The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (35 page)

Contrary to CIA representations, the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against KSM did not result in the “discovery” of KSM’s “Second Wave” plotting. On March 1, 2003, KSM was captured. He was rendered to CIA custody on March █, 2003, and was immediately subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. While being subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, and in the weeks afterwards, KSM did not discuss the “Second Wave” plotting.
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On April 19, 2003—24 days after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques had ceased—interrogators questioned KSM about Masran bin Arshad and his role in developing a cell for the “Second Wave” attacks. After being told that Masran bin Arshad had been arrested, KSM told his interrogators, “I have forgotten about him, he is not in my mind at all.” KSM also denied that “he knew anything about a plot to take out the ‘tallest building’ in California.”
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KSM’s reporting prompted ALEC Station to write in a cable that “we remain concerned that KSM’s progression towards full debriefing status is not yet apparent where it counts most, in relation to threats to US interests, especially inside CONUS.”
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According to a CIA cable, on May 5, 2003, KSM “eventually admitted to tasking Masran bin Arshad to target the tallest building in California.”
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KSM continued, however, to deny aspects of the plotting—such as denying the use of shoe-bombs in the operation, only to confirm the planned use of shoe-bombs in later interrogations.
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On June 23, 2003, an ALEC Station officer wrote that “[g]iven that KSM only admitted knowledge of this operation upon learning of Masran’s detention, we assess he is not telling all he knows, but rather is providing information he believes we already possess.”
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KSM was asked about detained Malaysian national Zaini Zakaria for the first time on July 3, 2003. During the interrogation, the CIA debriefer stated that there was information suggesting that Zakaria was funded by al-Qa’ida to take flight lessons in September 2001.
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KSM denied knowing the name Zaini Zakaria, but later described “Mussa.” The CIA suspected this was an alias for Zakaria. CIA officers at the detention site where KSM was being interrogated then wrote in a cable, “[t]he core problem, once again, is the appearance that KSM gave up this critical information only after being presented with the idea that we might already know something about it.”
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With regard to the al-Ghuraba group, contrary to CIA representations, a wide body of intelligence reporting indicates that the al-Ghuraba group was not “discovered” as a result of reporting from KSM or Hambali, nor was the al-Ghuraba group “tasked” with, or witting of, any aspect of KSM’s “Second Wave” plotting.
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Rather, while in foreign government custody, Hambali’s brother, Gun Gun Ruswan Gunawan, identified “a group of Malaysian and Indonesian students in Karachi” witting of Gunawan’s affiliation with Jemaah Islamiyah.
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CIA records indicate that Gunawan stated that the students were in Karachi “at the request of Hambali.”
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In a cable conveying this information, CIA officers recalled intelligence reporting indicating KSM planned to use Malaysians in the “next wave of attacks,” and stated Gunawan had just identified “a group of 16 individuals, most all of whom are Malaysians.”
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The cable closed by stating, “we need to question Hambali if this collection is part of his ‘next wave’ cell.”
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(From July through December 2002, foreign government reporting described KSM’s use of Malaysians in the “next wave attacks.” The reporting included Masran bin Arshad’s information, provided while he was in foreign government custody, on his four-person Malaysian cell tasked by KSM
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to be part of an operation targeting the West Coast of the United States, as well as July 2002 reporting on Malaysian national Zaini Zakaria seeking pilot training.
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)

