The Torture Memo Obama Never Rescinded

Nearly a year ago, I asked If Obama Withdrew the Yoo, Bradbury Torture Memos, What Goverment Opinion Now Covers The AFM and Appendix M? The question has direct relevance today, because the Army Field Manual on interrogation (FM 2-22.3) and its Appendix M governs current interrogation policy at Guantanamo, where a major hunger strike of over 100 detainees has paralyzed operations. Detainees are protesting the hopelessness of indefinite detention, and the harassment they must endure, including searches of their holy book, the Koran.

This article answers the question I asked earlier. It documents the fact the Obama administration never rescinded a Bush-era memo on the use of controversial interrogation tactics for use by the U.S. military. The memo concerned concerned "restricted" techniques to be included in the 2006 revision of the Army Field Manual.  As a result, today torture and abuse remain a part of U.S. military interrogation doctrine.

The April 13, 2006 memo was written by Stephen Bradbury, who was also author of two 2005 memos on the CIA torture-interrogation program that were subsequently withdrawn.

According to LTC Todd Breasseale in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), Obama's January 2009 Executive Order EO 13491, "Ensuring Lawful Interrogation," widely understood and cited as voiding the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel torture memos, "did not cancel Mr. Bradbury's legal review" of a rewritten Army Field Manual and its controversial Appendix M.

The latter, with its provisions for use of isolation, sleep deprivation, and forms of sensory deprivation, has been denounced as torture or abuse by a number of human rights and legal groups (see here and here, for example).

LTC Breasseale explained in an email response to my query last year:

Executive Order (EO) 13491 did not withdraw "'All executive directives, orders, and regulations... from September 11, 2001, to January 20, 2009, concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals.'" It revoked all executive directives, orders, and regulations that were inconsistent with EO 13491, as determined by the Attorney General.... [bold emphasis added]

One last point - you seem suggest below that EO 13491 somehow cancelled Steven Bradbury's legal review of the FM. EO 13491 did not cancel Mr. Bradbury's legal review of the FM."

When I then asked the Department of Justice to confirm what Breasseale had said for a story on the Bradbury memo, spokesman Dean Boyd wrote to tell me, "We have no comment for your story." The fact Boyd did not object to Breasseale's statement seems to validate the DoD spokesman's statement.

Breasseale also described DoD's view that both the current AFM and Appendix M were "not inconsistent with EO 13491," which "expressly prohibits subjecting any individual in the custody of the U.S. Government to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in the FM. In addition, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 expressly prohibits subjecting any individual in the custody of the U.S. Department of Defense to any treatment or technique of interrogation that is not authorized by and listed in the FM. In short, both the President and the Congress have determined that the interrogation techniques listed in the FM are lawful," Breasseale said.

But just how "lawful" were these interrogation techniques in the new AFM and Appendix M? A look at the history of their development belies DoD's assurances.

Double-talk on Interrogation Executive Order

It is somewhat understandable that most people believe President Obama cancelled all the Bush-era torture memos by executive order soon after taking office. The following is from the January 22, 2009 background briefing on the subject by the White House (emphases added):

Executive Order revokes Executive Order 13440 that interpreted Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. It requires that all interrogations of detainees in armed conflict, by any government agency, follow the Army Field Manual interrogation guidelines. The Order also prohibits reliance on any Department of Justice or other legal advice concerning interrogation that was issued between September 11, 2001 and January 20, 2009. [italics added for emphasis]

But the blanket prohibition on reliance on "any" DoJ advice regarding interrogation is not what Obama's Executive Order stated. EO 13491 states (emphases added):

Section 1.  Revocation.  Executive Order 13440 of July 20, 2007, is revoked.  All executive directives, orders, and regulations inconsistent with this order, including but not limited to those issued to or by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from September 11, 2001, to January 20, 2009, concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals, are revoked to the extent of their inconsistency with this order.  Heads of departments and agencies shall take all necessary steps to ensure that all directives, orders, and regulations of their respective departments or agencies are consistent with this order.  Upon request, the Attorney General shall provide guidance about which directives, orders, and regulations are inconsistent with this order.

So this is not a blanket but a conditional prohibition, with a determination on what will be revoked dependent upon advice from the Attorney General. Eric Holder is President Obama's attorney general.

