Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
On July 2, 2004, the day that CIA Headquarters approved the rendition of Janat Gul to CIA custody,
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the CIA represented to select members of the National Security Council that Janat Gul was one of the “most senior radical Islamic facilitators in Pakistan,” and noted that he was “assessed by a key source on [the] pre-election plot to be involved in or [to] have information on the plot.”
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On July 15, 2004, based on the reporting of ASSET Y, the CIA represented to the chairman and vice chairman of the Committee that Janat Gul was associated with a pre-election plot to conduct an attack in the United States.
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On July 20, 2004, select National Security Council principals met again, and according to CIA records, agreed that, “[g]iven the current threat and risk of delay, CIA was authorized and directed to utilize the techniques with Janat Gul as necessary.”
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On July 22, 2004, Attorney General Ashcroft approved the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against Janat Gul based on ASSET Y’s reporting.
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Janat Gul was rendered to CIA custody on July ██, 2004.
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On August 2, 2004, Janat Gul denied knowledge of any imminent threats against the United States homeland. Gul’s denial was deemed a “strong resistance posture” by CIA detention site personnel.
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Janat Gul was then subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques from August 3, 2004, to August 10, 2004, and then again from August 21, 2004, to August 25, 2004.
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On August 19, 2004, CIA personnel wrote that the interrogation “team does not believe [Gul] is withholding imminent threat information.”
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On August 25, 2004, CIA interrogators sent a cable to CIA Headquarters stating that Janat Gul “may not possess all that [the CIA] believes him to know.” The interrogators added that the interrogation “team maintains a degree of caution in some areas, as many issues linking [Gul] to al-Qaida are derived from single source reporting,” a reference to the CIA source, ASSET Y.
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That same day, August 25, 2004, the CIA’s associate general counsel provided a letter to the DOJ seeking approval to use additional CIA enhanced interrogation techniques against Janat Gul: dietary manipulation, nudity, water dousing, and the abdominal slap. The letter asserted that Janat Gul had information concerning “imminent threats to the United States” and “information that might assist in locating senior al-Qa’ida operatives whose removal from the battlefield could severely disrupt planned terrorist attacks against the United States.” The letter stated:
“In addition, CIA understands that before his capture, Gul had been working to facilitate a direct meeting between the ████ CIA
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source reporting on the pre-election threat [ASSET Y] and Abu Faraj himself; Gul had arranged a previous meeting between [ASSET Y] and al-Qa’ida finance chief Shaykh Sa’id at which elements of the pre-election threat were discussed.”
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The letter from the CIA’s associate general counsel asserted that Janat Gul’s “resistance increases when questioned about matters that may connect him to al-Qa’ida or evidence he has direct knowledge of operational terrorist activities.”
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The letter stated that the CIA sought approval to add four enhanced interrogation techniques to Janat Gul’s interrogation plan “in order to reduce markedly Gul’s strong resistance posture and provide an opportunity for the interrogation team to obtain his cooperation.”
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On August 26, 2004, Acting Assistant Attorney General Dan Levin informed CIA Acting General Counsel Rizzo that the use of the four additional enhanced interrogation techniques did not violate any U.S. statutes, the U.S. Constitution, or U.S. treaty obligations. Levin’s letter stated that “[w]e understand that [Janat] Gul is a high-value al Qaeda operative who is believed to possess information concerning an imminent terrorist threat to the United States.”
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On August 27, 2004, Gul’s CIA interrogators reported that “in terms of overt indications of resistance, [Gul’s] overall resistance is currently judged to be minimal.”
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Nonetheless, on August 31, 2004, the CIA interrogators asked CIA Headquarters to approve an extension of all CIA enhanced interrogation techniques against Janat Gul.
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The CIA’s associate general counsel objected, writing:
“In the end, its [
sic
] going to be an operational call. I just want to be sure that the record is clear that we’re not acting precipitously and are taking into consideration everything we’re learning about this guy. We open ourselves up to possible criminal liability if we misuse the interrogation techniques. I reflect again on the cable or cables from the interrogation team that opines that physical EITs (facial slap, walling, etc.) do not work on him. I would strongly encourage, then, HQS not to approval [
sic
] the use of physical interrogation techniques because if they don’t work, then our motives are questionable. If our motives might be questioned, then we get ourselves in trouble.”
