The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (26 page)

The case of
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
prompted the OLC to withdraw a draft memorandum on the impact of the Detainee Treatment Act on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
970
The CIA did not use its enhanced interrogation techniques again until July 2007, by which time the OLC had interpreted the Military Commissions Act, signed by the president on October 17, 2006, in such a way as to allow the CIA to resume the use of the techniques.
971

N. The Final Disposition of CIA Detainees and the End of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program

1. President Bush Publicly Acknowledges the Existence of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program

After significant discussions throughout 2006 among the National Security Council principals, the Department of Defense ultimately agreed to accept the transfer of a number of CIA detainees to U.S. military custody.
972

On September 6, 2006, President George W. Bush delivered a public speech acknowledging that the United States had held al-Qa’ida operatives in secret detention, stating that the CIA had employed an “alternative set of procedures” in interrogating these detainees, and describing information obtained from those detainees while in CIA custody.
973
As described later in this summary, the speech, which was based on CIA information and vetted by the CIA, contained significant inaccurate statements, especially regarding the significance of information acquired from CIA detainees and the effectiveness of the CIA’s interrogation techniques.
974

In the speech, the president announced the transfer of 14 detainees to Department of Defense custody at Guantanamo Bay and the submission to Congress of proposed legislation on military commissions.
975
As all other detainees in the CIA’s custody had been transferred to other nations, the CIA had no detainees in its custody at the time of the speech.
976

2. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Gains Access to CIA Detainees After Their Transfer to U.S. Military Custody in September 2006

After the 14 CIA detainees arrived at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, they were housed in a separate building from other U.S. military detainees and remained under the operational control of the CIA.
977
In October 2006, the 14 detainees were allowed meetings with the ICRC and described in detail similar stories regarding their detention, treatment, and interrogation while in CIA custody. The ICRC provided information on these claims to the CIA.
978
Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo emailed the CIA director and other CIA senior leaders, following a November 8, 2006, meeting with the ICRC, stating:

“[a]s described to us, albeit in summary form, what the detainees allege actually does not sound that far removed from the reality . . . the ICRC, for its part, seems to find their stories largely credible, having put much stock in the fact that the story each detainee has told about his transfer, treatment and conditions of confinement was basically consistent, even though they had been incommunicado with each other throughout their detention by us.”
979

In February 2007 the ICRC transmitted to the CIA its final report on the “Treatment of Fourteen ‘High Value Detainees’ in CIA Custody.” The ICRC report concluded that “the ICRC clearly considers that the allegations of the fourteen include descriptions of treatment and interrogation techniques—singly or in combination—that amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
980
Notwithstanding Rizzo’s comments, the CIA disagreed with a number of the ICRC’s findings, provided rebuttals to the ICRC in writing, and informed the Committee that “numerous false allegations of physical or threatened abuses and faulty legal assumptions and analysis in the report undermine its overall credibility.”
981
The ICRC report was acquired by
The New York Review of Books
and posted on the
Review’
s
website in April 2009.
982
The Committee found the ICRC report to be largely consistent with information contained in CIA interrogation records.
983

3. The CIA Considers Future of the Program Following the Military Commissions Act

As noted, in June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court case of
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
prompted the OLC to withdraw a draft legal memorandum on the impact of the Detainee Treatment Acton the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
984
The administration determined that the CIA would need new legislation to continue to use the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
985
The Military Commissions Act addressed the issues raised by the
Hamdan
decision and provided the president the authority to issue an Executive Order detailing permissible conduct under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The bill passed the Senate on September 28, 2006, and the House of Representatives the following day.
986

On November █, 2006, when Abd Kadi al-Iraqi was rendered to CIA custody, the draft Executive Order and an updated OLC memorandum had not yet been prepared.
987
Although Abdal-Hadi al-Iraqi was consistently assessed as being cooperative, interrogators also believed he was withholding information on operational plots and the locations of high-value targets.
988
The CIA believed his ███████████ in February 2007 supported this conclusion,
989
prompting discussions at CIA Headquarters about the possible use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against him. By the end of the month, however, the CIA had determined there was “insufficient intelligence . . . that [Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi] possesses actionable information . . . to justify the use of” the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
990

In October 2006, a panel of CIA interrogators recommended that four CIA enhanced interrogation techniques—the abdominal slap, cramped confinement, nudity, and the waterboard—be eliminated, but that the remainder of the interrogation techniques be retained.
991
Under this proposal, the CIA would have been authorized to subject detainees to dietary manipulation, sleep deprivation, the facial slap, the facial grasp, the attention grab, walling, stress positions, and water dousing. There are few CIA records describing the panel’s deliberations, or the CIA’s response to its recommendations. The panel proposed dropping two of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques—nudity and the abdominal slap—that the CIA director had proposed retaining in March 2006, while recommending that the CIA retain three other techniques—walling, stress positions, and water dousing—that had not otherwise been requested for retention.
992

4. The CIA Develops Modified Enhanced Interrogation Program After Passage of the Military Commissions Act

In the spring of 2007, the OLC completed a draft of a legal opinion concluding that the use of the CIA’s seven proposed enhanced interrogation techniques—sleep deprivation, nudity, dietary manipulation, facial grasp, facial slap, abdominal slap, and the attention grab—would be consistent with the requirements of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and the Military Commissions Act. This draft generated significant disagreement between the State Department’s legal advisor, John Bellinger, and the Acting Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury, resulting in Secretary of State Rice refusing to concur with the proposed Executive Order.
993