While the famous torture memos written by John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Stephen Bradbury and others were revoked, one of Bradbury's memorandums was not revoked. This was the memo that authorized the rewritten Army Field Manual on interrogation and its Appendix M.

History of the Bradbury Memo on Appendix M

In April 2006, Stephen Bradbury, who wrote the 2005 torture memos that replaced earlier Office of Legal Counsel approvals for "enhanced interrogation" by John Yoo and Jay Bybee, signed off in a "Memorandum for the Record" on interrogation techniques in then soon-to-be-published new edition of the Army Field Manual guidelines on human intelligence gathering. The conclusions from Bradbury's analysis were sent by letter to Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel William Haynes on the same date as the memo was filed.

The previous OLC approvals of DoD interrogation methods had a more confusing background than did even those for the CIA. In March 2003, the Department of Justice (DoJ) had released a memo approving various torture techniques for DoD. The memo was written by John Yoo. But by December 2003, OLC chief Jack Goldsmith had said the 2003 Yoo memo should be rescinded as too flawed. Yet it appears it was not finally withdrawn until June 2004. The entire narrative remains murky, as explained to the best of our current knowledge by Marcy Wheeler in an article a few years back.

It appears that OLC thought it had covered itself on approval of DoD techniques by referencing a briefing by Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Philbin given to the House Select Committee on Intelligence on July 14, 2004. Certainly by the time Bradbury was writing his memo signing off on Appendix M and the new AFM, he referenced the Philbin testimony as evidence that the DoD techniques did not amount to torture.

While Bradbury did not indicate when the AFM underwent revision, a major revision was already being circulated for comment by the JAG corps as early as summer 2004. It's drafting, speculatively, was a reaction to the slow-motion withdrawal of the March 2003 Yoo memo.

For its part, the Philbin testimony noted that 17 of the 24 DoD techniques previously approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been in use for some years, and that only seven of the 24 techniques were "new" and in question. They were: 1) placing detainee in an "les than comfortable environment"; 2) "altering his diet"; 3) changes in environment to cause "moderate discomfort", such as temperature changes; 4) adjusting the sleep cycle, "for example by requiring him to sleep days instead of nights, but without depriving him of sleep"; 5) convincing the detainee he is held by a country other than the U.S. ("False Flag"); 6) physical isolation, no longer than 30 days; and 7) "Mutt and Jeff", or the good cop/bad cop routine.

In his testimony, Philbin essentially reiterated that under current U.S. law and judicial precedents, none of these techniques amounted to torture. In his AFM/Appendix M memo, Bradbury turned to the question of whether the techniques proposed in Appendix M violated laws against cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, laws rooted in the UN Convention Against Torture treaty signed by the United States, and reiterated at that time in the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act.

According to Bradbury, the Philbin testimony had taken the torture issue off the table. But there were differences between what would be in Appendix M and the techniques listed by Philbin, though Bradbury falsely minimized them.

"Although the restricted techniques described in Appendix M differ in certain minor respects from those submitted in the Philbin testimony," Bradbury wrote, "we do not think those differences are sufficient to alter the conclusions previously reached that the techniques comport with the general criminal statutes, the prohibition on torture, and the War Crimes Act."

Many of the descriptions of the restricted techniques are censored in the released Bradbury AFM/Appendix M memo. But Bradbury did understand and made a point of stating that some of the techniques wouldn't pass muster "if they were permitted in interrogation of all DoD detainees, regardless of their combatant status and without regard to the level of intelligence they might possess" [italics in original]. Bradbury also would not verify the Appendix M techniques would be lawful "if used in the criminal justice process as a means of obtaining information about ordinary crimes."

While Appendix M has "Mutt and Jeff" and "False Flag" techniques, it also includes, according to Bradbury, three "Adjustment" techniques "designed to change the detainee's environment," though not supposedly in a torturous fashion.

"Separation"

Bradbury also discusses the "Separation" technique, admitting it amounts to isolation "not to exceed 30 days without express authorization from a senior military officer." Philbin had not discussed extensions to isolation beyond 30 days, but Bradbury doesn't mention that. He cites the senior officer authorization, and the fact that detainees would "continually be monitored by medical personnel" as safeguards against harm to the detainee. It is clear, too, that such isolation is not merely for safety purposes, as Bradbury notes "the important role isolation can play in conditioning detainees for interrogation."

Bradbury never mentions that unlike the Philbin memo authorizations, the AFM was approving use of limited sleep deprivation (no more than 4 hours of sleep allowed per day for up to 30 days, with extensions allowed by senior officers) and sensory deprivation (use of black-out goggles in so-called "field expedient separation").

In his memo, Bradbury explained that DoJ/OLC had "not been asked to assess the consistency of those [Appendix M] techniques with the requirements of the Uniform Code of Military Justice" [UCMJ]. Hence, Bradbury said he assumed that DoD had "determined that the authorized use of the techniques, consistent with the applicable safeguards, accords with" the requirements of the UCMJ.

When asked if DoD made such a legal determination, LTC Breasseale said the new AFM "was scrutinized via a very thorough legal review at the highest level in the Pentagon prior to publication, so it is absolutely inconceivable for such a review not to have considered all legal aspects of the manual, including its adherence to the UCMJ." He was not more specific about who specifically reviewed it, nor was there a reference to any particular document citing this adherence. Breasseale did note the manual has had no changes made to it since its publication in September 2006.

One Sentence Reviews Bulk of Army Field Manual

One of the most egregious aspects of Bradbury's memo occur right at its very beginning. There, he states that the differences between the new AFM and its previous 1992 version (FM 34-52) amount to only "modest revisions" that are "fully consistent with... historical practice and thus do not require us to undertake a more detailed analysis of these issues."

Thus in one sentence does Bradbury dismiss a number of significant changes to protections and policies of the old field manual. The sweep of his dismissal is breathtaking.

In fact, changes to the new AFM included significant revisions to how a controversial technique called "Fear Up" was used. In the new manual, interrogators were now allowed to produce "new phobias" for exploitation in the prisoner, something forbidden previously. Using phobias to produce stress and fear in detainees was a "Category II" interrogation technique in a list of techniques proposed to DoD based on SERE counter-resistance interrogation school methods.

The main text of the new AFM also included the excision of prohibitions against sleep deprivation and stress positions. The former was necessary to allow the use of sleep deprivation in Appendix M.

Former military interrogator Matthew Alexander wrote in a 2010 New York Times op-ed about the abuse inherent in the changes on sleep allowed in Appendix M:

The manual also allows limiting detainees to just four hours of sleep in 24 hours. Let’s face it: extended captivity with only four hours of sleep a night (consider detainees at Guantánamo Bay who have been held for seven years) does not meet the minimum standard of humane treatment, either in terms of American law or simple human decency.

And if this weren’t enough, some interrogators feel the manual’s language gives them a loophole that allows them to give a detainee four hours of sleep and then conduct a 20-hour interrogation, after which they can “reset” the clock and begin another 20-hour interrogation followed by four hours of sleep. This is inconsistent with the spirit of the reforms, which was to prevent “monstering” — extended interrogation sessions lasting more than 20 hours.

Finally, there were changes in the language concerning the drugging of detainees, as I have discussed in detail elsewhere. Use of drugs on detainees was not previously prohibited in the earlier AFM, citing language disallowing use of any drugs that produced "chemically induced psychosis." In the new AFM, drugs could be used as long as they did not "induce lasting or permanent mental alteration or damage," a lower standard, requiring evidence of significant "lasting or permanent" harm.

Our understanding of exactly how DoD has used drugs on detainees is still evolving (see DoD's IG report and analyses of it here and here). As a matter of reference, according to a September 2004 Congressional Research Service report on "Lawfulness of Interrogation Techniques under the Geneva Conventions," even the allowance of drugs in the 1990s version of the AFM was a change from earlier doctrine, which prohibited the use of drugs entirely for interrogations.

According to an article cited by CRS, "any attempt to extract information from an unwilling prisoner of war by the use of chemicals, drugs, physiological or psychological devices, which impair or deprive the prisoner of his free will without being in his interest, such as a bonafide medical treatment, will be deemed a violation of Articles 13 and 17 of the [1949 Geneva POW] Convention."

Most recently, The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment, in a 560-page report documenting the use of torture by U.S. government agencies, noted:

The Army Field Manual on Interrogation should be amended so as to eliminate Appendix M, which permits the use of abusive tactics and to allow for the legitimate use of noncoercive separation. Language prohibiting the use of stress positions and abnormal sleep manipulation that was removed in 2006 should be restored.

