The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (63 page)
Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
CIA records indicate that multiple detainees were shackled with their hands above their heads at other CIA detention sites. For example, see detainee reviews in Volume III, to include ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,
2719
Hassan Ghul,
2720
and KSM.
2721
According to CIA cables, Abu Zubaydah was handcuffed “high on the bars.”
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Draft OMS guidelines on interrogations, noted that detainees could be shackled with their arms above their heads for “roughly two hours without great concern,” and that the arms could be elevated for between two and four hours if the detainee was monitored for “excessive distress.”
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CIA TESTIMONY
SENATOR WHITEHOUSE: “Has there been any consideration at any point within the Agency that the purpose in locating facilities overseas is either to avoid liability under American statutes or to avoid the ability of any court to claim jurisdiction because they would not know where these took place? Is there an element of providing legal defense to the participants in these applications?”
MR. RIZZO: “Well, certainly not the first.”
SAMPLING OF INFORMATION IN CIA RECORDS
Mr. Rizzo’s testimony is incongruent with CIA records. After the capture of Abu Zubaydah, ██CTCLegal, ██████, prepared a PowerPoint presentation laying out the “pros” and “cons” of six detention options. The pros for detention in Country █, where Abu Zubaydah would be rendered, included “[n]o issues of possible U.S. [court] jurisdiction.” The cons for a CIA facility in the United States included “[c]an’t foreclose ability of U.S. [courts] considering Habeas Corpus petition.
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In late 2003 and early 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to accept certiorari in the case of
Rasul v. Bush
prompted a decision by the CIA, in coordination with the Department of Justice, to transfer five CIA detainees held at Guantanamo to other CIA detention facilities.
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NOTES
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
1.
As measured by the number of disseminated intelligence reports. Therefore, zero intelligence reports were disseminated based on information provided by seven of the 39 detainees known to have been subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
2.
May 30, 2005, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, Senior Deputy General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, from Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, re: Application of United States Obligations Under Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture to Certain Techniques that May Be Used in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees.
3.
Transcript of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence briefing, September 6, 2006.
4.
This episode was not described in CIA cables, but was described in internal emails sent by personnel in the CIA Office of Medical Services and the CIA Office of General Counsel. A review of the videotapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah by the CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG) did not note the incident. A review of the catalog of videotapes, however, found that recordings of a 21-hour period, which included two waterboarding sessions, were missing.
5.
April 10, 2003 email from █████████ to ████████; cc: ████████; re: More. Throughout the Committee Study, last names in all capitalized letters are pseudonyms.
6.
ALEC ███ (182321Z JUL 02).
7.
At the time, confining a detainee in a box with the dimensions of a coffin was an approved CIA enhanced interrogation technique.
8.
[REDACTED] 1324 (161750Z SEP 03), referring to Hambali.
9.
Interview of ███████, by [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], Office of the Inspector General, June 17, 2003.
10.
In one case, interrogators informed a detainee that he could earn a bucket if he cooperated.
11.
Interview Report, 2003-7123-IG, Review of Interrogations for Counterterrorism Purposes, ███████, April 7, 2003, p. 12.
12.
Interview Report, 2003-7123-IG, Review of Interrogations for Counterterrorism Purposes, ███████, May 8, 2003, p. 9.
13.
November 26, 2001, Draft of Legal Appendix, Paragraph 5, “Hostile Interrogations: Legal Considerations for CIA Officers,” at 1.
14.
May 30, 2005, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, Senior Deputy General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, from Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, re: Application of United States Obligations Under Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture to Certain Techniques that May Be Used in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees. July 20, 2007, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, Acting General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, from Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, re: Application of War Crimes Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to Certain Techniques that May be Used by the CIA in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees.
15.
The CIA’s June 27, 2013, Response to the Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program states that these limitations were dictated by the White House. The CIA’s June 2013 Response then acknowledges that the CIA was “comfortable” with this decision.
16.
DIRECTOR ███ (152227Z MAR 07).
17.