Contrary to CIA representations, the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against Hambali did not result in the “discovery” of “the Guraba Cell” that was “tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave’” plotting. As noted, in foreign government custody, Hambali’s brother, Gun Gun Ruswan Gunawan, identified “a group of Malaysian and Indonesian students in Karachi” witting of Gunawan’s affiliation with Jemaah Islamiyah.
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The cable conveying this information recommended “confronting Hambali” with this information.
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While being subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, Hambali was questioned about the al-Ghuraba group and KSM’s effort to use airplanes to attack the United States. Hambali told his CIA interrogators “that some of the members of [the al-Ghuraba group] were destined to work for al-Qa’ida if everything had gone according to plan,” that one member of the group had “ambitions to become a pilot,” that he (Hambali) was going to send three individuals to KSM in response to KSM’s “tasking to find pilot candidates, but never got around to asking these people,” and that “KSM told him to provide as many pilots as he could.
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Months later, on November 30, 2003, after three weeks of being questioned by a debriefer “almost entirely in Bahasa Indonesia,” Hambali admitted to fabricating a number of statements during the period he was being subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, including information on efforts to locate pilots for KSM. Specifically, Hambali stated “he lied about the pilot because he was constantly asked about it and under stress, and so decided to fabricate.” According to a cable, Hambali said he fabricated these claims “in an attempt to reduce the pressure on himself,” and “to give an account that was consistent with what [Hambali] assessed the questioners wanted to hear.”
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The November 30, 2003, cable noted that CIA personnel “assesse[d] [Hambali]’s admission of previous fabrication to be credible.”
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Hambali then consistently described “the al-Ghuraba organization” as a “development camp for potential future JI operatives and leadership, vice a JI cell or an orchestrated attempt by JI to initiate JI operations outside of Southeast Asia.”
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This description was corroborative of other intelligence reporting.
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An October 27, 2006, CIA cable states that “all of the members of the JI al-Ghuraba cell have been released,”
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while an April 18, 2008, CIA intelligence report focusing on the Jemaah Islamiyah and referencing the al-Ghuraba group makes no reference to the group serving as potential operatives for KSM’s “Second Wave” plotting.
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4. The Thwarting of the United Kingdom Urban Targets Plot and the Capture of Dhiren Barot, aka Issa al-Hindi

summary
: The CIA represented that its enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and necessary to produce critical, otherwise unavailable intelligence, which enabled the CIA to disrupt terrorist plots, capture terrorists, and save lives. Over a period of years, the CIA provided the capture of Dhiren Barot, aka Issa al-Hindi, and the thwarting of Barot’s United Kingdom Urban Targets Plot as evidence for the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. These representations were inaccurate. The operation that resulted in the identification of a U.K.-based “Issa,” the identification of “Issa” as Dhiren Barot, Dhiren Barot’s arrest, and the thwarting of his plotting, resulted from the investigative activities of U.K. government authorities. Contrary to CIA representations, KSM did not provide the first reporting on a U.K.-based “Issa,” nor are there records to support the CIA representation that reporting from CIA detainees subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques resulted in Dhiren Barot’s arrest. After the arrest of Dhiren Barot, CIA officers prepared a document for U.K. authorities which stated: “while KSM tasked al-Hindi to go to the US to surveil targets, he was not aware of the extent to which Barot’s planning had progressed, who Issa’s co-conspirators were, or that Issa’s planning had come to focus on the UK.” The plotting associated with Dhiren Barot was assessed by experts to be “amateurish,” “defective,” and unlikely to succeed.

