The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (20 page)

Later that year, in advance of a National Security Council Principals Committee meeting on September 14, 2004, officials from the Department of Defense called the CIA to inform the CIA that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz would not support the CIA’s position that notifying the ICRC of all detainees in U.S. Government custody would harm U.S. national security. According to an internal CIA email following the call, the deputy secretary of defense had listened to the CIA’s arguments for nondisclosure, but believed that it was time for full notification. The email stated that the Department of Defense supported the U.S. Government’s position that there should be full disclosure to the ICRC, unless there were compelling reasons of military necessity or national security. The email added that the Department of Defense did not believe an adequate articulation of military necessity or national security reasons warranting nondisclosure existed, that “DoD is tired of ‘taking hits’ for CIA ‘ghost detainees,’” and that the U.S. government “should not be in the position of causing people to ‘disappear.’”
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Despite numerous meetings and communications within the executive branch throughout 2004, the United States did not formally respond to the January 6, 2004, ICRC letter until June 13, 2005.
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2. CIA Leadership Calls Draft Inspector General Special Review of the Program “Imbalanced and Inaccurate,” Responds with Inaccurate Information; CIA Seeks to Limit Further Review of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program by the Inspector General

The CIA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was first informed of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program in November 2002, nine months after Abu Zubaydah became the CIA’s first detainee. As described, the information was conveyed by the DDO, who also informed the OIG of the death of Gul Rahman. In January 2003, the DDO further requested that the OIG investigate allegations of unauthorized interrogation techniques against ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Separately, the OIG “received information that some employees were concerned that certain covert Agency activities at an overseas detention and interrogation site might involve violations of human rights,” according to the OIG’s Special Review.
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During the course of the OIG’s interviews, numerous CIA officers expressed concerns about the CIA’s lack of preparedness for the detention and interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.
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Other CIA officers expressed concern about the analytical assumptions driving interrogations,
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as well as the lack of language and cultural background among members of the interrogation teams.
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Some CIA officers described pressure from CIA Headquarters to use the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, which they attributed to faulty analytical assumptions about what detainees should know.
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As the chief of RDG,
██████████████████
, stated to the OIG in a February 2003 interview:

“CTC does not know a lot about al-Qa’ida and as a result, Headquarters analysts have constructed ‘models’ of what al-Qa’ida represents to them. [
████████
] noted that the Agency does not have the linguists or subject matter experts it needs. The questions sent from CTC/Usama bin Laden (UBL) to the interrogators are based on SIGINT [signals intelligence] and other intelligence that often times is incomplete or wrong. When the detainee does not respond to the question, the assumption at Headquarters is that the detainee is holding back and ‘knows’ more, and consequently. Headquarters recommends resumption of EITs. This difference of opinion between the interrogators and Headquarters as to whether the detainee is ‘compliant’ is the type of ongoing pressure the interrogation team is exposed to. [████████] believes the waterboard was used ‘recklessly’ - ‘too many times’ on Abu Zubaydah at [DETENTION SITE GREEN], based in part on faulty intelligence.”
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One senior interrogator,
███████████
, informed the OIG that differences between CIA Headquarters and the interrogators at the CIA detention sites were not part of the official record. According to ███████, “all of the fighting and criticism is done over the phone and is not put into cables,” and that CIA “[c]ables reflect things that are ‘all rosy.’”
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As is described elsewhere, and reflected in the final OIG Special Review, CIA officers discussed numerous other topics with the OIG, including conditions at DETENTION SITE COBALT, specific interrogations, the video taping of interrogations, the administration of the program, and concerns about the lack of an “end game” for CIA detainees, as well as the impact of possible public revelations concerning the existence and operation of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
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In January 2004, the CIA inspector general circulated for comment to various offices within the CIA a draft of the OIG Special Review of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. Among other matters, the OIG Special Review described divergences between the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques as applied and as described to the Department of Justice in 2002, the use of unauthorized techniques, and oversight problems related to DETENTION SITE COBALT. The draft OIG Special Review elicited responses from the CIA’s deputy director for operations, the deputy director for science and technology, the Office of General Counsel, and the Office of Medical Services. Several of the responses—particularly those from CIA General Counsel Scott Muller and CIA Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt—were highly critical of the inspector general’s draft Special Review. General Counsel Muller wrote that the OIG Special Review presented “an imbalanced and inaccurate picture of the Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Program,” and claimed the OIG Special Review, “[o]n occasion,” “quoted or summarized selectively and misleadingly” from CIA documents.
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Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt wrote that the OIG Special Review should have come to the “conclusion that our efforts have thwarted attacks and saved lives,” and that “EITs (including the water board) have been indispensable to our successes.” Pavitt attached to his response a document describing information the CIA obtained “as a result of the lawful use of EITs” that stated, “[t]he evidence points clearly to the fact that without the use of such techniques, we and our allies would [have] suffered major terrorist attacks involving hundreds, if not thousands, of casualties.”
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A review of CIA records found that the representations in the Pavitt materials were almost entirely inaccurate.
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In addition to conveying inaccurate information on the operation, management, and effectiveness of the CIA program, CIA leadership continued to impede the OIG in its efforts to oversee the program. In July 2005, Director Goss sent a memorandum to the inspector general to “express several concerns regarding the in-depth, multi-faceted review” of the CIA’s CTC. The CIA director wrote that he was “increasingly concerned about the cumulative impact of the OIG’s work on CTC’s performance,” adding that “I believe it makes sense to complete existing reviews . . . before opening new ones.” Director Goss added, “[t]o my knowledge, Congress is satisfied that you are meeting its requirements” with regard to the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
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At the time, however, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was seeking a Committee investigation of the CIA program, in part because of the aspects of the program that were not being investigated by the Office of Inspector General.
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In April 2007, CIA Director Michael Hayden had his “Senior Councilor”—an individual within the CIA who was accountable only to the CIA director—conduct a review of the inspector general’s practices. Defending the decision to review the OIG, the CIA told the Committee that there were “morale issues that the [CIA] director needs to be mindful of,” and that the review had uncovered instances of “bias” among OIG personnel against the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
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In 2008, the CIA director announced the results of his review of the OIG to the CIA work force and stated that the inspector general had “chosen to take a number of steps to heighten the efficiency, assure the quality, and increase the transparency of the investigative process.”
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3. The CIA Does Not Satisfy Inspector General Special Review Recommendation to Assess the Effectiveness of the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

