Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The CIA catalogued how the
Washington Post
story created tensions in its bilateral counterterrorism relations with ███████ allies and determined that:
“[t]he article is prompting our partners to reassess the benefits and costs of cooperating with the [U.S. government] and CIA. These services have conducted aggressive, high-impact operations with CIA against . . . targets, including ███████████. We no longer expect the services to be as aggressive or cooperative.”
923
In April 2006,
█████████████████████████████████████
informed CIA officers that press stories on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program led the
███████
government to prohibit ███████ from providing “information that could lead to the rendition or detention of al-Qa’ida or other terrorists to U.S. Government custody for interrogation, including CIA and the Department of Defense.”
924
Media leaks also created tensions with countries that had hosted or continued to host CIA detention facilities. For example, leaks prompted Country ██ officials to convey their intent to communicate directly with the Departments of Justice and State. They then formally demarched the U.S. government.
925
As late as ████ 2009, the Country ██ raised with CIA Director Panetta the “problem of the secret detention facility” that had “tested and strained” the bilateral partnership. The ███████ of Country ██ also stated that assurances were needed that future cooperation with the CIA would be safeguarded.
926
After publication of the
Washington Post
article,
████████
Country █ demanded the closure of DETENTION SITE BLACK within
██
hours.
927
The CIA transferred the
███
remaining CIA detainees out of the facility shortly thereafter.
928
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████
,
929
████████████
. In
███████████████
Country
██
██████████████████
officers refused to admit CIA detainee Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi to a local hospital despite earlier discussions with country representatives about how a detainee’s medical emergency would be handled.
930
While the CIA understood the █████ officers’ reluctance to place a CIA detainee in a local hospital given media reports, CIA Headquarters also questioned the “willingness of █████ to participate as originally agreed/planned with regard to provision of emergency medical care.”
931
After failing to gain assistance from the Department of Defense,
932
the CIA was forced to seek assistance from three third-party countries in providing medical care to al-Hawsawi and four other CIA detainees with acute ailments. Ultimately, the CIA paid the ██████████ more than $██ million for the treatment of ███████ and ████████;
933
paid the ███████████ approximately $█████ for the treatment of ████████;
934
and made arrangements for ██████████ and █████████ to be treated in ██████.
935
The medical issues resulted in the closing of DETENTION SITE VIOLET in Country ██ in █████ 2006.
936
The CIA then transferred its remaining detainees to DETENTION SITE BROWN. At that point, all CIA detainees were located in Country ██.
937
Meanwhile, the pressures on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program brought about by the
Washington Post
story prompted the CIA to consider new options among what it called the “[d]windling pool ███████ partners willing to host CIA Blacksites.”
938
The CIA thus renewed earlier efforts to establish a detention facility in Country ██. The CIA had earlier provided $██ million to Country ██’s ██████████ in preparation for a potential CIA detention site, prompting the chief of Station to comment, “Do you realize you can buy [Country ██] for $
██████
?”
939
On December ██, 2005, the chief of Station in Country ██ met with the
███████████
, who was not concerned about the CIA’s detention of terrorists in his country, but wanted assurances that the CIA interrogation program did not include the use of torture.
940
In providing his approval, the █████████████ agreed to a request from the chief of Station not to inform the U.S. ambassador in Country ██.
941
The CIA also reached an agreement with another country, Country ██, to establish a CIA detention facility in that country and arranged with the leadership of Country ██ not to inform the U.S. ambassador there.
942
The CIA ultimately did not detain individuals in either county.
In late October 2005, days before the publication of the
Washington Post
article, the CIA asked a separate country, Country ██, to temporarily house ███ CIA detainees.
943
The chief of Station briefed the U.S. ambassador in Country ██, who requested that the National Security Council and the White House be briefed on the plan.
944
There are no CIA records to indicate the briefing occurred. Country ██’s █████████ then provided approval, while seeking assurances that the CIA would develop a contingeny plan in case the detention site was exposed in the press.
945
While the CIA Station and the █████████████████████ considered ████████████████ in Country ██, CIA Headquarters directed that a long-term CIA detention facility be established in the country. Country ██’s █████████ approved a plan to build a CIA detention facility ███████████████████████, but noted his ongoing concerns about the lack of a CIA “exit strategy.”
946
The lack of emergency medical care for detainees, the issue that had forced the closing of DETENTION SITE VIOLET in Country ██, was raised repeatedly in the context of the construction of the CIA detention facility in Country ██. On March ██, 2006, CIA Headquarters requested that the CIA Station in Country ██ ask Country ██ to arrange discreet access to the nearest hospital and medical staff. The cable stated that the CIA “look[s] forward to a favorable response, prior to commencing with the construction of our detention facility.”
947
Construction nonetheless began on the facility without the issue of emergency medical care having been resolved. In ████ 2006, after the deputy chief of the CIA Station in Country
██
, the deputy chief of RDG, and an OMS officer met with
███████████
officers, the Station reported that the establishment of emergency medical care proximal to the site was “not tenable.”