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Despite these concerns, on September 3, 2004, CIA Headquarters released a cable extending approval for sleep deprivation for 30 days. CIA records indicate, however, that Gul was not subjected to sleep deprivation, or any other enhanced interrogation technique, following this approval.
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On September 7, 2004, more than a month after Janat Gul was rendered to CIA custody, a CIA officer who had observed the interrogations of Gul prepared a memorandum for the leadership of the CIA’s Renditions, Detentions, and Interrogations Group, stating:
“The definition of an HVD has probably become blurred over the past year as [CIA] began to render a higher number of MVDs [medium value detainees], but [Janat Gul] would not be considered an HVD when compared to Abu Zubaydah, KSM, and similar level HVDs. [Janat Gul] should likewise not be considered an operational planner or even an operator. It is very likely that [Janat Gul] came into contact with operational information, but we lack credible information that ties him to pre-election threat information or direct operational planning against the United States, at home or abroad. Likewise, we lack any substantive information that connects [Janat Gul] to UBL, Zawahiri, and Abu Faraj Al-Libi.”
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On September 16, 2004, CIA detention site personnel wrote that Janat Gul’s reporting directly contradicted information from ASSET Y from March 2004, and stated that, “[m]uch of our derogatory information on [Gul] came from [ASSET Y] reporting, as did much of our pre-election threat information.”
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On September 17, 2004, following the reports about the discrepancies between the comments made by Janat Gul and ASSET Y, as well as similar denials from Sharif al-Masri, who was in foreign government custody, the CIA undertook a counterintelligence review of ASSET Y to assess the validity of ASSET Y’s reporting.
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On October █, 2004, and October █, 2004, CIA officers provided a ██████ assessment of ASSET Y. That █████ assessment indicated that ASSET Y was deceptive in response to questions regarding his alleged meeting with a senior al-Qa’ida official, Shaykh Sa’id, at which ASSET Y claimed to have learned about the pre-election threat. ASSET Y then admitted to having fabricated the information about the meeting.
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Despite the recantation of reporting from ASSET Y, officers from the CIA’s ALEC Station continued to assess that Janat Gul “was one of the highest-ranking facilitators in Pakistan with long-standing access to senior leaders in al-Qa’ida” and other groups.
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This assessment was not shared by CIA personnel involved in Gul’s interrogation. On November 10, 2004, the CIA’s chief of Base at DETENTION SITE BLACK, the CIA detention site hosting Gul, wrote that the words used by ALEC Station to describe Janat Gul:
“. . . fly in the face of what is now a rather long history of debriefings which, 1 would assert, paint a very different picture of him. While [Janat Gul] was certainly a facilitator, describing him as ‘highest-ranking’ gives him a stature which is undeserved, overblown and misleading. Stating that he had ‘long standing access to senior leaders in al-Qa’ida’ is simply wrong. . . . To put it simply, [Janat Gul] is not the man we thought he was. While he no doubt had associations and interactions with people of interest, [Janat Gul] is not the pivotal figure our pre-detention descriptions of him suggest. We do a disservice to ourselves, the mission and even [Janat Gul] by allowing misperceptions of this man to persist.”
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On November 22, 2004, a CIA officer noted the discrepancy between the CIA’s description of Janat Gul as a “potential source of intelligence information regarding an attack by al-Qa’ida” in a draft OLC memorandum and the current assessment of Janat Gul.
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In an email, the CIA officer indicated that he had spoken to the CIA’s associate general counsel, ███████, who had informed him that “the state of our knowledge about Gul had evolved since he was captured.” The email noted that, “[a]t first, we believed he had attack information of a more imminent nature,” but “[n]ow it appears that he does not have such information.” The email indicated that █████ would talk to personnel at OLC about the issue to “[amend] the draft opinion to reflect the state of our knowledge.”
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The OLC memorandum was not updated.
On December 19, 2004, CIA detention site personnel wrote again that Janat Gul was “not/not the man [CIA Headquarters] made him out to be,” and that “[h]e is a very simple man who, no doubt, did a capable job as a facilitator but he is not the link to senior AQ leaders that [CIA Headquarters] said he was/is.”
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On April 6, 2005, as the OLC approached completion of its analysis of the legality of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, the OLC asked the CIA about the interrogation of Gul using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically, “what [the CIA] got from Janat Gul, was it valuable, [and] did it help anything. . . .”
