Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
For example, a document prepared for Vice President Cheney in advance of a March 8, 2005, National Security Council principals meeting states, under a section entitled “INTERROGATION RESULTS,” that:
“Use of DOJ-authorized
enhanced interrogation techniques
, as part of a comprehensive interrogation approach, has
enabled
us to disrupt terrorist plots . . .
“. . . Dirty Bomb Plot: Operatives Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohammed planned to build and detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ in the Washington DC area.
Plot disrupted.
Source: Abu Zubaydah.”
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Likewise, the July 20, 2007, Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memorandum on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques used CIA provided information on Jose Padilla to describe the threat posed by al-Qa’ida and the success of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques to date. The July 20, 2007, OLC memorandum states:
“The CIA interrogation program—and, in particular, its use of enhanced interrogation techniques—is intended to serve this paramount interest [security of the Nation] by
producing substantial quantities of otherwise unavailable intelligence
. The CIA believes that this program ‘has been a key reason why al-Qa’ida has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001’ . . . We understand that use of enhanced techniques has produced significant intelligence that the Government has used to keep the Nation safe. As the President explained [in his September 6, 2006 speech], ‘
by giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else, the program has saved innocent lives
’ . . . For example, we understand that enhanced interrogation techniques proved particularly crucial in the interrogations of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad and Abu Zubaydah . . .
Interrogations of Zubaydah—again, once enhanced techniques were employed—revealed two al-Qaeda operatives already in the United States
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and planning to destroy a high rise apartment building and to detonate a radiological bomb in Washington, D.C.
”
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On April 21, 2009, a CIA spokesperson confirmed the accuracy of the information in the OLC memorandum in response to the partial declassification of this and other memoranda.
1312
The CIA provided similar inaccurate representations regarding the thwarting of the Dirty Bomb plotting, the thwarting of the Tall Buildings plotting, and/or the capture of Jose Padilla in 17 of the 20 documents provided to policymakers and the Department of Justice between July 2003 and March 2009.
1313
A review of CIA operational cables and other CIA records found that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques played no role in the identification of “Jose Padilla” or the thwarting of the Dirty Bomb or Tall Buildings plotting. CIA records indicate that: (1) there was significant intelligence in CIA databases acquired prior to—and independently of—the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program to fully identify Jose Padilla as a terrorist threat and to disrupt any terrorist plotting associated with him;
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(2) Abu Zubaydah provided information on the terrorist plotting of two individuals who proposed an idea to conduct a “Dirty Bomb” attack, but did not identify their true names; (3) Abu Zubaydah provided this information to FBI special agents who were using rapport-building techniques,
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in April 2002, more than three months prior to the CIA’s “use of DOJ-approved enhanced interrogation techniques”;
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and (4) the Intelligence Community internally assessed that the “Dirty Bomb”
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and “Tall Buildings”
1318
plots were infeasible as envisioned.
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Prior to the capture of Abu Zubaydah on March 28, 2002, the CIA was alerted to the threat posed by Jose Padilla. In early 2001, U.S. government records indicated that a Jose Padilla came to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi to report a lost passport. These records indicated that Jose Padilla provided a “sketchy” story about overstaying his Pakistani visa and that he was “allegedly studying Islamic law in Egypt.” A search of the State Department’s Consular Lookout and Support System was conducted at the time, which resulted in “multiple” hits for “Jose Padilla.”
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State Department records confirmed that Jose Padilla had sought a new passport at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in February 2001, and was subsequently provided with a replacement on March 21, 2001.
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On December 15, 2001, the CIA provided the FBI with documents obtained in Afghanistan from a purported al-Qa’ida-related safe house. Included in the binder were 180 terrorist training camp application forms entitled, “Mujahideen Identification Form / New Applicant Form.” An application form for a then 33-year-old individual with the alias “Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir” from “America” was among the forms. “Al-Muhajir’s” form—dated July 24, 2000—listed other identifying information, to include a “10/18/70” date of birth; language skills to include English, Spanish, and Arabic; travels to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; and the individual’s marital status.
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On April 10, 2002, the CIA disseminated a cable with intelligence derived from the exploitation of documents obtained during the raids in which Abu Zubaydah was captured. Included in the CIA cable is a translation of a letter from mid-March 2002 that references a 33-year-old English-speaking individual. The cable states that the CIA believed this individual might be involved in “a martyrdom operation.” The translation disseminated states: “There is a brother from Argentina, he speaks Spanish, English and Arabic, he is 33 years old, he is married and has two little children. He is a great brother. He knows business and studies English language. He trains [in] self defense, he is a good looking man.”