further details
: Dhiren Barot, aka Issa al-Hindi,
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met with al-Qa’ida leaders in Pakistan in early 2004 to discuss potential terrorist attacks against targets in the United Kingdom.
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Intelligence reporting indicates that Barot spent February and March 2004 in Pakistan with senior al-Qa’ida explosives expert ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Muhajir, likely refining plans to use vehicle-based bombs against U.K. targets.
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In July 2004, casing reports associated with “Issa” were recovered in a raid in Pakistan associated with the capture of Abu Talha al-Pakistani.
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During questioning in foreign government custody, “Abu Talha stated the U.S. casing reports were from Abu Issa.”
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Further debriefings of Abu Talha revealed that Issa, aka Dhiren Barot, was the “operational manager” for al-Qa’ida in the United Kingdom.
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Additional information about Dhiren Barot’s U.K. plotting was recovered from the hard drives confiscated during the raid that resulted in the arrest of Dhiren Barot. A document describing the plotting was divided into two parts. The first part included “the Gas Limos project,” which envisioned parking explosives-laden courier vans or limousines in underground garages. The second part, the “radiation (dirty bomb) project,” proposed using 10,000 smoke detectors as part of an explosive device to spread a radioactive element contained in the detectors. Dhiren Barot’s plotting was referred to as the United Kingdom Urban Targets Plot.
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The U.K. Urban Targets Plot was disrupted when Dhiren Barot and his U.K.-based associates were detained in the United Kingdom in early August 2004.
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On August 24, 2004, U.K. authorities informed the CIA that the criminal charges against Barot and his co-conspirators “were mainly possible owing to the recovery of terrorist-related materials during searches of associated properties and vehicles following their arrests.”
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In September 2004, an Intelligence Community assessment stated that Dhiren Barot was “in an early phase of operational planning at the time of his capture,” and that there was no evidence to indicate that Barot had acquired the envisioned materials for the attacks.
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In December 2005, an FBI assessment stated, “the main plot presented in the Gas Limos Project is unlikely to be as successful as described,” concluding, “we assess that the Gas Limos Project, while ambitious and creative, is far-fetched.
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On November 7, 2006, Dhiren Barot was sentenced to life in prison. On May 16, 2007, Barot’s sentence was reduced from life in prison to 30 years after a British Court of Appeal found that expert assessments describing the plot as “amateurish,” “defective,” and unlikely to succeed were not provided to the sentencing judge.
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The thwarting of the United Kingdom Urban Targets Plot and the identification and/or capture of Dhiren Barot, aka Issa al-Hindi, is one of the eight most frequently cited examples provided by the CIA as evidence for the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. Over a period of years, CIA documents prepared for and provided to senior policymakers, intelligence officials, and the Department of Justice represent the identification and/or arrest of Dhiren Barot, and/or the disruption of his U.K. plotting, as an example of how “[k]ey intelligence collected from HVD interrogations
after
applying interrogation techniques” had “enabled CIA to disrupt terrorist plots” and “capture additional terrorists.”
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In at least one document prepared for the president, the CIA specifically highlighted the waterboard technique in enabling the “disruption of [Dhiren Barot’s] sleeper cell.”
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The CIA further represented that the intelligence acquired from the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques was “otherwise unavailable” and “saved lives.”
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For example, documents prepared in February 2009 for CIA Director Leon Panetta on the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques state that the “CIA assesses . . . the techniques were effective in producing foreign intelligence,” and that “most, if not all, of the timely intelligence acquired from detainees in this program would not have been discovered or reported by other means.” The document provides examples of “some of the key captures, disrupted plots, and intelligence” attributed to CIA interrogations. The document includes the following:

“Key Captures from HVD Interrogations: . . .
arrest of Dhiren Barot (aka Issa al-Hindi) in the United Kingdom
.”
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The materials for Director Panetta also include a chart entitled, “Key Intelligence and Reporting Derived from Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad,” that identifies two pieces of “key intelligence” acquired from KSM, one related to Majid Khan
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and the other to Dhiren Barot:

“KSM reports on an unidentified UK-based operative, Issa al-Hindi, which touches off an intensive CIA, FBI and [United Kingdom] manhunt.”
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Likewise, a December 2004 CIA memorandum prepared for National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice responded to a request “for an independent study of the foreign intelligence efficacy of using enhanced interrogation techniques.” The CIA responded, “[t]here is no way to conduct such a study,” but stated that the “CIA’s use of DOJ-approved enhanced interrogation techniques, as part of a comprehensive interrogation approach, has enabled CIA to disrupt terrorist plots, capture additional terrorists, and collect a high volume of critical intelligence on al-Qa’ida.” The document then provides examples of “[k]ey intelligence collected from HVD interrogations
after
applying interrogation techniques,”
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including: