paramilitary officer, is alleged to have severely beaten the detainee with a large metal flashlight and kicked him during interrogation sessions. The detainee died in custody on 21 June; his body was turned over to a local cleric and returned to his family on the following date without an autopsy being performed.Neither the contractor nor his Agency staff supervisor had been trained or authorized to conduct interrogations.
To those who would claim that this was all necessary for the sake of fighting terrorism, I can only offer up this quote:
If terrorism and violence in the name of dissent cannot be condoned, neither can violence that is officially sanctioned. Such action perverts the legal system that alone assures the survival of our traditions.
The surest way to defeat terrorism is to promote justice in our societies—legal, economic, and social justice. Justice that is summary undermines the future it seeks to promote. It produces only more violence, more victims, and more terrorism. Respect for the rule of law will promote justice and remove the seeds of subversion. Abandoning such respect, governments descend into the netherworld of the terrorist and lose their strongest weapon—their moral authority.
-- Secretary of State Cyrus Vance addressing OAS, 14 June 1977