Authors: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
697.
See
Memorandum for Chief, ████████████ via ███ CTC Legal from Chief, CTC/RDG, July 28, 2003, Subject: Decertification of former Interrogator, signed by ████████ [CIA OFFICER 1] on July 29, 2003; and April 7, 2005, Briefing for Blue Ribbon Panel: CIA Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Programs at 22; Memorandum for Chief, ██████████████, via ███ CTC Legal from Chief, CTC/RDG, July 28, 2003, Subject: Decertification of former Interrogator.
698.
CIA records indicate that KSM received at least 183 applications of the waterboard technique, and that Abu Zubaydah received at least 83 applications of the waterboard technique. In April 2003, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson asked General Counsel Scott Muller about the repetitious use of the waterboard. In early June 2003, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and the Vice President’s Counsel, David Addington, who were aware of the inspector general’s concerns, asked Muller whether the number of waterboard repetitions had been too high in light of the OLC guidance. This question prompted Muller to seek information on the use of the waterboard on Abu Zubaydah and KSM. (See interview of Scott Muller, by [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], Office of the Inspector General, August 20, 2003; and email from: Scott Muller; to: John Rizzo; cc: ██████████, ████████████, [REDACTED], ██████████, [REDACTED]; subject: “Report from Gitmo trip (Not proofread, as usual)”; date: June █, 2003, 05:47 PM.) As Muller told the OIG, he could not keep up with cable traffic from CIA detainee interrogations and instead received monthly briefings. According to OIG records of the interview, Muller “said he does not know specifically how [CIA guidelines on interrogations] changed because he does not get that far down into the weeds,” and “each detainee is different and those in the field have some latitude.” (See interview of Scott Muller, Office of the Inspector General, August 20, 2003.) Despite this record and others detailed in the full Committee Study, the CIA’s June 2013 Response asserts that the CIA’s “confinement conditions and treatment of high profile detainees like Abu Zubaydah were closely scrutinized at all levels of management from the outset.”
699.
August 5, 2003 Memorandum for the Record from Scott Muller, Subject: Review of Interrogation Program on 29 July 2003; Briefing slides, CIA Interrogation Program, July 29, 2003.
700.
August 5, 2003, Memorandum for the Record from Scott Muller, Subject: Review of the Interrogation Program on 29 July 2003. A briefing slide describing the “Pros” and “Cons” associated with the program listed the following under the heading “Con”: (1) “Blowback due to public perception of ‘humane treatment,’” (2) “ICRC continues to attack USG policy on detainees,” and (3) “Congressional inquiries continue.” See Volume II for additional details.
701.
August 5, 2003, Memorandum for the Record from Scott Muller, Subject: Review of Interrogation Program, July 29, 2003.
702.
Email from: John Rizzo; to: ██████████ subject: Rump PC on interrogations; date: July 31, 2003.
703.
August 5, 2003, Memorandum for the Record from Scott Muller, Subject: Review of Interrogation Program, July 29, 2003.
704.
September 26, 2003, CIA Memorandum for the Record from Muller, Subject: CIA Interrogation Program.
705.
September 4, 2003, CIA Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Member Briefing.
706.
January 6, 2004, Letter from ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.
707.
HEADQUARTERS ████ █████████.
708.
HEADQUARTERS ████ ██████████; ██████████████ 1603 ██████.
709.
See, for example, DIRECTOR ████ █████████; DIRECTOR ████ █████████; ████████ 1696 ████████; DIRECTOR ████ ████████; DIRECTOR ████ █████████; HEADQUARTERS ████ █████████; HEADQUARTERS ████ ████████; ███████████ 2308 ████████; ██████████ 2335 ████████; ██████ 1001 ██████.
710.
March 4, 2004, Letter from Jose Rodriguez, Director, DCI Counterterrorist Center to Thomas O’Connell, Assistant Secretary of Defense, Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict.
711.
See ████ 180219 ██████████.
712.
██████████████ 2296 (101709Z ███ 04).
713.
██████████████ 2296 (101709Z ███ 04).