948
In July 2006, an OMS representative informed the chief of
█████████████████
at CIA Headquarters that the facility in Country ██ “should not be activated without a clear, committed plan for medical provider coverage.
949
By the time a CIA team visited the Country ██ detention site in late 2006, the CIA had already invested $███ million in the new facility. Describing the absence of adequate emergency medical care options as “unacceptable,” the chief of RDG recommended in a draft memo that construction efforts be abandoned for this reason.
950
The following day, an edited version of the same memo described the issue as a “challenge,” but did not recommend that the CIA cease construction of the facility.
951
The resulting CIA detention facility, which would eventually cost $████ million, was never used by the CIA. Press reports about the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program that appeared in
████
and
████
eventually forced the CIA to pass possession of the unused facility to the Country ██ government.
952
In early January 2006, officials at the Department of Defense informed CIA officers that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had made a formal decision not to accept any CIA detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
953
At the time, the CIA was holding 28 detainees in its two remaining facilities, DETENTION SITE VIOLET, in Country ██, and DETENTION SITE ORANGE, in Country ██.
954
In preparation for a meeting with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on January 6, 2006, CIA Director Goss was provided a document indicating that the Department of Defense’s position not to allow the transfer of CIA detainees to U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay “would cripple legitimate end game planning” for the CIA.
955
The talking points for that meeting suggested that Di-rector Goss tell Secretary Rumsfeld that the:
“only viable ‘endgame’ for continued US Government custody of these most dangerous terrorists is a transfer to GTMO . . . [a]bsent the availability of GTMO and eventual DoD custody, CIA will necessarily have to begin transferring those detainees no longer producing intelligence to third countries, which may release them, or [the CIA itself may need to] outright release them.”
956
After Secretary Rumsfeld declined to reconsider his decision not to allow the transfer of CIA detainees to U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay, CIA officers proposed elevating the issue to the president. CIA officers prepared talking points for Director Goss to meet with the president on the “Way Forward” on the program on January 12, 2006.
957
The talking points recommended that the CIA director “stress that absent a decision on the long-term issue (so called ‘endgame’) we are stymied and the program could collapse of its own weight.”
958
There are no records to indicate whether Director Goss made this presentation to the president.
In 2005 and 2006, the CIA transferred detainees from its custody to at least nine countries, including
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
, as well as to the U.S. military in Iraq. Many of these detainees were subsequently released.
959
By May 2006, the CIA had 11 detainees whom it had identified as candidates for prosecution by a U.S. military commission. The remaining detainees were described as having “repatriation options open.”
960
6. The CIA Considers Changes to the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program Following the Detainee Treatment Act, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Following the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005, the CIA conducted numerous discussions with the National Security Council principals about modifications to the program that would be acceptable from a policy and legal standpoint. In February 2006, talking points prepared for CIA Director Goss noted that National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley:
“asked to be informed of the criteria CIA will use before accepting a detainee into its CIA Counterterrorist Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Program, stating that he believed CIA had in the past accepted detainees it should not have.”
961
The CIA director proposed future criteria that would require not only that CIA detainees meet the standard in the MON, but that they possess information about threats to the citizens of the United States or other nations, and that detention in a CIA facility was appropriate for intelligence exploitation.
962
A few months later,
███████████
CTC Legal,
█████████████████
, wrote to Acting Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury suggesting a modified standard for applying the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. The suggested new standard was that “the specific detainee is believed to possess critical intelligence of high value to the United States.” While the proposed modification included the requirement that a detainee have “critical intelligence of high value,” it represented an expansion of CIA authorities, insofar as it covered the detention and interrogation of an individual with information that “would assist in locating the most senior leadership of al-Qa’ida of [
sic
] an associated terrorist organization,” even if that detainee was not assessed to have knowledge of, or be directly involved in, imminent terrorist threats.
963
Discussions with the National Security Council principals also resulted in a March 2006 CIA proposal for an interrogation program involving only seven of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques: sleep deprivation, nudity, dietary manipulation, facial grasp, facial slap, abdominal slap, and the attention grab.
964
This proposal was not acted upon at the time. The proposal for sleep deprivation of up to 180 hours, however, raised concerns among the National Security Council principals.
965
In April 2006, the CIA briefed the president on the “current status” of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. According to an internal CIA review, this was the first time the CIA had briefed the president on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
966
As previously noted, the president expressed concern at the April 2006 briefing about the “image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself.”
967
On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
, concluding that the military commission convened to try Salim Hamdan, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, was inconsistent with statutory requirements and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The implication of the decision was that treating a detainee in a manner inconsistent with the requirements of Common Article 3 would constitute a violation of federal criminal law. CIA attorneys analyzed the
Hamdan
decision, noting that it could have a significant impact on “current CIA interrogation practices.”
968
Their memorandum also referenced that Acting Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury had the “preliminary view . . . that the opinion ‘calls into real question’ whether CIA could continue its CT interrogation program involving enhanced interrogation techniques,” as the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques “could be construed as inconsistent with the provisions of Common Article 3 prohibiting ‘outrages upon personal dignity’ and violence to life and person.”
969