the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply.”
The “facts” granting authorization to use the harsh techniques were that Abu Zubaydah was not cooperating (he was) and that he was a senior al-Qaeda member (he wasn’t). While the authors of the memo may not have been aware of the truth, those providing the content for the memos, and those requesting the authorization to initiate Boris’s experiments, certainly were. Because the advocates of the harsh techniques were allowed to state these lies and claim [1 word redacted] successes as their own, Boris and his partner (under the guidance of their sponsors in Washington) were then granted control over all future high-value detainees captured. Abu Zubaydah was the first person on whom the techniques were used. It was in many ways a trial or test run for the techniques. And because people in Washington rewrote the results to show that they passed the “test case,” they could successfully argue that the techniques be used in the future. Boris and his partner were given control of other high- value detainees.
Back in FBI headquarters, the situation was clear. We gained information using a tried and tested and scientific approach, while what Boris was doing was un-American and ineffective. We were confident that the contractors and their crazy ideas would soon be abandoned. Little did we know that there was a wider effort to disseminate misinformation even to Justice Department officials.
I later learned—from the July 29, 2009, OPR report—that the CIA had initially requested that twelve EITs be used in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. They were as follows (the descriptions are from the report):
1. Attention grasp: The interrogator grasps the subject with both hands, with one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion, and draws the subject toward the interrogator.
2. Walling: The subject is pulled forward and then quickly and firmly pushed into a flexible false wall so that his shoulder blades hit the wall. His head and neck are supported with a rolled towel to prevent whiplash.
3. Facial hold: The interrogator holds the subject’s head immobile by placing an open palm on either side of the subject’s face, keeping fingertips well away from the eyes.
4. Facial or insult slap: With fingers slightly spread apart, the interrogator’s hand makes contact with the area between the tip of the subject’s chin and the bottom of the corresponding earlobe.
5. Cramped confinement: The subject is placed in a confined space, typically a small or large box, which is usually dark. Confinement in the smaller space lasts no more than two hours and in the larger space up to eighteen hours.
6. Insects: A harmless insect is placed in the confinement box with detainees.
7. Wall standing: The subject may stand about four to five feet from a wall with his feet spread approximately to his shoulder width. His arms are stretched out in front of him and his fingers rest on the wall to support all of his body weight. The subject is not allowed to reposition his hands or feet.
8. Stress positions: These positions may include having the detainee sit on the floor with his legs extended straight out in front of him with his arms raised above his head or kneeling on the floor while leaning back at a forty-five-degree angle.
9. Sleep deprivation: The subject is prevented from sleeping, not to exceed eleven days at a time. [Note: as initially proposed, sleep deprivation was to be induced by shackling the subject in a standing position, with his feet chained to a ring in the floor and his arms attached to a bar at head level, with very little room for movement.]
10. Use of diapers: The subject is forced to wear adult diapers and is denied access to toilet facilities for an extended period, in order to humiliate him.
11. Waterboard: The subject is restrained on a bench with his feet elevated above his head. His head is immobilized and an interrogator places a cloth over his mouth and nose while pouring water onto the cloth. Airflow is restricted for twenty to forty seconds; the technique produces the sensation of drowning and suffocation.
12. [When the document was released, this paragraph was redacted by the government.]
According to the OPR report, on July 24, a Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, “telephoned Rizzo and told him that the attorney general had authorized him to say that the first six EITs (attention grasp, walling, facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, and wall standing [which is actually number seven]) were lawful and that they could proceed to use them on Abu Zubaydah.”
Only on August 1, 2002, at around 10:00 PM, did the Department of Justice give the agency its written legal approval that ten specific enhanced interrogation techniques would not violate the Geneva Convention torture prohibition and could be used on detainees. The memo was primarily the work of Jay Bybee and John Yoo. (There are actually two versions of the memo, classified and unclassified, and together they are referred to as the Bybee memos.) According to CIA records, the classified Bybee memo was faxed to the CIA at 10:30 PM on August 1, 2002.
After the Abu Zubaydah interrogation, Boris and his partner and supporters in Washington were fully in control of the program. Only after that did the CIA even start “training” its interrogators. According to the 2004 OIG report, only in “November 2002” did the CIA initiate “a pilot running of a two-week Interrogator Training Course designed to train, qualify, and certify individuals as Agency interrogators.” Of course, two weeks isn’t enough to make someone a qualified interrogator. What makes someone a qualified interrogator is not only months of training but knowledge of the detainee and of terrorism.
The techniques that [3 words redacted] described as “borderline torture”) were later declared by George Tenet, in guidelines issued on January 28, 2003, to be “Standard CIA Interrogation Techniques.” According to Tenet, “these guidelines complement internal Directorate of Operations guidance relating to the conduct of interrogations.” His guidelines state that the standard techniques “include, but are not limited to, all lawful forms of questioning employed by US Law Enforcement and military interrogation personnel. Among Standard Techniques are the use of isolation, sleep deprivation not to exceed 72 hours, reduced caloric intake (so long as the amount is calculated to maintain the general health of the detainee), deprivation of reading material, use of loud music or white noise (at a decibel level calculated to avoid damage to the detainee’s hearing), and the use of diapers for a limited period (generally not to exceed 72 hours)…”—the rest is redacted.
What failed with Abu Zubaydah was later declared “standard” by George Tenet. It seems that the lesson was not learned.
For the next six years, until documents regarding this period were declassified, I had to remain silent as lie after lie was told about Abu Zubaydah and the success of the techniques. One public defender of the techniques was a CIA official named John Kiriakou, who stated on national television that Abu Zubaydah was uncooperative until he was waterboarded for thirty-five seconds. Kiriakou said he witnessed this himself. “It was like flipping a switch,” Kiriakou said; after that, Abu Zubaydah spilled everything. Later Kiriakou admitted that he had given false information, and we learned that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded eighty-three times—and that no new valuable information was gained from him. (Today Kiriakou works as a staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.)
In FBI headquarters, Boris, his partner, and their high-level backers in Washington were referred to as the “poster boys,” a reference to the FBI’s Most Wanted list, where we believed their methods would one day land them.
What happened at the secret location with Abu Zubaydah was originally taped by the CIA. The tapes were destroyed by the CIA before investigators could see them. Declassified internal CIA e-mails show senior CIA officials stating the urgency and importance of destroying the tapes. [44 words redacted]
One of the most damning condemnations of the CIA program came with the declassification of the CIA inspector general’s 2004 report. John Helgerson examined all the claims about the effectiveness of the techniques, and he had access to the CIA classified memos. He states that while regular interrogation (our approach) achieved many successes, “measuring the effectiveness of the EITs… is a more subjective process and not without some concern.” Moreover, he said he couldn’t verify that a single threat listed by the CIA as having been thwarted was imminent. Unfortunately, the report came two years too late.
In early 2008, in a conference room that is referred to as a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), I gave a classified briefing on Abu Zubaydah to staffers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The staffers present were shocked. What I told them contradicted everything they had been told by Bush administration
