Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The March 12, 2003, reporting from KSM on the Heathrow Airport plotting was deemed at the time by CIA interrogators to be an effort by KSM to avoid discussion of plotting inside the United States and thus contributed to the decision to subject KSM to two waterboarding sessions that day.
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During these sessions, KSM ingested a significant amount of water. CIA records state that KSM’s “abdomen was somewhat distended and he expressed water when the abdomen was pressed.”
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KSM’s gastric contents were so diluted by water that the medical officer present was “not concerned about regurgitated gastric acid damaging KSM’s esophagus.”
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The officer was, however, concerned about water intoxication and dilution of electrolytes and requested that the interrogators use saline in future waterboarding sessions.
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The medical officer later wrote to ████████OMS that KSM was “ingesting and aspiration [
sic
] a LOT of water,” and that “[i]n the new technique we are basically doing a series of near drownings.”
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During the day, KSM was also subjected to the attention grasp, insult slap, abdominal slap, and walling.
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On March 13, 2003, after KSM again denied that al-Qa’ida had operations planned for inside the United States, CIA interrogators decided on a “day of intensive waterboard sessions.”
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During the first of three waterboarding sessions that day, interrogators responded to KSM’s efforts to breathe during the sessions by holding KSM’s lips and directing the water at his mouth.”
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According to a cable from the detention site, KSM “would begin signaling by pointing upward with his two index fingers as the water pouring approached the established time limit.” The cable noted that “[t]his behavior indicates that the subject remains alert and has become familiar with key aspects of the process.”
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CIA records state that KSM “yelled and twisted” when he was secured to the waterboard for the second session of the day, but “appeared resigned to tolerating the board and stated he had nothing new to say about terrorist plots inside the United States.”
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Prior to the third waterboard session of that calendar day, the on-site medical officer raised concerns that the waterboard session—which would be the fourth in 14 hours—would exceed the limits included in draft OMS guidelines that had been distributed the previous afternoon.
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Those draft guidelines stated that up to three waterboard sessions in a 24-hour period was acceptable.
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At the time, KSM had been subjected to more than 65 applications of water during the four waterboarding sessions between the afternoon of March 12, 2003, and the morning of March 13, 2003. In response to a request for approval from the chief of Base, CTC attorney █████████ assured detention site personnel that the medical officer “is incorrect that these guidelines have been approved and/or fully coordinated.”
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██████ sent an email to the detention site authorizing the additional waterboarding session.
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Despite indications from █████ that the detention site personnel would receive a formal authorizing cable, no such authorization from CIA Headquarters was provided. At the end of the day, the medical officer wrote ██████OMS that “[t]hings are slowly evolving form [
sic
] OMS being viewed as the institutional conscience and the limiting factor to the ones who are dedicated to maximizing the benefit in a safe manner and keeping everyone’s butt out of trouble.” The medical officer noted that his communication with ██████OMS was no longer “viewed with suspicion.”
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On the afternoon of March 13, 2003, KSM was subjected to his third waterboard session of that calendar day and fifth in 25 hours. CIA records note that KSM vomited during and after the procedure.
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Shortly thereafter, CIA Headquarters began reevaluating the use of the waterboard interrogation technique. According to a March 14, 2003, email from an interrogator who was not at DETENTION SITE BLUE, but was reviewing cable traffic, the “[o]verall view seems to be” that the waterboard “is not working in gaining KSM[’s] compliance.”
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The deputy chief of the CIA interrogation program responded in agreement, adding that “[a]gainst KSM it has proven ineffective,” and that “[t]he potential for physical harm is far greater with the waterboard than with the other techniques, bringing into question the issue of risk vs. gain . . .” The deputy chief further suggested that the waterboard was counterproductive, stating that “[w]e seem to have lost ground” with KSM since progress made at DETENTION SITE COBALT, and as a result, the CIA should “consider the possibility” that the introduction of the waterboard interrogation technique “may poison the well.”
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The email in which these sentiments were expressed was sent to █████████, the CTC attorney overseeing the interrogation of KSM. Despite these reservations and assessments, the waterboarding of KSM continued for another 10 days.
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On March 15, 2003, KSM was waterboarded for failing to confirm references in signal intercepts on al-Qa’ida’s efforts to obtain “nuclear suitcases.”