The Committee’s conclusion is based on CIA records, including statements from CIA Directors George Tenet and Porter Goss to the CIA inspector general, that the directors had not briefed the president on the CIA’s interrogation program. According to CIA records, when briefed in April 2006, the president expressed discomfort with the “image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself.” The CIA’s June 2013 Response does not dispute the CIA records, but states that “[w]hile Agency records on the subject are admittedly incomplete, former President Bush has stated in his autobiography that he discussed the program, including the use of enhanced techniques, with then-DCIA Tenet in 2002, prior to application of the techniques on Abu Zubaydah, and personally approved the techniques.” A memoir by former Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo disputes this account.
18.
CIA records indicate that the CIA had not informed policymakers of the presence of CIA detention facilities in Countries █, █, █, and █. It is less clear whether policymakers were aware of the detention facilities in Country █ and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The CIA requested that country names and information directly or indirectly identifying countries be redacted. The Study therefore lists the countries by letter. The Study uses the same designations consistently, so “Country J,” for example refers to the same country throughout the Study.
19.
July 31, 2003, email from John Rizzo to █████ re Rump PC on interrogations.
20.
Lotus Notes message from Chief of The CIA Station in Country █ to D/CTC, COPS; copied in: email from ████████, to [REDACTED], [REDACTED], cc: [REDACTED], ███████, ████████, ████████, subj: ADCI Talking Points for Call to DepSec Armitage, date 9/23/2004, at 7:40:43 PM.
21.
Briefing slides, CIA Interrogation Program, July 29, 2003
22.
No CIA detention facilities were established in these two countries.
23.
U.S. law (22 U.S.C. § 3927) requires that chiefs of mission “shall be kept fully and currently informed with respect to all activities and operations of the Government within that country,” including the activities and operations of the CIA.
24.
Sametime communication, between John P. Mudd and ████████, April 13, 2005.
25.
Sametime communication, between John P. Mudd and ████████, April 13, 2005.
26.
March 29, 2002, email from ████████ to ███████, re A-Z Interrogation Plan.
27.
ALEC ███ (182321Z JUL 02).
28.
January 8, 1989, Letter from John L. Helgerson, Director of Congressional Affairs, to Vice Chairman William S. Cohen, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, re: SSCI Questions on ████, at 7-8.
29.
[REDACTED] 1528 (191903Z DEC 03).
30.
Report of Audit, CIA-controlled Detention Facilities Operated Under the 17 September 2001 Memorandum of Notification, Report No. 2005-0017-AS, June 14, 2006.
31.
April 15, 2005, email from [REDACTED] (Chief of Base of DETENTION SITE BLACK), to █████ ███, ██████, ██████, re: General Comments.
32.
“Learned helplessness” in this context was the theory that detainees might become passive and depressed in response to adverse or uncontrollable events, and would thus cooperate and provide information. Memo from Grayson SWIGERT, Ph.D., February 1, 2003, “Qualifications to provide special mission interrogation consultation.”
33.
They also concluded that the CIA “should not be in the business of running prisons or ‘temporary detention facilities.’” May 12, 2004, Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from ███████, Chief, Information Operations Center, and Henry Crumpton, Chief, National Resources Division via Associate Deputy Director for Operations, with the subject line, “Operational Review of CIA Detainee Program.”
34.
March 21, 2005, Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from Robert L. Grenier, Director DCI Counterterrorism Center, re: Proposal for Full-Scope Independent Study of the CTC Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Programs.
35.
September 2, 2005, Memorandum from ████████ to Director Porter Goss, CIA, “Assessment of EITs Effectiveness.”
36.
September 23, 2005, Memorandum from ██████ to The Honorable Porter Goss, Director, Central Intelligence Agency, “Response to request from Director for Assessment of EIT effectiveness.”
37.
February 10, 2006, Memorandum for [████████ CIA OFFICER 1], CounterTerrorist Center, National Clandestine Service, from Executive Director re: Accountability Decision.
38.
Congressional notification, CIA Response to OIG Investigation Regarding the Rendition and Detention of German Citizen Khalid al-Masri, October 9, 2007.
39.
Memorandum for Inspector General; from: James Pavitt, Deputy Director for Operations; subject: re: Comments to Draft IG Special Review, “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Program” (2003-7123-IG); date: February 27, 2004; attachment: February 24, 2004, Memorandum re: Successes of CIA’s Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities.
