Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
F. CIA Director Goss Seeks Committee Support for the Program After the Detainee Treatment Act; CIA Declines to Answer Questions for the Record
In March 2006, three months after passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, the CIA provided a briefing for five Committee staffers that included limited information on the interrogation process, as well as the effectiveness of the CIA interrogation program.
2491
The briefings did not include information on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques or the location of CIA detention sites.
2492
A week later, on March 15, 2006, CIA Director Porter Goss briefed the full Committee on CIA detention matters, but did not provide the locations of the CIA’s detention facilities, or a list or briefing on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
2493
At this hearing Director Goss explained to the Committee that “we cannot do it by ourselves,” and that”[w]e need to have the support of our oversight committee.”
2494
Goss then described challenges to the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program as a result of the Detainee Treatment Act, as well as strained relations with countries hosting CIA detention sites after significant press revelations.
2495
Director Goss described the program as follows:
“This program has brought us incredible information. It’s a program that could continue to bring us incredible information. It’s a program that could continue to operate in a very professional way. It’s a program that I think if you saw how it’s operated you would agree that you would be proud that it’s done right and well, with proper safeguards.”
2496
Contrasting the CIA program to the abuse of prisoners in U.S. military detention at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Director Goss stated that the CIA program:
“is a professionally-operated program that we operate uniquely . . . We are not talking military, and I’m not talking about anything that a contractor might have done . . . in a prison somewhere or beat somebody or hit somebody with a stick or something. That’s not what this is about.”
2497
Addressing CIA interrogations. Director Goss testified that “we only bring in certain selected people that we think can give us intelligence information, and we treat them in certain specific ways” such that “they basically become psychologically disadvantaged to their interrogator.” Explaining that the key to a successful interrogation was “getting a better psychological profile and knowing what makes someone tick,” Director Goss stated, “just the simplest thing will work, a family photograph or something.” Goss then represented that the CIA’s interrogation program is “not a brutality. It’s more of an art or a science that is refined.”
2498
After the hearing, the Committee submitted official Questions for the Record related to the history, legality, and the effectiveness of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. The CIA did not respond.
2499
In May 2006, the Committee approved legislation requiring the CIA to provide reports on the CIA’s detention facilities (including their locations), the CIA’s interrogation techniques, the impact of the Detainee Treatment Act on the CIA program, CIA renditions, and the CIA’s plans for the disposition of its detainees. The legislation also called for full Committee access to the CIA May 2004 Inspector General Special Review, as well as expanded member and Committee staff access to information on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
2500
In July 2006, the new CIA director. General Michael Hayden, provided a briefing for the chairman and vice chairman in which he described the Detainee Treatment Act as a “safehaven” that potentially permitted the CIA to use its enhanced interrogation techniques.
2501
G. Full Committee First Briefed on the CIA’s Interrogation Program Hours Before It Is Publicly Acknowledged on September 6, 2006
On September 6, 2006, President Bush publicly acknowledged the CIA program and the transfer of 14 CIA detainees to U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hours prior to the announcement, CIA Director Hayden provided the first briefing on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program for all members of the Committee, although the CIA limited staff attendance to the Committee’s two staff directors.
2502
Due to the impending public acknowledgment of the program, the briefing was abbreviated. At the briefing, the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques were listed, but not described. Director Hayden stated that the techniques were developed at the Department of Defense SERE school and were “used against American service personnel during their training.” He testified that “once [a detainee] gets into the situation of sustained cooperation,” debriefings are “not significantly different than what you and I are doing right now.” Hayden sought “legislative assistance” in interpreting Common Article 3, stated that he had not asked for an opinion from the Department of Justice, and represented that he had been informed informally that seven interrogation techniques “are viewed by the Department of Justice to be consistent with the requirements of the Detainee Treatment Act.”
2503
Director Hayden declined to identify the locations of the CIA’s detention facilities to the members and stated that he personally had recommended not expanding Committee staff access beyond the two staff directors already briefed on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
2504
There were no other Committee briefings or hearings on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program prior to the Senate’s September 28, 2006, vote on the Military Commissions Act. As described, the Department of Justice later concluded that the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques were consistent with the Military Commissions Act in part because, according to the CIA, “none of the Members [briefed on the CIA program] expressed the view that the CIA interrogation program should be stopped, or that the techniques at issue were inappropriate.”
2505
However, prior to the vote, Senator McCain—who had been briefed on the CIA program—told CIA officials that he could not support the program and that sleep deprivation, one of the interrogation techniques still included in the program, as well as waterboarding, were torture.
2506
Members of the Committee also expressed their views in classified letters to the CIA. Senator Dianne Feinstein informed the CIA that Hayden’s testimony on the CIA program was “extraordinarily problematic” and that she was “unable to understand why the CIA needs to maintain this program.”
2507
In May 2007, shortly after additional Committee staff gained access to the program. Senator Russ Feingold expressed his opposition to the program, while Senators Feinstein, Ron Wyden, and Chuck Hagel described their concerns about the CIA program and their “deep discomfort” with the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
2508
On November 16, 2006, CIA Director Hayden briefed the Committee.
2509
The briefing included inaccurate information, including on the CIA’s use of dietary manipulation and nudity, as well as the effects of sleep deprivation.