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Subsequent signals intercepts and information from a foreign government would later indicate that the nuclear suitcase threat was an orchestrated scam.
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KSM was waterboarded a second time that day after failing to provide information on operations against the United States or on al-Qa’ida nuclear capabilities.
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During the waterboarding sessions that day, the application of the interrogation technique further evolved, with the interrogators now using their hands to maintain a one-inch deep “pool” of water over KSM’s nose and mouth in an effort to make it impossible for KSM to ingest all the water being poured.
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At one point, SWIGERT and DUNBAR waited for KSM to talk before pouring water over his mouth.
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On the afternoon of March 17, 2003, and into the morning of March 18, 2003, █████████, ██████OMS exchanged emails with the medical officer at DETENTION SITE BLUE on the waterboarding of KSM. According to ██████, the waterboard interrogation technique had “moved even further from the SERE model.”
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███████ also wrote:
“Truthfully, though, I don’t recall that the WB [waterboard] produced anything actionable in AZ [Abu Zubaydah] any earlier than another technique might have. This may be different with KSM, but that is still as much a statement of faith as anything else - since we don’t seem to study the question as we go . . . it’s been many more days of constant WB repetitions, with the evidence of progress through most of them not being actionable intel but rather that ‘he looks like he’s weakening.’ The WB may actually be the best; just don’t like to base it on religion.”
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On March 18, 2003, KSM was confronted with the reporting of Majid Khan, who was then in the custody of a foreign government,
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regarding plotting against gas stations inside the United States, information that KSM had not previously discussed. In assessing the session, DETENTION SITE BLUE personnel noted that “KSM will selectively lie, provide partial truths, and misdirect when he believes he will not be found out and held accountable.” On the other hand, they wrote that “KSM appears more inclined to make accurate disclosures when he believes people, emails, or other source material are available to the USG for checking his responses.”
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The same day, KSM provided additional information on the Heathrow Airport plotting, much of which he would recant in 2004.
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KSM also discussed Jaffar al-Tayyar again, prompting the detention site personnel to refer to the “all-purpose” al-Tayyar whom KSM had “woven . . . into practically every story, each time with a different role.”
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After KSM had included al-Tayyar in his discussion of Majid Khan’s gas station plot, KSM debriefer ██████ wrote in an email that “[t]oday [al-Tayyar’s] working with Majid Khan, yesterday the London crowd, the day before Padilla - you get the point.”
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Beginning the evening of March 18, 2003, KSM began a period of sleep deprivation, most of it in the standing position, which would last for seven and a half days, or approximately 180 hours.
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On March 19, 2003, the interrogators at the detention site decided to waterboard KSM due to KSM’s inconsistent information about Jaffar al-Tayyar’s passport.
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According to CIA cables, after assuming his position on the waterboard, KSM “seemed to lose control” and appeared “somewhat frantic,” stating that he “had been forced to lie, and ma[k]e up stories about” Jaffar al-Tayyar because of his interrogators.
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KSM then stated that his reporting on al-Tayyar’s role in Majid Khan’s plotting was a “complete fabrication” and that al-Tayyar had been compromised as an operative and that as a result, al-Tayyar could not be used for a terrorist operation.”
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In response, the interrogators told KSM that they only wanted to hear him speak if he was revealing information on the next attack.
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Deputy Chief of ALEC Station ████████ later told the inspector general that it was around this time that contract interrogator DUNBAR stated that “he had not seen a ‘resistor’ [
sic
] like KSM, and was ‘going to go to school on this guy.’”
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According to CIA records, the interrogators then “devote[d] all measures to pressuring [KSM] on the single issue of the ‘next attack on America,”’ including attention grabs, insult slaps, walling, water dousing, and additional waterboard sessions.
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On March 20, 2003, KSM continued to be subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques throughout the day, including a period of “intense questioning and walling.”
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KSM was described as “[t]ired and sore,” with abrasions on his ankles, shins, and wrists, as well as on the back of his head.”
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He also suffered from pedal edema resulting from extended standing.
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After having concluded that there was “no further movement” in the interrogation, the detention site personnel hung a picture of KSM’s sons in his cell as a way to “[heighten] his imagination concerning where they are, who has them, [and] what is in store for them.”