714.
Details in June 13, 2005, Letter to ICRC, responding to 2004 ICRC
note verbale
.
715.
████████████████████ 2348 ███████████.
716.
HEADQUARTERS ████ ████████. During this same period, countries whose nationals were in CIA custody were issuing demarches. ███████ issued a demarche to Country ██ in ███ 2004, and ████ issued a demarche to the U.S. in ███ 2004. See ████████████ 2274 █████████; ████ 92037, and 93291 ██████████.
717.
For more information, see Volume I.
718.
Email from: [REDACTED]; to: John Rizzo, [REDACTED]; cc: [REDACTED], ███████, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], █████████, Jose Rodriguez, John P. Mudd, [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED]; subject: DoD’s position on ICRC notification; date: September 13, 2004.
719.
June 13, 2005, Letter to ICRC, responding to 2004 ICRC
note verbale.
720.
Special Review, Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001–October 2003) (2003-7123-IG), 7 May 2004, (DTS #2004-2710).
721.
The chief of Station in the country that hosted the CIA’s first detention site told the OIG that “[t]he Reports Officers did not know what was required of them, analysts were not knowledgeable of the target, translators were not native Arab speakers, and at least one of the [chiefs of Base] had limited field experience.” See Interview report of [REDACTED], Office of the Inspector General, May 20, 2003. According to ██████████ of CTC Legal, there was no screening procedure in place for officers assigned to DETENTION SITE GREEN. See interview of █████████, by [REDACTED] and [REDACTED, Office of the Inspector General, February 14, 2003.
See also
interview of ████████████, Office of the Inspector General, March 24, 2003.
722.
In addition to the statements to the OIG described above, regarding the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, CIA officers expressed more general concerns. As ██████████ noted, the assumptions at CIA Headquarters that Abu Zubaydah “knew everything about Al-Qa’ida, including details of the next attack” reflected how “the ‘Analyst vs. Interrogator’ issue ha[d] been around from ‘day one.’” (See interview of ████████ Office of the Inspector General, February 27, 2003.) According to Chief of Interrogations ██████████, subject matter experts often provided interrogation requirements that were “not valid or well thought out,” providing the example of Mustafa al-Hawsawi. (See interview of ███████, Office of the Inspector General, April 7, 2003.) Senior CIA interrogator █████████ told the OIG that interrogators “suffered from a lack of substantive requirements from CIA Headquarters,” and that “in every case so far, Headquarters’ model of what the detainee should know is flawed.” ██████ told the OIG that “I do not want to beat a man up based on what Headquarters says he should know,” commenting that, “I want my best shot on something he (the detainee) knows, not a fishing expedition on things he should know.” (See interview of █████████, Office of the Inspector General, April 30, 2003.) Two interviewees told the OIG that requirements were sometimes based on inaccurate or improperly translated intercepts. See interview of interrogator ███████, Office of the Inspector General, March 24, 2003; Interview of █████████████ [former chief of Station in the country that hosted the CIA’s first detention site], Office of the Inspector General, May 29, 2003.
723.
One interviewee noted that several interrogators with whom he had worked insisted on conducting interrogations in English to demonstrate their dominance over the detainee. (See interview report of ███████, Office of the Inspector General, March 17, 2003.) The CIA’s June 2013 Response acknowledges that “[t]he program continued to face challenges in identifying sufficient, qualified staff -- particularly language-qualified personnel -- as requirements imposed by Agency involvement in Iraq increased.”
724.