2510
Before speaking about the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, however, Director Hayden asked to brief the Committee on the recent capture of the CIA’s newest detainee, Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who was not subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. Vice Chairman Rockefeller and two other members of the Committee expressed frustration at the briefing that Director Hayden’s description of Hadi al-Iraqi’s capture was preventing what was expected to be an in-depth discussion of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
2511
On February 14, 2007, during a hearing on CIA renditions, Director Hayden provided inaccurate information to the Committee, to include inaccurate information on the number of detainees held by the CIA. ████████, the deputy chief of the
█████
Department in CTC and the previous deputy chief of ALEC Station, provided examples of information obtained from the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program.
2512
After providing the examples,
████
closed her testimony with the statement that “[t]here’s no question, in my mind, that having that detainee information has saved hundreds, conservatively speaking, of American lives.”
2513
On March 15, 2007, in a speech to a gathering of ambassadors to the United States from the countries of the European Union, Director Hayden stated that congressional support for the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program assured the continuity of the program:
“I mentioned earlier that it would be unwise to assume that there will be a dramatic change in the American approach to the war on terror in 2009. CIA got the legislation it needed to continue this program in the Military Commissions Act passed by our Congress last fall. And let me remind you that every member of our intelligence committees, House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, is now fully briefed on the detention and interrogation program. This is not CIA’s program. This is not the President’s program. This is America’s program.”
2514
H. The CIA Provides Additional Information to the Full Committee and Staff, Much of It Inaccurate; Intelligence Authorization Act Passes Limiting CIA Interrogations to Techniques Authorized by the Army Field Manual
On April 12, 2007, CIA Director Hayden testified at a lengthy hearing that was attended by all but one committee member, and for the first time, the CIA allowed most of the Committee’s staff to attend. The members stated that the Committee was still seeking access to CIA documents and information on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, including Department of Justice memoranda and the location of the CIA’s detention facilities.
2515
Director Hayden’s Statement for the Record included extensive inaccurate information with regard to Abu Zubaydah, CIA interrogators, abuses identified by the ICRC, and the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
2516
Director Hayden’s Statement for the Record also listed five examples of captures and four examples of plots “thwarted” purportedly resulting from information acquired from CIA detainees, all of which included significant inaccurate information.
2517
Director Hayden’s Statement for the Record further included the following representation with regard to the effects of legislation that would limit interrogations to techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual:
“The CIA program has proven to be effective . . . should our techniques be limited to the [Army] field manual, we are left with very little offense and are relegated to rely primarily on defense. Without the approval of EITs . . . we have severely restricted our attempts to obtain timely information from HVDs who possess information that will help us save lives and disrupt operations. Limiting our interrogation tools to those detailed in the [Army] field manual will increase the probability that a determined, resilient HVD will be able to withhold critical, time-sensitive, actionable intelligence that could prevent an imminent, catastrophic attack.”
2518
At the April 12, 2007, hearing, Director Hayden verbally provided extensive inaccurate information on, among other topics: (1) the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, (2) the application of Department of Defense survival school practices to the program, (3) detainees’ counterinterrogation training, (4) the backgrounds of CIA interrogators, (5) the role of other members of the interrogation teams, (6) the number of CIA detainees and their intelligence production, (7) the role of CIA detainee reporting in the captures of terrorist suspects, (8) the interrogation process, (9) the use of detainee reporting, (10) the purported relationship between Islam and the need to use the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, (11) threats against detainees’ families, (12) the punching and kicking of detainees, (13) detainee hygiene, (14) denial of medical care, (15) dietary manipulation, (16) the use of waterboarding and its effectiveness, and (17) the injury and death of detainees. In addition, the chief of CTC’s
███████
Department provided inaccurate information on the CIA’s use of stress positions, while Acting General Counsel John Rizzo provided inaccurate information on the legal reasons for establishing CIA detention facilities overseas.
2519
A detailed comparison of Director Hayden’s testimony and information in CIA records related to the program is included in an appendix to this summary.
In responses to official Committee Questions for the Record, the CIA provided inaccurate information related to detainees transferred from U.S. military to CIA custody.
2520
The Committee also requested a timeline connecting intelligence reporting obtained from CIA detainees to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA declined to provide such a timeline, writing that “[t]he value of each intelligence report stands alone, whether it is collected before, during, immediately after or significantly after the use of [the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques].
2521
In May 2007, the Committee voted to approve the Fiscal Year 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill, which required reporting on CIA compliance with the Detainee Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act. In September 2007, John Rizzo withdrew his nomination to be CIA general counsel amid Committee concerns related to his role in the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. On August 2, 2007, the Committee conducted a hearing that addressed the interrogation of Muhammad Rahim, who would be the CIA’s last detainee, as well as the president’s new Executive Order, which interpreted the Geneva Conventions in a manner to allow the CIA to use its enhanced interrogation techniques against Muhammad Rahim. At that hearing, the CIA’s director of CTC, ████████, provided inaccurate information to the Committee on several issues, including how the CIA conducts interrogations.
2522
Members again requested access to the Department of Justice memoranda related to the CIA program, but were denied this access.
2523