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The waterboarding of KSM on March 21, 2003, and March 22, 2003, was based on a misreading of intelligence provided by Majid Khan bv Deputy Chief of ALEC Station ████████████. According to a cable from the CIA’s ████████, Khan, who was in foreign government custody, had stated that KSM wanted to use “two to three unknown Black American Muslim converts who were currently training in Afghanistan,” to “conduct attacks” on gas stations in the United States, and that “KSM was interested in using anyone with US status to assist with this operation.”
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Upon receipt of this reporting, ██████ wrote in an email “i love the Black American Muslim at AQ camps in Afghanuistan [
sic
] . . . Mukie [KSM] is going to be hatin’ life on this one.”
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However, her subsequent questioning of KSM was not based on Khan’s actual reporting, which was about potential operatives already in Afghanistan, but rather something Khan had not said—that KSM directed him to make contact with African-American converts in the United States.
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According to CIA records, in a “contentious” session that lasted for hours and involved the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, KSM “flatly denied” any efforts to recruit African-American Muslim converts. KSM was then waterboarded.
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Later in the day, facing the threat of a second waterboarding session, KSM “relented and said that maybe he had told Khan that he should see if he could make contact with members of the Black American Muslim convert community.” The CIA interrogators then returned KSM to the standing sleep deprivation position without a second waterboarding session.
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The next day, March 22, 2003, interrogators subjected KSM to “intense” questioning and walling, but when KSM provided no new information on African-American Muslim converts or threats inside the United States, he was subjected to additional waterboarding.
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An hour later, KSM stated that he was “ready to talk.”
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He told the CIA interrogators that he had sent Abu Issa al-Britani to Montana to recruit African-American Muslim converts, a mission he said had been prompted by discussions with a London-based shaykh whose bodyguards had families in Montana.
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KSM also stated that he tasked Majid Khan with attending Muslim conferences in the United States to “spot and assess potential extremists” who would assist in the gas station plot.
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In June 2003, KSM admitted that he fabricated the story about Abu Issa al-Britani and Montana, explaining that he was “under ‘enhanced measures’ when he made these claims and simply told his interrogators what he thought they wanted to hear.”
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In August 2003, KSM reiterated that he had no plans to recruit or use “black American Muslim” converts operationally.
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In December 2005, he denied ever asking Majid Khan to recruit converts or attend Islamic conferences.
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On March 24, 2003, KSM underwent his fifteenth and final documented waterboarding session due to his “intransigence” in failing to identify suspected Abu Bakr al-Azdi operations in the United States, and for having “lied about poison and biological warfare programs.”
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KSM was described in the session as being “composed, stoic, and resigned.”
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That evening, the detention site received two reports. The first recounted the reporting of Majid Khan, who was still in the custody of a foreign government, on Uzhair, who ran the New York branch of his father’s Karachi-based import-export business, and on Uzhair’s father.
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According to Khan, his meetings with the two were facilitated by Ammar al-Baluchi.
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The second report described the reporting of Iyman Faris, who was in FBI custody, on a plot to cut the suspension cables on the Brooklyn Bridge and exploration of plans to derail trains and conduct an attack in Washington, D.C.
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KSM, whom detention site personnel described as “boxed in” by the new reporting,
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then stated that Uzhair’s father, Sayf al-Rahman Paracha, had agreed to smuggle explosives into the United States.
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As described elsewhere in this summary, the purported parties to the agreement denied that such an agreement existed.
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In confirming Faris’s reporting, KSM exhibited what the Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism would later describe as an effort to “stay obvious/general” and “provide little information that might enable the US to thwart attacks.”
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With the exception of sleep deprivation, which continued for one more day, the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against KSM stopped abruptly on March 24, 2003.
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There are no CIA records directing the interrogation team to cease using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against KSM, nor any contemporaneous documentation explaining the decision.
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4. After the Use of the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Against KSM Ends, the CIA Continues to Assess That KSM Is Withholding and Fabricating Information
On April 3, 2003, the Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism produced an assessment of KSM’s intelligence entitled, “Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies.” The assessment concluded that KSM was withholding or lying about terrorist plots and operatives targeting the United States. It also identified contradictions between KSM’s reporting on CBRN and other sources.