Part of the problem in tackling the issue of torture and interrogation abuse in the current Army Field Manual concerns the misrepresentations concerning the steps actually taken in rewriting that document, as well as a myth that has grown up around Obama's Jan. 2009 Executive Order on interrogations. With the recent admission by DoD that the Bradbury Appendix M memo was never rescinded by Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, we are closer to the day when such inhumane treatment is banished from official U.S. military intelligence doctrine.

Cross-posted at The Dissenter/FDL

Newly Released Document Shows FBI Interrogation Advice Draws on CIA Torture Manuals

A 2010 FBI interrogation “primer” (PDF), apparently a fifth version of earlier FBI manuals dealing with “Cross-cultural, Rapport-based” “intelligence-oriented interrogations in overseas environments,” repeatedly draws upon advice from two CIA torture manuals, the 1963 KUBARK Counter-intelligence Manual and the 1983 Human Exploitation Resource Manual.

According to the National Security Archive, the KUBARK manual “includes a detailed section on ‘The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources,’ with concrete assessments on employing ‘Threats and Fear,’ ‘Pain,’ and ‘Debility.’ “ Even so, the manual is on the FBI’s “Recommended Reading” list for agents conducting overseas interrogations.

The 1983 Human Exploitation manual, which has been connected with atrocities by Latin American governments, drew upon both KUBARK and U.S. Army Intelligence manuals, describing the interrogator as someone “‘able to manipulate the subject's environment… to create unpleasant or intolerable situations, to disrupt patterns of time, space, and sensory perception.’”

The FBI document quotes the 1983 manual twice. While not referenced by name in the body of the document, the source is noted in the footnotes. One such quote from the 1983 torture document describes “the principle of generating pressure inside the source without the application of outside force.”

“This is accomplished by manipulating [the prisoner] psychologically until his resistance is sapped and his urge to yield is fortified,” the Human Exploitation Resource manual states, and FBI agents are so advised. The quote is in bold in the FBI instructions and reproduced as such here.

Meanwhile, the KUBARK manual is repeatedly mentioned in the body of the FBI work. “There are two purposes of screening according to the KUBARK Manual,” the “primer” states. According to the FBI, the “wise Interrogator” will follow “KUBARK Manual guidance.”

According to an ACLU blog posting, the FBI document was “written by an FBI Section Chief within the counterterrorism division.”

The rehabilitation of the KUBARK document began with an essay by U.S. interrogation consultant Colonel (ret.) Steven Kleinman. The essay was published in an Intelligence Science Board (ISB) December 2006 monograph, Educing Information. Kleinman noted KUBARK’s “disturbing legacy,” but added he felt the manual contained “the potential for lessons learned that could be derived from a highly controversial document.”

The FBI “rapport-based” manual repeatedly references another ISB document. Written in 2009, Intelligence Interviewing: Teaching Papers and Case Studies, includes in its two case studies a long discussion of a case of years-long isolation of a very senior North Vietnamese military official. While the interrogator in charge, Frank Snepp, said the treatment of this official ultimately disillusioned him about what the U.S. was trying to achieve in Vietnam, the ISB authors found Snepp had been successful in establishing “some operational accord” with the prisoner.

In his essay, Kleinman seriously played down the nature of the CIA’s manual, which had drawn upon years of MKULTRA research into use of drugs, sensory deprivation and the induction of fear and debility in interrogation subjects.

“Although criticized for its discussion of coercion, the KUBARK manual does not portray coercive methods as a necessary — or even viable — means of effectively educing information,” Kleinman wrote.

But in fact the CIA manual devotes fully a fifth of its instructions to coercive interrogation techniques, or torture, including isolation, “deprivation of sensory stimuli,” induction of physical weakness, use of “fear and threats,” hypnosis, and “narcosis”, i.e., use of drugs (including use of drugs as a placebo to fool prisoners).

Kleinman is the Director for Strategic Research for The Soufan Group, an organization named after ex-FBI agent Ali Soufan, and includes ex-FBI interrogators on its list of experts. It would seem that unwittingly Kleinman’s focus on what was of use to the legal interrogator in the KUBARK manual did not stop some FBI officials from allowing certain forms of coercive interrogation, i.e., reliance on use of isolation and manipulation of human emotional needs to get information and confessions. At times this is taken to extremes that amount to torture.