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The next day, April 11, 2002, the CIA was provided with information from Pakistani officials on a 33-year-old U.S. citizen named “Jose Padilla,” with a date of birth of October 18, 1970, who was briefly detained by Pakistani officials on April 4, 2002. The Pakistani government provided a copy of Jose Padilla’s U.S. passport and relayed that Jose Padilla had overstayed his travel visa, and that there were inconsistencies with Jose Padilla’s appearance and accent. The CIA’s █████ wrote that they would provide the information on “Jose Padilla” to the State Department’s Regional Security Officer, and “would follow-up with [Pakistani officials] on this matter.”
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The date of birth and travel information included with Jose Padilla’s passport matched information on the “Mujahideen Identification Form” (33-year-old “American” referenced as “Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir”) the CIA had provided to the FBI on December 15, 2001.
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On April 12, 2002, Pakistani officials provided additional information to the CIA’s █████, specifically that they had detained a U.S. passport holder named Jose Padilla and a British passport holder named “Fouad Zouaoui” (later identified as Binyam Muhammad), who had suspiciously attempted to depart Pakistan. According to the CIA cable, Pakistani authorities provided the information on the pair “due to concerns about possible terrorist activity.”
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The cable noted that Pakistani authorities had to release Padilla, but that Padilla’s associate remained in detention.
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(When questioned further, the Pakistani authorities stated that they suspected Jose Padilla of being “an al-Qa’ida member.”)
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The information identifying Jose Padilla and “Fouad Zouaoui” as potential terrorists had been provided by the CIA’s █████ to CIA Headquarters, several CIA Stations, and the State Department’s Regional Security Officer (RSO) in Karachi by April 12, 2002.
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Using the identifying information in Jose Padilla’s passport, provided by the Pakistani government, the CIA’s █████ requested that CIA Headquarters and the CIA’s
██
Station conduct “█████” (a database search) using the name “Jose Padilla” and the other identifying information provided.
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The CIA’s █████ requested that CIA Headquarters and the CIA’s ███ Station do the same for Padilla’s associate, Fouad Zouaoui.
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As a result, by April 12, 2002, the CIA was already alerted that a named U.S. citizen, “Jose Padilla,” had spent significant time in Pakistan and was engaged in “possible terrorist activity.”
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Eight days after the CIA was informed that U.S. citizen Jose Padilla was engaged in “possible terrorist activity,” on the evening of April 20, 2002, Abu Zubaydah told FBI special agents about two men who approached him with a plan to detonate a uranium-based explosive device in the United States (the “dirty bomb”). Abu Zubaydah stated he did not believe the plan was viable and did not know the true names of the two individuals, but did provide physical descriptions of the pair.
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This information was acquired after Abu Zubaydah was confronted with emails that indicated Abu Zubaydah had sent two individuals to KSM.
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The FBI special agents who acquired this information from Abu Zubaydah believed it was provided as a result of rapport-building interrogation techniques.
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Abu Zubaydah would not be subjected to the “use of DOJ-approved enhanced interrogation techniques” until August 2002, more than three months later.
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Within two hours of the dissemination of this information, CIA officers
██████████
sent cables to CIA Headquarters and select CIA Stations calling attention to the similarities between Abu Zubaydah’s reporting and their request from April 12, 2002, for information on Jose Padilla and Fouad Zouaoui, which had not yet been acted upon by the receiving offices.
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A travel alert was then initiated for Jose Padilla based on the previous information provided by the Pakistani government. Padilla was located and unknowingly escorted back to the United States by an FBI special agent on May 8, 2002.
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Upon his arrival in the United States Padilla was found to be carrying $10,526 in U.S. currency, an amount he failed to report.
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Padilla was interviewed and taken into FBI custody on a material witness warrant.
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The exploitation of Jose Padilla’s pocket litter
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and phone revealed significant connections to known terrorists, including subjects of FBI terrorism investigations in the United States.
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In separate debriefings, Padilla and his associate, Binyam Mohammed, maintained they had no intention of engaging in terrorist plotting, but proposed the “Dirty Bomb” plot in order to depart Pakistan, avoid combat in Afghanistan, and return home.
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Over several years CIA officers identified errors in the CIA’s representations concerning the “effectiveness” of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques in relation to the Abu Zubaydah reporting pertaining to Jose Padilla and Padilla’s alleged plotting. In response to one such representation, the chief of the Abu Zubaydah Task Force wrote to ████CTC Legal in 2002 that “AZ’s info alone would never have allowed us to find [Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohammed].”
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In 2004, she sought to correct inaccurate CIA representations again, telling colleagues:
“AZ never really gave ‘this is the plot’ type of information. He claimed every plot/operation he had knowledge of and/or was working on was only preliminary. (Padilla and the dirty bomb plot was prior to enhanced and he never really gave us actionable intel to get them).”
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In October 2005, the chief of CTC’s CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) Group wrote, under the heading, “Don’t Put All Your Uranium in One Bucket”:
“Jose Padilla: we’ll never be able to successfully expunge Padilla and the ‘dirty bomb’ plot from the lore of disruption, but once again I’d like to go on the record that Padilla admitted that the only reason he came up with so-called ‘dirty bomb’ was that he wanted to get out of Afghanistan and figured that if he came up with something spectacular, they’d finance him. Even KSM says Padilla had a screw loose. He’s a petty criminal who is well-versed in US criminal justice (he’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm). Anyone who believes you can build an IND or RDD by ‘putting uranium in buckets and spinning them clockwise over your head to separate the uranium’ is not going to advance al-Qa’ida’s nuclear capabilities.”
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CIA and other U.S. government assessments also called into question the “Tall Buildings” plotting, which was loosely based on attacks that were conducted in Moscow in September 1999 using conventional explosives. The “Tall Buildings” plotting did not envision the use of conventional explosives.
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Instead, the plotting envisioned using natural gas to destroy high-rise residential buildings. As planned, the Intelligence Community assessed the plotting was not viable.
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An August 4, 2008, U.S. government assessment stated: “On the surface, the idea is simplistic, if not amateurish . . . the probability of an efficient fuel air explosion is low.”
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Jose Padilla was detained on a material witness warrant from May 8, 2002, to June 9, 2002, when he was transferred to U.S. military custody and designated an “enemy combatant.” On January 3, 2006, Jose Padilla was transferred to U.S. law enforcement custody and tried in federal court. On August 16, 2007, Jose Padilla and two co-defendants, Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi, were found guilty of three criminal offenses relating to terrorist support activities from October 1993 to November 1, 2001.
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The case against Jose Padilla centered on his attendance at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan in the fall of 2000—specifically, the terrorist training camp application form acquired by the CIA and provided to the FBI in December 2001. The form was found to have Jose Padilla’s fingerprints, as well as identifying data to include his date of birth, languages spoken, and travels.
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On January 22, 2008, Jose Padilla was sentenced to 17 years in prison. On September 19, 2011, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the sentence was too lenient in part because it did not take in account Jose Padilla’s prior criminal offenses.
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After being detained in Pakistan, Jose Padilla’s associate Binyam Mohammad was rendered by the CIA █████ on July █, 2002, where he was held by the █████ government. On January █, 2004, Binyam Mohammad was rendered to CIA custody.
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On May █, 2004, Binyam Mohammad was transferred to the custody of the U.S. military in Bagram, Afghanistan.
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On September 21, 2004, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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Binyam Mohammad was then transferred from U.S. military custody to the United Kingdom on February 23, 2009.
███████████████████████
.
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Lawyers representing Binyam Mohammad sued the government of the United Kingdom to compel the release of documents relating to his whereabouts and treatment after his initial detention in April 2002.
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In February 2010, a British court compelled the release “of a summary of the torture” to which Binyam Mohammed was subjected during his detention. In the fall of 2010, the British government awarded Binyam Mohammed a reported £1 million in compensation.
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2. The Thwarting of the Karachi Plots
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 thwarting of the Karachi Plot(s) as evidence for the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. These CIA representations were inaccurate. The Karachi Plot(s) was dismpted with the confiscation of explosives and the airests of Ammar al-Baluchi and Khallad bin Attash in April 2003. The operation and arrests were conducted unilaterally by Pakistani authorities and were unrelated to any reporting from the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
further details
: The Karachi Plot(s) refers to terrorist plotting that targeted a variety of U.S. and Western interests in the Karachi area, to include the U.S. Consulate, named hotels near the airport and beach, U.S. vehicles traveling between the Consulate and the airport, U.S. diplomatic housing, U.S. personnel subject to potential sniper attacks, as well as Pakistan’s Faisal Army Base.
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CIA records indicate the CIA became aware of the initial plotting as early as September 2002, and that it was disrupted in April 2003, when the remaining plot leaders were arrested in a unilateral operation by Pakistani authorities.
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While the plot leaders were captured in the process of procuring explosives, they maintained that they were still in the process of locating vehicles, a safe house, and suicide operatives at the time of their arrest.
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The thwarting of the Karachi Plot(s) 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.
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Over a period of years, CIA documents prepared for and provided to senior policymakers, intelligence officials, and the Department of Justice represent the Karachi Plot(s) 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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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, in November 2007, the CIA prepared and provided a set of talking points to the CIA director for an “upcoming meeting with the President regarding the Waterboard Enhanced Interrogation Technique.”
