The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (58 page)

CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “Now in June, after about four months of interrogation, Abu Zubaydah
reached a point where he refused to cooperate and he shut down
. He would not talk at all to the FBI interrogators and although he was still talking to CIA interrogators
no significant progress was being made in learning anything of intelligence value
. He was, to our eye, employing classic resistance to interrogation techniques and employing them quite effectively. And it was clear to us that we were unlikely to be able to overcome those techniques without some significant intervention.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

Abu Zubaydah was rendered to CIA custody on March █, 2002. The CIA representation that Abu Zubaydah stopped cooperating with debriefers who were using traditional interrogation techniques is not supported by CIA records. In early June 2002, Abu Zubaydah’s interrogators recommended that Abu Zubaydah spend several weeks in isolation from interrogation while the interrogation team members traveled ██ “as a means of keeping [Abu Zubaydah] off-balance and to allow the team needed time off for a break and to attend to personal matters ███,” as well as to discuss “the endgame” for Abu Zubaydah ███ with officers from CIA Headquarters. As a result, Abu Zubaydah spent much of June 2002 and all of July 2002, 47 days in total, in isolation. When CIA officers next interrogated Abu Zubaydah, they immediately used the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, including the waterboard.

Prior to the 47 day isolation period, Abu Zubaydah provided information on al-Qa’ida activities, plans, capabilities, and relationships, in addition to information on its leadership structure, including personalities, decision-making processes, training, and tactics. Abu Zubaydah provided this type of information prior to, during, and after the utilization of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
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Abu Zubaydah’s inability to provide information on the next attack in the United States and operatives in the United States was the basis for CIA representations that Abu Zubaydah was “uncooperative,” and for the CIA’s determination that Abu Zubaydah required the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques to become “compliant” and reveal the information the CIA believed he was withholding. At no point during or after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques did Abu Zubaydah provide the information sought.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “This really began in the spring of 2002 with the capture of Abu Zubaydah. At that time we deployed a psychologist who had been under contract to CIA [Dr. SWIGERT], to provide real-time recommendations to help us overcome what seemed to be Abu Zubaydah’s very strong resistance to interrogation . . . We also made arrangements for [Dr. DUNBAR]. [Dr. DUNBAR] was the ███ psychologist for the Department of Defense’s SERE program, DOD’s Survival, Escape, Recovery and Evasion program, the program of training we put our troops, particularly our airmen, through so that they can withstand a hostile environment.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

The CIA testimony that SWIGERT was deployed to “overcome what seemed to be Abu Zubaydah’s very strong resistance to interrogation” is not supported by internal CIA records. Rather, CIA records indicate that CIA CTC officers anticipated Abu Zubaydah would resist providing information and contracted with SWIGERT prior to any meaningful assessment of Abu Zubaydah and his level of cooperation.

• On April 1, 2002, at a meeting on the interrogation of Abu Zubayah, ███CTC Legal ████████ recommended that SWIGERT—who was working under contract in the CIA’s OTS—be brought in to “provide real-time recommendations to overcome Abu Zubaydah’s resistance to interrogation.” (Abu Zubaydah had been in CIA custody for ███.) That evening, SWIGERT, and the CIA OTS officer who had recommended SWIGERT to
  █████
  , prepared a cable with suggestions for the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. SWIGERT had monitored the U.S. Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. SWIGERT, who had never conducted an actual interrogation, encouraged the CIA to focus on developing “learned helplessness” in CIA detainees.
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• Following the suggestion of ████CTC Legal, CTC contracted with SWIGERT to assist in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.
  
• As described in the Abu Zubaydah detainee review in Volume III, almost immediately after Abu Zubaydah’s transfer to CIA custody on March █, 2002, Abu Zubaydah’s medical condition deteriorated and Abu Zubaydah was transferred to the intensive care unit of a █████ hospital in Country █. During this time, FBI personnel continued to collect significant intelligence from Abu Zubaydah. According to an FBI report, during the period when Abu Zubaydah was still “connected to the intubator” at the hospital and unable to speak, he “indicated that he was willing to answer questions of the interviewers via writing in Arabic.” While in the intensive care unit of the hospital, Abu Zubaydah first discussed “Mukhtar” (KSM) and identified a photograph of KSM.
  
• When Abu Zubaydah was discharged from the
  █████
  hospital and returned to the CIA’s DETENTION SITE GREEN on April 15, 2002, he was kept naked, sleep deprived, and in a cell with bright lights with white noise or loud music playing. The FBI personnel objected to the coercive aspects of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation at this time, as they believed they were making substantial progress building rapport with Abu Zubaydah and developing intelligence without these measures. (During their questioning of Abu Zubaydah, the FBI officers provided a towel for Abu Zubaydah to cover himself and continued to use rapport building techniques with the detainee.
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  )
  

CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “We wanted [SWIGERT’s and DUNBAR’s] ideas about what approaches might be useful to get information from people like Abu Zubaydah and
other uncooperative al-Qa’ida detainees that we judged were withholding time-sensitive, perishable intelligence
. Keep in mind, as a backdrop for all of this, this wasn’t interrogating a snuffy that’s picked up on the battlefield. The
requirement to be in the CIA detention program is knowledge of [an] attack against the United States or its interests or knowledge about the location of Usama bin Ladin or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

The representation that the “requirement to be in the CIA detention program is knowledge of [an] attack against the United States or its interests or knowledge about the location of Usama bin Ladin or Ayman al-Zawahiri” is inconsistent with how the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program operated from its inception.
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As detailed elsewhere, numerous individuals had been detained and subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, despite doubts and questions surrounding their knowledge of terrorist threats and the location of senior al-Qa’ida leadership.

CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “We began in 2002, in the spring of 2002. We had one very high value detainee, Abu Zubaydah.
We knew he knew a lot. He would not talk. We were going nowhere with him.
The decision was made, we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to have an intervention here. What is it we can do?”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

The representation that Abu Zubaydah “would not talk” is incongruent with CIA interrogation records. The CIA representation that the CIA “knew [Abu Zubaydah] knew a lot” reflected an inaccurate assessment of Abu Zubaydah from 2002, prior to his capture, and did not represent the CIA’s assessment of Abu Zubaydah as of the April 2007 testimony.

• Prior to Abu Zubaydah’s capture, the CIA had intelligence stating that Abu Zubaydah was the “third or fourth” highest ranking al-Qa’ida leader. This information was based on single-source reporting that was retracted in July 2002—prior to Abu Zubaydah being subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. Other intelligence in CIA databases indicated that Abu Zubaydah was not a senior member of al-Qa’ida, but assisted al-Qa’ida members in acquiring false passports and other travel documents. Still other reporting indicated that, while Abu Zubaydah served as an administrator at terrorist training camps, he was not the central figure at these camps.
  
• After Abu Zubaydah was subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques in August 2002, the chief of Base at DETENTION SITE GREEN wrote: “I do not believe that AZ was as wired with al-Qa’ida as we believed him to be prior to his capture.”
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• In August 2006, the CIA published an assessment that concluded that “misconceptions” about Afghanistan training camps with which Abu Zubaydah was associated had resulted in reporting that “miscast Abu Zubaydah as a ‘senior al-Qa’ida lieutenant.’” The assessment concluded that “al-Qa’ida rejected Abu Zubaydah’s request in 1993 to join the group.”
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CIA representations that interrogators “were going nowhere with [Abu Zubaydah]” prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques are also incongruent with CIA records.

• Prior the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, Abu Zubaydah provided information on al-Qa’ida activities, plans, capabilities, relationships, leadership structure, personalities, decision-making processes, training, and tactics. Abu Zubaydah provided this type of information prior to, during, and after the utilization of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
  
• A quantitative review of Abu Zubaydah’s disseminated intelligence reporting indicates that more intelligence reports were disseminated from Abu Zubaydah’s first two months of interrogation—prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques—than were derived during the two-month period during and after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “After lengthy discussion, [Dr. SWIGERT] suggested that we might use the interrogation approaches that had been, for years, safely used at the DOD survival school—in other words, the interrogation techniques that we were training our airmen to resist. Those techniques have been used for about 50 years, with no significant injuries.”

VICE CHAIRMAN BOND: “And the techniques you are using are boiled down, is it true, from the SERE school?”

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “All of them are techniques that have been used in the SERE school, that’s right, Senator.”

SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

The CIA consistently represented that the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques were the same as the techniques used in the U.S. Department of Defense SERE school. However, CIA interrogation records indicate there were significant differences in how the techniques were used against CIA detainees. For example, a letter from the assistant attorney general to the CIA general counsel highlighted the statement in the Inspector General Special Review that the use of the waterboard in SERE training was “so different from subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant.”
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Prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against Abu Zubaydah, the chief of Base at the detention site identified differences between how the SERE techniques were applied in training, and how they would be applied to Abu Zubaydah:

“while the techniques described in Headquarters meetings and below are administered to student volunteers in the U.S. in a harmless way, with no measurable impact on the psyche of the volunteer, we do not believe we can assure the same here for a man forced through these processes and who will be made to believe this is the future course of the remainder of his life . . . personnel will make every effort possible to insure [
sic
] that subject is not permanently physically or mental harmed but we should not say at the outset of this process that there is no risk.”
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CIA TESTIMONY

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “This list of recommended techniques then went to the Department of Justice for their opinion regarding whether or not the techniques were lawful. DOJ returned a legal opinion that the 13 techniques were lawful, didn’t constitute torture, and hence could be employed for CIA interrogations.”
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SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS

As described in this summary, the August 1, 2002, Department of Justice OLC memorandum relied on inaccurate information provided by the CIA concerning Abu Zubaydah’s position in al-Qa’ida and the interrogation team’s assessment of whether Abu Zubaydah was withholding information about planned terrorist attacks.

The OLC memorandum, which stated that it was based on CIA-provided facts and would not apply if facts were to change, was also specific to Abu Zubaydah. The CIA nonetheless used the OLC memorandum as the legal basis for applying its enhanced interrogation techniques against other CIA detainees.
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CIA TESTIMONY

VICE CHAIRMAN BOND: “How far down the line [does al-Qa’ida] train [its] operatives for interrogation resistance?”

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “I’m getting a nod from the experts,
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Senator, that it’s rather broadly-based.”

VICE CHAIRMAN BOND: “So even if you captured the al-Qa’ida facilitator, probably the army field manual stuff are things that he’s already been trained on and he knows that he doesn’t have to talk.”