The final May 2004 OIG Special Review included a recommendation that the CIA’s DDO conduct a study of the effectiveness of the CIA’s interrogation techniques within 90 days. Prompted by the recommendation, the CIA tasked two senior CIA officers to lead “an informal operational assessment of the CIA detainee program.” The reviewers were tasked with responding to 12 specific terms of reference, including an assessment of “the effectiveness of each interrogation technique and environmental deprivation” to determine if any techniques or deprivation should be “added, modified, or discontinued.”
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According to a CIA memorandum from the reviewers, their review was based on briefings by CTC personnel, “a discussion with three senior CTC managers who played key roles in running the CIA detainee program,” and a review of nine documents, including the OIG Special Review and an article by the CIA contractors who developed the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, Hammond DUNBAR and Grayson SWIGERT.
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As described in this summary, and in more detail in Volume II, these documents contained numerous inaccurate representations regarding the operation and effectiveness of the CIA program. There are no records to indicate the two senior CIA officers reviewed the underlying interrogation cables and intelligence records related to the representations. Their resulting assessment repeated information found in the documents provided to them and reported that the “CIA Detainee Program is a success, providing unique and valuable intelligence at the tactical level for the benefit of policymakers, war fighters, and the CIA’s covert action operators.” The assessment also reported that regulations and procedures for handling detainees were “adequate and clear,” and that the program had responded swiftly, fairly, and completely to deviations from the structured program.
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Nonetheless, the assessment came to the conclusion that detention and interrogations activities should not be conducted by the CIA, but by “experienced U.S. law enforcement officers,” stating:

“The Directorate of Operations (DO) should not be in the business of running prisons or ‘temporary detention facilities,’ The DO should focus on its core mission: clandestine intelligence operations. Accordingly, the DO should continue to hunt, capture, and render targets, and then exploit them for intelligence and ops leads once in custody. The management of their incarceration and interrogation should be conducted by appropriately experienced U.S. law enforcement officers, because that is their charter and they have the training and experience.”
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The assessment noted that the CIA program required significant resources at a time when the CIA was already stretched thin. Finally, the authors wrote that they “strongly believe” that the president and congressional oversight members should receive a comprehensive update on the program, “[g]iven the intense interest and controversy surrounding the detainee issue.”
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On January 26, 2005, DCI Goss forwarded the senior officer review to Inspector General John Helgerson.
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The DCI asked whether the review would satisfy the inspector general recommendation for an independent review of the program.
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On January 28, 2005, the inspector general responded that the senior officer review would not satisfy the recommendation for an independent review.
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The inspector general also responded to a concern raised by ████████████ OMS that studying the results of CIA interrogations would amount to human experimentation, stating:

“I fear there was a misunderstanding. OIG did not have in mind doing additional, guinea pig research on human beings. What we are recommending is that the Agency undertake a careful review of its experience to date in using the various techniques and that it draw conclusions about their safety, effectiveness, etc., that can guide CIA officers as we move ahead. We make this recommendation because we have found that the Agency over the decades has continued to get itself in messes related to interrogation programs for one overriding reason: we do not document and learn from our experience - each generation of officers is left to improvise anew, with problematic results for our officers as individuals and for our Agency. We are not unaware that there are subtleties to this matter, as the effectiveness of techniques varies among individuals, over time, as administered, in combination with one another, and so on. All the more reason to document these important findings.”
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In November and December 2004, the CIA responded to National Security Advisor Rice’s questions about the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques by asserting that an effectiveness review was not possible, while highlighting examples of “[k]ey intelligence” the CIA represented was obtained after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. The December 2004 memorandum prepared for the national security advisor entitled, “Effectiveness of the CIA Counterterrorist Interrogation Techniques,” begins:

“Action Requested: None, This memorandum responds to your request for an independent study of the foreign intelligence efficacy of using enhanced interrogation techniques. There is no way to conduct such a study. What we can do, however, if [
sic
] set forth below the intelligence the Agency obtained from detainees who, before their interrogations, were not providing any information of intelligence [value].”
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