40.
February 24, 2004, Memorandum from Scott W. Muller, General Counsel, to Inspector General re: Interrogation Program Special Review (2003-7123-IG).
41.
November 9, 2006, email from John A. Rizzo, to Michael V. Hayden, Stephen R. Kappes, cc: Michael Morell, ████████, ████████, █████████, Subject: Fw: 5 December 2006 Meeting with ICRC Rep.
42.
CIA Comments on the February 2007 ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody.”
43.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing transcript for April 12, 2007.
44.
DCIA Talking Points for 12 January 2006 Meeting with the President, re: Way Forward on Counterterrorist Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program.
45.
HEADQUARTERS ███ (071742Z JUN 04).
46.
[REDACTED] 5759 (██████ 03); ALEC ███ (██████ 03); ALEC ███ (██████ 03).
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
1.
See Appendix 1: “Terms of Reference, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”
2.
The Committee did not have access to approximately 9,400 CIA documents related to the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program that were withheld by the White House pending a determination and claim of executive privilege. The Committee requested access to these documents over several years, including in writing on January 3, 2013, May 22, 2013, and December 19, 2013. The Committee received no response from the White House.
3.
From January 2, 2008, to August 30, 2012, the Department of Justice conducted a separate investigation into various aspects of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, with the possibility of criminal prosecutions of CIA personnel and contractors. On October 9, 2009, the CIA informed the Committee that it would not compel CIA personnel to participate in interviews with the Committee due to concerns related to the pending Department of Justice investigations. (See DTS #2009-4064.) While the Committee did not conduct interviews with CIA personnel during the course of this review, the Committee utilized previous interview reports of CIA personnel and CIA contractors conducted by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General and the CIA’s Oral History Program. In addition to CIA materials, the Committee reviewed a much smaller quantity of documents from the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State, as well as documents that had separately been provided to the Committee outside of this review. Inconsistent spellings found within the Committee Study reflect the inconsistencies found in the underlying documents reviewed.
4.
The CIA informed the Committee that due to CIA record retention policies, the CIA could not produce all CIA email communications requested by the Committee. As a result, in a few cases, the text of an email cited in the Study was not available in its original format, but was embedded in a larger email chain. For this reason, the Committee, in some limited cases, cites to an email chain that contains the original email, rather than the original email itself.
5.
The report does not review CIA renditions for individuals who were not ultimately detained by the CIA, CIA interrogation of detainees in U.S. military custody, or the treatment of detainees in the custody of foreign governments, as these topics were not included in the Committee’s Terms of Reference.
6.
On April 7, 2014, the Executive Summary of the Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was provided to the executive branch for declassification and public release. On August 1, 2014, the CIA returned to the Committee the Executive Summary with its proposed redactions. Over the ensuing months, the Committee engaged in deliberations with the CIA and the White House to ensure that the Committee’s narrative—and support for the Committee’s findings and conclusions—remained intact. Significant alterations have been made to the Executive Summary in order to reach agreement on a publicly releasable version of the document. For example, the CIA requested that in select passages, the Committee replace specific dates with more general time frames. The Committee also replaced the true names of some senior non-undercover CIA officials with pseudonyms. The executive branch then redacted all pseudonyms for CIA personnel, and in some cases the titles of positions held by the CIA personnel. Further, while the classified Executive Summary and full Committee Study lists specific countries by letter (for example “Country J”), and uses the same letter to designate the specific country throughout the Committee Study, the letters have been redacted by the executive branch for this public release.
7.
September 17, 2001, Memorandum of Notification, for Members of the National Security Council, re: █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ (DTS #2002-0371). at paragraph 4. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████.
8.
Attachment 5 to May 14, 2002, letter from Stanley Moskowitz, CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, to Al Cumming, Staff Director, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, transmitting the ██ Memoranda of Notification (DTS #2002-2175).
9.
September 17, 2001, Memorandum of Notification, for Members of the National Security Council, re: ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ (DTS #2002-0371), at paragraph 4.
10.