According to ████████ of CTC Legal, “[t]he seventh floor [CIA leadership] can complicate the process because of the mindset that interrogations are the silver bullet [and CIA leadership is] expecting immediate results.” (See interview of ████████, Office of the Inspector General, February 14, 2003.) Senior Interrogator █████████ provided the example of Khallad bin Attash, who, he told the OIG, was determined by the chief of Base at DETENTION SITE BLUE not to “warrant” the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. According to █████, debriefer ██████ called ALEC Station and told them to “go to the mat” in advocating for the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, claiming that bin Attash was holding back information. (See interview of ████████, Office of the Inspector General, April 30, 2003.) ████████ described the “inherent tension that occasionally exists between officers at the interrogation facilities and those at Headquarters who view the detainees are withholding information.” ███████ provided the example of Abu Yassir al-Jaza’iri. (See interview of ███████, Office of the Inspector General, May 8, 2003.) ███████ also described disagreements on whether to subject detainees to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques as a “field versus Headquarters issue.” (See interview of ████████, Office of the Inspector General, August 18, 2003.) As described, interviewees also described pressure from CIA Headquarters related to the interrogations of KSM and Abu Zubaydah.
725.
Interview of ███████, Office of the Inspector General, February 21, 2003.
726.
Interview of ███████, Office of the Inspector General, April 30, 2003.
727.
DDO Pavitt described possible public revelations related to the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program as “the CIA’s worst nightmare.” Interview of James Pavitt, Office of the Inspector General, September 21, 2003. According to OIG records of an interview with DCI Tenet, “Tenet believes that if the general public were to find out about this program, many would believe we are torturers.” Tenet added, however, that his “only potential moral dilemma would be if more Americans die at the hands of terrorists and we had someone in our custody who possessed information that could have prevented deaths, but we had not obtained such information.” See interview of George Tenet, Office of the Inspector General, memorandum dated, September 8, 2003.
728.
See CIA Memorandum from Scott W. Muller, General Counsel, to Inspector General re Interrogation Program Special Review, dated February 24, 2004 (2003-7123-IG).
729.
Memorandum to the Inspector General from James Pavitt, CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations, dated February 27, 2004, with the subject line, “Comments to Draft IG Special Review, ‘Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Program’ (2003-7123-IG),” Attachment, “Successes of CIA’s Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities,” dated February 24, 2004.
730.
For additional information, see Volume II.
731.
July 21, 2005, Memorandum for Inspector General from Porter J. Goss, Director, Central Intelligence Agency re: New IG Work Impacting the CounterTerrorism Center.
732.
Transcript of business meeting, April 14, 2005 (DTS #2005-2810).
733.
Committee Memorandum for the Record, “Staff Briefing with Bob Deitz on his Inquiry into the Investigative Practices of the CIA Inspector General,” October 17, 2007 (DTS #2007-4166); Committee Memorandum for the Record, “Notes from Meetings with John Helgerson and Bob Deitz in late 2007 and early 2008” (DTS #2012-4203); Committee Memorandum for the Record, “Staff Briefing with CIA Inspector General John Helgerson” (DTS #2007- 4165).
734.
Letter from DCIA Michael Hayden to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, January 29, 2008 (DTS#2008-0606).
735.
May 12, 2004, Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from ████████, Chief, Information Operations Center, and Henry Crumpton, Chief, National Resources Division, via Associate Deputy Director for Operations, with the subject line, “Operational Review of CIA Detainee Program.”
736.
May 12, 2004, Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from ████████, Chief, Information Operations Center, and Henry Crumpton, Chief, National Resources Division, via Associate Deputy Director for Operations, with the subject line, “Operational Review of CIA Detainee Program.” The CIA’s June 2013 Response states, “[w]e acknowledge that the Agency erred in permitting the contractors to assess the effectiveness of enhanced techniques. They should not have been considered for such a role given their financial interest in continued contracts from CIA.”
737.
May 12, 2004, Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from ████████, Chief, Information Operations Center, and Henry Crumpton, Chief, National Resources Division, via Associate Deputy Director for Operations re Operational Review of CIA Detainee Program. For additional information, see Volume II.
738.
May 12, 2004, Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from ████████, Chief, Information Operations Center, and Henry Crumpton, Chief, National Resources Division, via Associate Deputy Director for Operations re Operational Review of CIA Detainee Program.
739.
May 12, 2004 Memorandum for Deputy Director for Operations from ████████, Chief, Information Operations Center, and Henry Crumpton, Chief, National Resources Division, via Associate Deputy Director for Operations re Operational Review of CIA Detainee Program.