In June 2007, in an effort to gain Secretary Rice’s support, the CIA asked CIA contractors SWIGERT and DUNBAR to brief Secretary Rice on the CIA’s interrogation program. During that briefing, Secretary Rice expressed her concern about the use of nudity and a detainee being shackled in the standing position for the purpose of sleep deprivation. According to CIA records, in early July 2007, after the capture of Muhammad Rahim, Secretary Rice indicated that she would not concur with an interrogation program that included nudity, but that she would not continue to object to the CIA’s proposed interrogation program if it was reduced to six of the enhanced interrogation techniques listed in the draft OLC memorandum: (1) sleep deprivation, (2) dietary manipulation, (3) facial grasp, (4) facial slap, (5) abdominal slap, and (6) the attention grab.
994

5. Muhammad Rahim, the CIA’s Last Detainee, is Subjected to Extensive Use of the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Provides No Intelligence

On June 25, 2007, al-Qa’ida facilitator Muhammad Rahim was captured in Pakistan.
995
Based on reports of debriefings of Rahim in foreign government custody and other intelligence, CIA personnel assessed that Rahim likely possessed information related to the location of Usama bin Laden and other al-Qa’ida leaders.
996
On July 3, 2007, Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo informed Acting Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury that the CIA was anticipating a “new guest,” and that the CIA “would need the signed DOJ opinion ‘in a matter of days.’”
997

Muhammad Rahim was rendered to CIA custody at DETENTION SITE BROWN in Country ██ on ████████ July ██, 2007.
998
Upon his arrival, CIA interrogators had a single discussion with Rahim during which he declined to provide answers to questions about threats to the United States and the locations of top al-Qa’ida leaders.
999
Based on this interaction, CIA interrogators reported that Rahim was unlikely to be cooperative. As a result, CIA Director Michael Hayden sent a letter to the president formally requesting that the president issue the Executive Order interpreting the Geneva Conventions in a manner to allow the CIA to interrogate Rahim using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. A classified legal opinion from OLC concluding that the use of the CIA’s six enhanced interrogation techniques proposed for use on Rahim (sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, facial grasp, facial slap, abdominal slap, and the attention grab) did not violate applicable laws was issued on July 20, 2007. The accompanying unclassified Executive Order was issued the same day.
1000
Although Rahim had been described by the CIA as “one of a handful of al-Qa’ida facilitators working directly for Bin Ladin and Zawahiri,”
1001
Rahim remained in a CIA cell without being questioned for a week, while CIA interrogators waited for approval to use the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against him.
1002

CIA interrogators initially expressed optimism about their ability to acquire information from Rahim using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. A cable sent from the CIA detention site stated:

“Senior interrogators on site, with experience in almost every HVD [high-value detainee] interrogation conducted by [CIA], believe the employment of interrogation with measures would likely provide the impetus to shock [Rahim] from his current resistance posture and provide an opportunity to influence his behavior to begin truthful participation.”
1003

Four CIA interrogators present at the CIA detention site began applying the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques on July 21, 2007.
1004
According to CIA records, the interrogators “employed interrogation measures of facial slap, abdominal slap, and facial hold, and explained to [Rahim] that his assumptions of how he would be treated were wrong.”
1005
The interrogators emphasized to Rahim that “his situation was the result of his deception, he would stay in this position until interrogators chose to remove him from it, and he could always correct a previous misstatement.”
1006
According to the cable describing the interrogation, Rahim then threatened to fabricate information:

“[Rahim] reiterated several times during the session that he would make up information if interrogators pressured him, and that he was at the complete mercy of the interrogators and they could even kill him if they wanted. Interrogators emphasized to [Rahim] that they would not allow him to die because then he could not give them information, but that he would, eventually, tell interrogators the truth.”
1007

During the interrogation of Rahim using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, Rahim was subjected to eight extensive sleep deprivation sessions,
1008
as well as to the attention grasp, facial holds, abdominal slaps, and the facial slap.
1009
During sleep deprivation sessions, Rahim was usually shackled in a standing position, wearing a diaper and a pair of shorts.
1010
Rahim’s diet was almost entirely limited to water and liquid Ensure meals.
1011
CIA interrogators would provide Rahim with a cloth to further cover himself as an incentive to cooperate. For example, a July 27, 2007, cable from the CIA detention site states that when Rahim showed a willingness to engage in questioning about “historical information,” he was “provided a large towel to cover his torso” as a “subtle reward.”
1012
CIA interrogators asked Rahim a variety of questions during these interrogations, seeking information about the current location of senior al-Qa’ida leaders, which he did not provide.
1013

On September 8, 2007, CIA Director Hayden approved an extension of MuJiammad Rahim’s CIA detention.
1014
The Director of the National Clandestine Service Jose Rodriguez disagreed with the approved extension, writing:

“I did
not
sign because I do not concur with extending Rahim’s detention for another 60 days. I do not believe the tools in our tool box will allow us to overcome Rahim’s resistance techniques. J.A.R.”
1015