DIRECTOR ███ (████████); email from: [REDACTED]; to: [REDACTED]; subject: Cable re: Country █; date: January 29, 2009.
11.
Memorandum for DCI from J. Cofer Black, Director of Counterterrorism, via Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General Counsel, Executive Director, Deputy Director for Operations and Associate Director of Central Intelligence/Military Support, entitled, “Approval to Establish a Detention Facility for Terrorists.”
12.
Email from: ████████; to: [REDACTED]; subject: EYES ONLY- Capture and Detention; date: September 28, 2001, at 09:29:24 AM.
13.
DIRECTOR ████ (272119Z SEP 01).
14.
November 7, 2001, Draft of Legal Appendix, “Handling Interrogation.”
See
also
Volume I.
15.
Memorandum for DCI from J. Cofer Black, Director of Counterterrorism, via Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General Counsel, Executive Director, Deputy Director for Operations and Associate Director of Central Intelligence/Military Support, entitled, “Approval to Establish a Detention Facility for Terrorists.”
16.
Memorandum for DCI from J. Cofer Black, Director of Counterterrorism, via Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General Counsel, Executive Director, Deputy Director for Operations and Associate Director of Central Intelligence/Military Support, entitled, “Approval to Establish a Detention Facility for Terrorists.”
17.
Memorandum for DCI from J. Cofer Black, Director of Counterterrorism, via Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General Counsel, Executive Director, Deputy Director for Operations and Associate Director of Central Intelligence/Military Support, entitled, “Approval to Establish a Detention Facility for Terrorists.”
18.
Memorandum for DCI from J. Cofer Black, Director of Counterterrorism, via Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General Counsel, Executive Director, Deputy Director for Operations and Associate Director of Central Intelligence/Military Support, entitled, “Approval to Establish a Detention Facility for Terrorists.”
19.
Memorandum for DCI from J. Cofer Black, Director of Counterterrorism, via Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General Counsel, Executive Director, Deputy Director for Operations and Associate Director of Central Intelligence/Military Support, entitled, “Approval to Establish a Detention Facility for Terrorists.”
20.
Memorandum from George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, to Deputy Director for Operations, October 8, 2001, Subject: (U) Delegations of Authorities.
21.
DIRECTOR ███ (171410Z DEC 01).
22.
WASHINGTON ███ (272040Z MAR 02).
23.
DIRECTOR ███ (072216Z APR 03).
24.
DIRECTOR ███ (072216Z APR 03). In a later meeting with Committee staff, ████CTC Legal, ████ stated that the prospect that the CIA “could hold [detainees] forever” was “terrifying,” adding, “[n]o one wants to be in a position of being called back from retirement in however many years to go figure out what do you do with so and so who still poses a threat.” See November 13, 2001, Transcript of Staff Briefing on Covert Action Legal Issues (DTS #2002-0629).
25.
CIA Director Hayden typically described the program as holding “fewer than a hundred” detainees. For example, in testimony before the Committee on February 4, 2008, in response to a question from Chairman Rockefeller during an open hearing, Hayden stated, “[i]n the life of the CIA detention program we have held fewer than a hundred people.” (See DTS #2008-1140.) Specific references to “98” detainees were included in a May 5, 2006, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report on Renditions, Detentions and Interrogations.
See also
Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, Acting General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, from Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, July 20, 2007, Re: Application of the War Crimes Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to Certain Techniques that May Be Used by the CIA in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees. Other examples of this CIA representation include a statement by CTC officer ██████ to the HPSCI on February 15, 2006, and a statement by ████ CTC Legal ██████ to the SSCI on June 10, 2008. See DTS #2008-2698.
26.