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The CIA did not immediately respond to this request and the CIA’s Associate General Counsel █████████ noted that OLC personnel had “taken to calling [him] daily” for information.
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On April 14, 2005, a CIA officer emailed █████ talking points stating that:
“Pakistan-based facilitator Janat Gul’s most significant reporting helped us validate a CIA asset who was providing information about the 2004 pre-election threat. The asset claimed that Gul had arranged a meeting between himself and al-Qa’ida’s chief of finance, Shaykh Sa’id, a claim that Gul vehemently denied.
“Gul’s reporting was later matched with information obtained from Sharif al-Masri and Abu Talha, captured after Gul. With this reporting in hand, CIA ███████ the asset, who subsequently admitted to fabricating his reporting about the meeting.”
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On May 10, 2005, the OLC issued a formal memorandum that included a discussion of the legality of the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against Janat Gul.
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Citing information provided in the CIA’s August 25, 2004, letter, the OLC memorandum stated:
“You asked for our advice concerning these interrogation techniques in connection with their use on a specific high value al Qaeda detainee named Janat Gul. You informed us that the CIA believed Gul had information about al Qaeda’s plans to launch an attack within the United States. According to CIA’s information, Gul had extensive connections to various al Qaeda leaders, members of the Taliban, and the al-Zarqawi network, and had arranged meetings between an associate and al Qaeda’s finance chief to discuss such an attack. . . . Our conclusions depend on these assessments.”
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On May 30, 2005, the OLC issued a memorandum concluding that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against CIA detainees did not violate Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture.
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In the memorandum, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury used the example of Janat Gul as a detainee who was “representative of the high value detainees on whom enhanced techniques have been, or might be, used.”
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Citing information from the CIA’s August 25, 2004, letter, Bradbury wrote:
“the CIA believed [that Janat Gul] had actionable intelligence concerning the pre-election threat to the United States . . . Gul had extensive connections to various al Qaeda leaders, members of the Taliban, and the al-Zarqawi network, and intelligence indicated that ‘Gul had arranged a . . . meeting between [a ██████ source] and al-Qa’ida finance chief Shaykh Sa’id at which elements of the pre-election threat were discussed.”
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As noted, the CIA had represented that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques was necessary for Janat Gul to provide information on an imminent threat to the United States, the pre-election threat. As further noted, Gul did not provide this information and records indicate that the threat was based on fabricated CIA source reporting. When the OLC requested the results of using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against Janat Gul, the CIA represented that “Gul has provided information that has helped the CIA with validating one of its key assets reporting on the pre-election threat.” This information was included in the May 30, 2005, OLC memorandum, which also stated that Gul’s information “contradicted the asset’s contention that Gul met with Shaykh Sa’id,” and that, “[a]nned with Gul’s assertions, the CIA ██████ the asset, who then admitted that he had lied about the meeting.”
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There are no indications in the memorandum that the CIA informed the OLC that CIA officers had concluded that Gul had no information about the pre-election threat and had determined that Gul was “not the man we thought he was.”
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As noted, after the May 30, 2005, OLC memorandum, the CIA continued to represent that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques allowed the CIA to validate sources.
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8. The Identification and Arrests of Uzhair and Saifullah Paracha
The CIA represented that information obtained through the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques produced otherwise unavailable intelligence that led to the identification and/or arrest of Uzhair Paracha and his father Saifullah Paracha (aka, Sayf al-Rahman Paracha). These CIA representations include inaccurate information and omit significant material information—specifically a body of intelligence reporting acquired prior to CIA detainee reporting that linked the Parachas to al-Qa’ida-related activities.
CIA representations also credit the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques with the identification of a plot to smuggle explosives into the United States involving the Parachas.
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CIA records indicate that the plotting was denied by the supposed participants, and that at least one senior CIA counterterrorism official questioned the plausibility of the explosives smuggling plot given the relative ease of acquiring explosive material in the United States.
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The CIA provided information to the CIA Office of Inspector General that “EITs (including the water board) have been indispensable to our successes,” and stated that the CIA OIG Special Review should have come to the “conclusion that our efforts have thwarted attacks and saved lives.”
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The CIA further represented to the OIG that KSM “provided information that helped lead to the arrest of . . . Uzair Paracha, a smuggler,”
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and that “as a result of the lawful use of EITs”: