From Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program

The Interrogation and Detention of Abu Zubaydah

1. On April 15, 2002, per a scripted plan, the same CIA interrogator delivered what a CIA cable described as “the pre move message” to Abu Zubaydah: that “time is running out,” that his situation had changed, and that the interrogator was disappointed that Abu Zubaydah did not signal to “discuss the one thing he was hiding.” Abu Zubaydah was sedated and moved from the hospital to DETENTION SITE GREEN. When Abu Zubaydah awoke at 11:00 PM, four hours after his arrival, he was described as surprised and disturbed by his new situation. An April 16, 2002, cable states the “objective is to ensure that {Abu Zubaydah} is at his most vulnerable state.”

2. From August 4, 2002, through August 23, 2002, the CIA subjected Abu Zubaydah to its enhanced interrogation techniques on a near 24-hour-per-day basis.

3. After Abu Zubaydah had been in complete isolation for 47 days, the most aggressive interrogation phase began at approximately 11:50 AM on August 4, 2002. Security personnel entered the cell, shackled and hooded Abu Zubaydah and removed his towel (Abu Zubaydah was then naked). Without asking any questions, the interrogators placed a rolled towel around his neck as a collar, and backed him up into the cell wall (an interrogator later acknowledged the collar was used to slam Abu Zubaydah against a concrete wall). The interrogators then removed the hood, performed an attention grab, and had Abu Zubaydah watch while a large confinement box was brought into the cell and laid on the floor. Abu Zubaydah “was unhooded and the large confinement box was carried into the interrogation room and paced {sic} on the floor so as to appear as a coffin.”

4. Each time Abu Zubaydah denied having additional information, the interrogators would perform a facial slap or face grab.

5. At approximately 6:20 PM, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded for the first time. Over a two-and-a-half-hour period, Abu Zubaydah coughed, vomited, and had “involuntary spasms of the torso and extremities during waterboarding.”

6. In an email to OMS leadership entitled, “So it begins,” a medical officer wrote: The sessions accelerated rapidly progressing quickly to the water board after large box, wailing, and small box periods. {Abu Zubaydah} seems very resistant to the water board. Longest time with the cloth over his face so far has been 17 seconds. This is sure to increase shortly. NO useful information so far...He did vomit a couple of times during the water board with some beans and rice. It's been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed Ensure for a while now. I'm head{ing} back for another waterboard session.”

7. The aggressive phase of interrogation” continued until August 23, 2002. Over the course of the entire 20 day “aggressive phase of interrogation,” Abu Zubaydah spent a total of 266 hours (11 days, 2 hours) in the large (coffin size) confinement box and 29 hours in a small confinement box, which had a width of 21 inches, a depth of 2.5 feet, and a height of 2.5 feet. The CIA interrogators told Abu Zubaydah that the only way he would leave the facility was in the coffin-shaped confinement box.

8. At times Abu Zubaydah was described as “hysterical” and “distressed to the level that he was unable to effectively communicate.” Waterboarding sessions 'resulted in immediate fluid intake and involuntary leg, chest and arm spasms” and “hysterical pleas.”

9. In at least one waterboarding session, Abu Zubaydah “became completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.” According to CIA records, Abu Zubaydah remained unresponsive until medical intervention, when he regained consciousness and expelled “copious amounts of liquid.”

The Death of Gul Rahman

1. In November 2002, ALEC Station officers requested that CIA contract interrogator Hammond DUNBAR, one of the primary interrogators of Abu Zubaydah in August 2002 travel to DETENTION SITE COBALT to assess a detainee for the possible use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.

2. While DUNBAR was present at DETENTION SITE COBAL, he assisted (blacked out) CIA Officer 1 in the interrogations of Gul Rahman, a suspected Islamic extremist. As reported to the CIA Headquarters, this interrogation included “48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness isolation, a cold shower, and rough treatment.”

3. On November {blacked out} 2002 CIA OFFICER 1 ordered that Gul Rahman be shackled to the wall of his cell in a position that required the detainee to rest on the bare concrete floor. Rahman was wearing only a sweatshirt as CIA OFFICER 1 had ordered that Rahman's clothing be removed when he had been judged to be uncooperative during an earlier interrogation.

4. The next day, the guards found Gul Rahman's dead body.

5. An internal CIA review and autopsy assessed that Rahman likely died from hypothermia—in part from having been forced to sit on the bare concrete floor without pants.

6. Initial cable to CIA Headquarters on Rahman's death included a number of misstatements and omissions that were not discovered until internal investigations into Rahman's death.

7. Key figures in the CIA interrogation program..received no reprimand or sanction for Rahman's death. Instead, in March 2003, just four months after the death of Gul Rahman, the CIA Station in Country {blacked out} recommended that CIA OFFICER 1 receive a “cash award “ of $2,500 for his “consistently superior work.

The Torture and Interrogation of Abd-al-Rahim

1. Abd-al Rahim, assessed by the CIA to be an al-Qa'ida “terrorist operations planner” who was “intimately involved” in planning both the USS Cole bombing and the 1998 East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings, was captured in the United Arab Emirates in mid-October 2002.

2. He provided information while in the custody of a foreign government, including on plotting in the Persian Gulf, and was then rendered by the CIA to DETENTION SITE COBALT in Country {blacked out} on November {blacked out} 2002, where he was held for {blacked out} days before being transferred to DETENTION SITE GREEN on November {blacked out} 2002.

3. At DETENTION SITE GREEN, al-Nashiri was interrogated using the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques, including being subjected to the waterboard at least three times....

4. In late December 2002, following a meeting at CIA Headquarters to discuss resuming the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques against al-Nashiri {blacked out} the chief of RDG —the entity that managed the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program—objected to sending CIA OFFICER 2 to the detention site because he “had not been through the interrogation training” and because {blacked out} “had heard from some colleagues that CIA OFFICER 2 was too confident, had a temper, and had some security issues.

5. {Blacked out} told the Office of Inspector General that “his assessment is that the Agency management felt that the {RDG} interrogators were being too lenient with al-Nashiri and that CIA OFFICER 2 was sent to{DETENTION SITE BLUE} to “fix” the situation.

6. CIA OFFICER 2 arrived at DETENTION SITE BLUE on December {blacked out} 2002, and the CIA resumed the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques on al-Nashiri shortly thereafter, despite the fact that {CIA OFFICER 2} had not been trained, certified, or approved to use the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.

7. CIA OFFICER 2 wrote a cable to CIA Headquarters that “{al}-Nashiri responds well to harsh treatment” and suggested that the interrogators continue to administer “various degrees of mild punishment,” but still allow for “a small degree of 'hope' by introducing some 'minute rewards.'”

8. It was later learned that during these interrogation sessions, CIA OFFICER 2, with the permission and participation of the DETENTION SITE BLUE chief of Base, who also had not been trained and qualified as an interrogator, used a series of unauthorized interrogation techniques against al-Nashiri. For example, CIA OFFICER 2 placed al-Nashiri in a “standing stress position” with “his hands affixed over his head” for approximately two and a half days.

9. Later, during the course of al-Nashiri's debriefings, while he was blindfolded, CIA OFFICER 2 placed a pistol near al-Nashiri's head and operated a cordless drill near al-Nashiri's body.

10. Al-Nashiri did not provide any additional threat information during, or after, these interrogations....

11. The Office of Inspector General later described additional allegations of unauthorized techniques used against al-Nashiri by CIA OFFICER 2 and other interrogators, including slapping al-Nashiri multiple times on the back of the head during interrogations; implying that his mother would be brought before him and sexually abused; blowing cigar smoke in al-Nashiri's face; giving al-Nashiri a forced bath using a stiff brush; and using improvised stress positions that caused cuts and bruises resulting in the intervention of a medical officer, who was concerned that al-Nashiri's shoulders would be dislocated using the stress positions.

12. When interviewed by the Office of Inspector General, the DETENTION SITE BUE chief of Base stated he did not object to using the gun and drill in the interrogations because he believed CIA OFFICER 2 was sent from CIA headquarters to “resolve the matter of al-Nashiri's cooperation” and that he believed CIA OFFICER 2 had permission to use the interrogation techniques.

13. On January {blacked out} 2003 CIA contractor DUNBAR arrived at DETENTION SITE BLUE to conduct a “Psychological Interrogation Assessment” to judge al-Nashiri's suitability for the additional use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and develop recommendations for his interrogation.

14. The resulting interrogation plan proposed that the interrogators would have the “latitude to use the full range of enhanced exploitation and interrogation measures,” adding that “the use of the water board would require additional support from” fellow CIA contractor Grayson SWIGERT.

15. According to the interrogation plan, once the interrogators had eliminated al-Nashiri's “sense of control and predictability” and established a “desired level of helplessness,” they would reduce the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and transition to a debriefing phase once again.

16. After receiving the proposed interrogation plan for al-Nashiri on January 21, 2003 {blacked out}, the CIA's chief of interrogations-whose presence had previously prompted al-Nashiri to tremble in fear—emailed CIA colleagues to notify them that he had “informed the front office of CTC” that he would “no longer be associated in any way with the interrogation program due to serious reservation{s} {he had} about the current state of affairs” and would instead be “retiring shortly.”

17. In the same email {blacked out} wrote, “{t}his is a train wreak {sic} waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens.”

18. {Blacked out} drafted a cable for CIA Headquarters to send to DETENTION SITE BLUE raising a number of concerns that he, the chief of interrogations, believed should be “entered for the record.” The CIA Headquarters cable—which does not appear to have been disseminated to DETENTION SITE BLUE—included the following:

19. We have serious reservations with the continued use of enhanced techniques with {al-Nashiri} and its long term impact on him. {Al-Nashiri} has been held for three months in very difficult conditions, both physically and mentally. It is the assessment of the prior interrogators that {al-Nashiri} has been mainly truthful and is not withholding significant information. To continue to use enhanced technique{s} without clear indications that he {is} withholding important info is excessive and may cause him to cease cooperation on any level. {Al-Nashiri} may come to the conclusion that whether he cooperates or not, he will continually be subjected to enhanced techniques, therefore, what is the incentive for continued cooperation. Also, both C/CTC/RG {Chief of CTC} RDG {blacked out} and HVT Interrogator {blacked out} who departed {DETENTION SITE BLUE} in {blacked out} January, before continued enhanced methods may push {al-Nashiri} over the edge psychologically.

20. Another area of concern is the use of the psychologist as an interrogator. The role of the ops psychologist is to be a detached observer and serve as a check on the interrogator to prevent the interrogator from any unintentional excess of pressure which might cause permanent psychological harm to the subject. The medical officer is on hand to provide the same protection from physical actions that might harm the subject. Therefore, the medical officer and the psychologist should not serve as an interrogator which is a conflict of responsibility. We note that {the proposed plan} contains a psychological interrogation assessment by {blacked out} psychologist {DUNBAR} which is to be carried out by interrogator {DUNBAR}. We have a problem with him conducting both roles simultaneously.

21. Rather than releasing {this} cable that was drafted by {blacked out}, CIA Headquarters approved a plan to reinstate the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques against al-Nashiri, beginning with shaving him, removing his clothing, and placing him in a standing sleep deprivation position with his arms affixed over his head.

22. CIA cables describing subsequent interrogations indicate that al-Nashiri was nude and, at times, “put in the standing position, handcuffed and shackled.” According to cables, CIA interrogators decided to provide al-Nashiri clothes to “hopefully stabilize his physiological symptoms and prevent them from deteriorating,” noting in a cable the next day that al-Nashiri was suffering from a head cold which caused his body to shake for approximately ten minutes during an interrogation.

23. Beginning in June 2003, the CIA transferred al-Nashiri to five different CIA detention facilities before he was transferred to U.S. Military custody on September 5, 2003.

24. In the interim, he was diagnosed by some CIA psychologists as having “anxiety” and “major depressive” disorder, while others found no symptoms of either illness.

25. He was a difficult and uncooperative detainee and engaged in repeated belligerent acts, including attempts to assault CIA detention site personnel and efforts to damage items in his cell.

26. Over a period of years, al-Nashiri accused the CIA staff of drugging or poisoning his food, and complained of bodily pain and insomnia. At one point, al-Nashiri launched a short-lived hunger strike that resulted in the CIA force feeding him rectally.