The Committee’s accounting of the number of CIA detainees is conservative and only includes individuals for whom there is clear evidence of detention in CIA custody. The Committee thus did not count, among the 119 detainees, six of the 31 individuals listed in a memo entitled “Updated List of Detainees attached to a March 2003 email sent by DETENTION SITE COBALT site manager ████████ [CIA OFFICER 1], because they were not explicitly described as CIA detainees and because they did not otherwise appear in CIA records. (
See
email from: ████████ [CIA OFFICER 1]; to: ████████, ████████ subject: ██████████ DETAINEES; date: March 13, 2003.) An additional individual is the subject of CIA cables describing a planned transfer from U.S. military to CIA custody at DETENTION SITE COBALT. He was likewise not included among the 119 CIA detainees because of a lack of CIA records confirming either his transfer to, or his presence at, DETENTION SITE COBALT. As detailed in this summary, in December 2008, the CIA attempted to identify the total number of CIA detainees. In a graph prepared for CIA leadership, the CIA represented the number of CIA detainees as “112+ ?”
See
████████ 12417 (101719Z OCT 02); ALEC ███ (232056Z OCT 02); ████ 190159 (240508Z OCT 02); and ALEC ████ (301226Z OCT 02).
27.
██████████ 1528 ████████.
28.
As of June 27, 2013, when the CIA provided its Response to the Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program (hereinafter, the “CIA’s June 2013 Response”), the CIA had not yet made an independent determination of the number of individuals it had detained. The CIA’s June 2013 Response does not address the number of detainees determined by the Committee to be held by the CIA, other than to assert that the discrepancy between past CIA representations, that there were fewer than 100 detainees, and the Committee’s determination of there being at least 119 CIA detainees, was not “substantively meaningful.” The CIA’s June 2013 Response states that the discrepancy “does not impact the previously known scale of the program,” and that “[i]t remains true that approximately 100 detainees were part of the program; not 10 and not 200.” The CIA’s June 2013 Response also states that, “[t]he
Study
leaves unarticulated what impact the relatively small discrepancy might have had on policymakers or Congressional overseers.” The CIA’s June 2013 Response further asserts that, at the time Director Hayden was representing there had been fewer than 100 detainees (2007-2009), the CIA’s internal research “indicate[d] the total number of detainees could have been
as high as
112,” and that “uncertainty existed within CIA about whether a group of additional detainees were actually part of the program, partially because some of them had passed through [DETENTION SITE COBALT] prior to the formal establishment of the program under CTC auspices on 3 December 2002” (emphasis added). This June 27, 2013, CIA statement is inaccurate: the CIA’s determination at the time was that there had been
at least
112 CIA detainees and that the inclusion of detainees held prior to December 3, 2002, would make that number higher. On December 20, 2008, a CTC officer informed the chief of CTC that “112 were detained by CIA since September 11, 2001,” noting “[t]hese revised statistics do not include any detainees at [DETENTION SITE COBALT] (other than Gul Rahman) who departed [DETENTION SITE COBALT] prior to RDG assuming authority of [DETENTION SITE COBALT] as of 03 December 2002.” (
See
“████████ numbers brief.doc,” attached to the email from: ██████████; to: ████████, [REDACTED], ████████, ████████; subject: Revised Rendition and Detention Statistics; date: December 20, 2008.) By December 23, 2008, CTC had created a graph that identified the total number of CIA detainees, excluding Gul Rahman, “Post 12/3/02” as 111. The graph identified the total number including Gul Rahman, but
excluding
other detainees “pre-12/3/02” as “112+ ?.” (See CIA-produced PowerPoint Slide, RDG Numbers, dated December 23, 2008.) With regard to the Committee’s inclusion of detainees held at DETENTION SITE COBALT prior to December 3, 2002, the CIA does not dispute that they were held by the CIA pursuant to the same MON authorities as detainees held after that date. Moreover, the CIA has regularly counted among its detainees a number of individuals who were held solely at DETENTION SITE COBALT prior to December 3, 2002, as well as several who were held exclusively at Country ████████ facilities on behalf of the CIA. In discussing the role of DETENTION SITE COBALT in the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, then Deputy Director of Operations James Pavitt told the CIA Office of Inspector General in August 2003 that “there are those who say that [DETENTION SITE COBALT] is not a CIA facility, but that is ‘bullshit.’” (See Interview Report, 2003-7123-IG, Review of Interrogations for Counterterrorism Purposes, James Pavitt, August 21, 2003.).
29.
The “Renditions and Interrogations Group,” is also referred to as the “Renditions Group,” the “Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Group,” “RDI,” and “RDG” in CIA records.