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The document includes a section entitled, “Plots Discovered as a Result of EITs,” which states “reporting statistics alone will not provide a fair and accurate measure of the effectiveness of EITs.” The document then provides a list of “Key Intelligence Derived through use of EITs,” stating:
“CIA’s use of DOJ-approved enhanced interrogation techniques, as part of a comprehensive interrogation approach, has enabled CIA to disrupt terrorist plots . . . The following are examples of key intelligence collected from CIA detainee interrogations
after applying the waterboard
along with other interrogation techniques: . . . The Karachi Plot: This plan to conduct attacks against the US Consulate and other US interests in Pakistan was
uncovered during the initial interrogations of Khallad Bin Attash and Ammar al-Baluchi and later confirmed by KSM
.”
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Likewise, a CIA-prepared briefing for Vice President Cheney on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques in March 2005, under a section of the briefing called, “INTERROGATION RESULTS,” asserts:
“Use of DOJ-authorized
enhanced interrogation techniques
, as part of a comprehensive interrogation approach, has enabled us to disrupt terrorist plots, capture additional terrorists . . . The Karachi Plot: Plan to conduct attacks against the US Consulate and other US interests in Pakistan.
Plot disrupted.
Sources: Khallad Bin Attash, Ammar al-Baluchi. KSM also provided info on the plot after we showed him capture photos of Ammar and Khallad.”
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The CIA provided similar inaccurate representations regarding the thwarting of the Karachi Plot(s) in 17 of the 20 documents provided to policymakers and the Department of Justice between July 2003 and March 2009.
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A review of CIA operational cables and other documents found that the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques—to include the waterboard—played no role in the disruption of the Karachi Plot(s). CIA records indicate that the Karachi Plot(s) was thwarted by the arrest of operatives and the interdiction of explosives by Pakistani authorities, specifically █████████████████████████.
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The CIA had information regarding the Karachi terrorist plotting as early as September 11, 2002.
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On that day, a ██ raid conducted by
█████
Pakistani authorities
████████████████
, of an al-Qaida safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, uncovered the “perfume letter,” named as such because the term “perfumes” is used as a code word. The letter, written in May 2002, was from KSM to Hamza al-Zubayr, a known al-Qa’ida member who was killed in the raids.
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KSM’s letter to al-Zubayr states, “Dear Brother, we have the green light for the hotels,” and suggests “making it three instead of one.”
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By early October 2002, the CIA had completed a search of the names identified in the “perfume letter” in its databases and found many of the individuals who “had assigned roles in support of the operation” were arrested by Pakistani authorities during the raids.
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At least one person in the letter, Khallad bin Attash, a known al-Qa’ida operative, remained at large.
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What remained of the Karachi plotting was disrupted unilaterally by Pakistani authorities as a result of a criminal lead. On April █, 2003, Pakistani authorities, specifically ██████████, received a report that explosives and weapons were to be transported in a pickup truck to a specific location in Karachi.
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Pakistani authorities made arrangements to intercede, and, on April 29, 2003, they intercepted the vehicle and confiscated explosives, detonators, and ammunition. The driver of the vehicle provided the location where the explosives were being delivered, leading to the capture of several operatives, including Ammar al-Baluchi and Khallad bin Attash, as well as to the discovery of another explosives cache. A third captured individual stated that the explosives had belonged to Hamza al-Zubayr, the known and now deceased al-Qa’ida operative, as well as others residing in the home raided on September 11, 2002, where the “perfume letter” was discovered.
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While being arrested, Ammar al-Baluchi was asked by a Pakistani officer about his intentions regarding the seized explosives. Al-Baluchi responded that he was planning to attack the U.S. Consulate in Karachi.
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In foreign government custody—and prior to being rendered to CIA custody and subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques—Ammar al-Baluchi continued to provide information about the Karachi plotting to a foreign government officer who was using rapport-building interrogation techniques.
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The information provided by Ammar al-Baluchi on the plotting included the surveillance conducted, the envisioned targets, and the exact method of attack that was considered for the U.S. Consulate in Karachi and other hard targets. Ammar al-Baluchi discussed the use of a motorcycle with a bomb to breach the perimeter wall of the consulate and then how the operatives would seek to exploit that breach with a vehicle filled with explosives.
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Ammar al-Baluchi and Khallad bin Attash remained in foreign government custody for approximately
██
weeks, with Ammar al-Baluchi—and to a lesser extent bin Attash
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—responding to questions on a variety of matters, including the Karachi plotting.
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