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On April 24, 2003, FBI Director Robert Mueller began seeking direct FBI access to KSM in order to better understand CIA reporting indicating threats to U.S. cities.
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Despite personal commitments from DCI Tenet to Director Mueller that access would be forthcoming, the CIA’s CTC successfully formulated a CIA position whereby the FBI would not be provided access to KSM until his anticipated transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Neither the CIA nor the FBI knew at the time that the transfer would not occur until September 2006.
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Between April 2003 and July 2003, KSM frustrated the CIA on a number of fronts. On May 7, 2003, after more than two months of conflicting reporting, ALEC Station concluded that KSM “consistently wavers” on issues of UBL’s location, protectors, and hosts, and that his information “conveniently lack[s] sufficient detail [to be] actionable intelligence.
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On June 12, 2003, CIA Headquarters indicated that it “remain[ed] highly suspicious that KSM is withholding, exaggerating, misdirecting, or outright fabricating information on CBRN issues.”
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At the end of April 2003, KSM was shown pictures of the recently captured Ammar al-Baluchi and Khallad bin Attash, after which he provided additional information related to their plotting in Karachi.
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ALEC Station wrote in a May 20, 2003, cable that “[w]e consider KSM’s long-standing omission of [this] information to be a serious concern, especially as this omission may well have cost American lives had Pakistani authorities not been diligent in following up on unrelated criminal leads that led to the capture of Ammar, bin Attash, and other probable operatives involved in the attack plans.”
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In May and June 2003, Ammar al-Baluchi and Khallad bin Attash provided reporting that contradicted KSM’s statements about the Heathrow Airport plotting and included information that KSM had not provided.
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After KSM was confronted with this reporting, Deputy Chief of ALEC Station ███████████ wrote in an email, “OK, that’s it . . . yet again he lies and ONLY ADMITS details when he knows we know them from someone else.”
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On April 19, 2003, KSM was questioned for the first time about summer 2002 reporting from Masran bin Arshad, who was in the custody of a foreign government, regarding the “Second Wave” plot. Informed that bin Arshad had been detained, KSM stated, “I have forgotten about him, he is not in my mind at all.”
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In response, ALEC Station noted that it “remain[e]d 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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In June 2003, almost three months after the CIA had stopped using its enhanced interrogation techniques against KSM, senior ALEC Station and RDG officers met at least twice to discuss concerns about KSM’s lack of cooperation.
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As an ALEC Station cable noted at the time, “KSM’s pattern of behavior over the past three months, trying to control his environment, lying and then admitting things only when pressed that others have been caught and have likely admitted the plot, is a cause for concern.”
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In an email, one CIA officer noted that “what KSM’s doing is fairly typical of other detainees . . . KSM, Khallad [bin Attash], and others are doing what makes sense in their situation—pretend cooperation.”
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In the fall of 2003, after KSM’s explanations about how to decrypt phone numbers related to British operative Issa al-Britani (KSM did not identify the operative as “Issa al-Hindi,” or by his true name, Dhiren Barot) yielded no results, and after KSM misidentified another individual, known not to be Issa, as Issa, Deputy Chief of ALEC Station ████████████ stated in an email that KSM was “obstructing our ability to acquire good information,” noting that KSM “misidentifie[s] photos when he knows we are fishing” and “misleads us on telephone numbers.”
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Later, after KSM’s transfer to DETENTION SITE BLACK, ALEC Station wrote that KSM “may never be fully forthcoming and honest” on the topic of UBL’s whereabouts.
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Despite repeated challenges, KSM maintained that he lacked information on UBL’s location.
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KSM was transferred to DETENTION SITE
█████
on ████ █, 2005,
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to DETENTION SITE BROWN on March ██, 2006,
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and to U.S. military detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on September 5, 2006.
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The CIA disseminated 831 intelligence reports from the interrogations of KSM over a period of 3.5 years. While KSM provided more intelligence reporting than any other CIA detainee (nearly 15 percent of all CIA detainee intelligence reporting), CIA records indicate that KSM also received the most intelligence requirements and attention from CIA interrogators, debriefers, analysts, and senior CIA leadership. Further, as noted, a significant amount of the disseminated intelligence reporting from KSM that the CIA identified as important threat reporting was later identified as fabricated.
556