Kleinman himself is on the record as opposing all coercive interrogation methods. The 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee investigation into detainee abuse described then-Col. Kleinman's efforts to stop torture occurring at a JSOC interrogation facility in Iraq. The criticism of his KUBARK essay is not meant to imply that he supports in any way the kinds of coercive techniques described therein.

[Update, 8/6/12: Furthermore, it is worth noting, and after hearing critique regarding the first version of this article from Mr. Kleinman himself, that in his  essay on the CIA manual, Kleinman specifically says  "long-term isolation"  causes "profound emotional, psychological, and physical discomfort, and that such abuse would therefore fail to measure up to the standards for the treatment of prisoners as set forth in international accords and U.S. Federal statutes" (p. 138)]

FBI Uses Isolation to Achieve “Rapport”

The FBI manual also argues for the use of isolation to achieve rapport by leveraging the isolation or solitary confinement of a detainee.  Kevin Gosztola highlighted this aspect of the FBI “primer” in an August 2 article at Firedoglake’s The Dissenter blog.

What both Gosztola and the ACLU miss in their otherwise important commentary about the coercive isolation technique (even the CIA’s KUBARK manual recognizes isolation is a coercive technique, i.e., torture) is how the FBI intends to leverage the effects of isolation to achieve effects under their “rapport” paradigm. This psychological aspect of the use of isolation has not been generally publicized.

“The need for affiliation is one of the advantages the Interrogator has if a subject has been isolated from fellow detainees, “ the FBI “primer” states.  

In this matter, the FBI is following in the footsteps of the CITF doctrine it followed in DoD interrogations under an October 2003 directive that stated, “The use of isolation facilities will not be employed as an interrogation tactic; however, on a case-by-case basis it can be used as an incentive.” Perversely, the use of isolation under this directive was supposed to be “approved” by the detainee.

The KUBARK manual describes the anxieties, emotional discomfort and psychological regression that follow from enforced isolation, and how the interrogator exploits this situation (italics added for emphasis):

“As the interrogator becomes linked in the subject's mind with the reward of lessened anxiety, human contact, and meaningful activity, and thus with providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role….

“At the same time, the calculated provision of stimuli during interrogation tends to make the regressed subject view the interrogator as a father figure. The result, normally, is a strengthening of the subject's tendencies toward compliance.”

The Appendix M Torture Virus Spreads to FBI Doctrine

Writing in an August 2 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, ACLU Director Laura Murphy and Legislative Counsel Devon Chaffee make the important connection between FBI policy on using isolation and current Department of Defense interrogation policy.

As official interrogation doctrine of the Obama administration, Army Field Manual FM 2-22.3 (AFM), Human Intelligence Collector Operations made use of isolation part of their “Separation” technique, as described in its Appendix M.

Murphy and Chaffee write:

“By recommending that FBI agents ask the U.S. military to isolate detainees in its custody, the FBI primer appears to be encouraging the application of Appendix M of the Army’s interrogation manual—a controversial, restricted appendix that allows detainee isolation only in certain circumstances not involving prisoners of war. The FBI primer states that in a Department of Defense facility ‘a formal request from the FBI must be made to isolate the detainee’ and that this request ‘must be approved by the first O-6 in the chain of command.’ Appendix M of the military’s interrogation manual (which requires O-7 level approval) permits the use of isolation—as well as the placement of goggles, blindfolds, and earmuffs on the detainee—to ‘foster a feeling of futility.’ Experienced interrogators and human rights groups, however, have called for Appendix M to be revoked, questioning the technique’s effectiveness and highlighting the risk that its use will lead to serious human rights abuses.”

The abusive techniques of Appendix M, which also includes sleep deprivation and allowed environmental manipulations, along with the AFM’s allowance for use of fear techniques and even use of drugs, were approved in a 2006 Office of Legal Counsel memorandum for the files (PDF) by torture memo author Steven Bradbury.

Although President Obama, with the advice of Attorney General Eric Holder, revoked the 2002, 2005 and a few other OLC Bush-era torture memos, the administration never revoked the memo on Appendix M.

Use of isolation was something the FBI adopted early on, and its use was in evidence even in the early days at Guantanamo, where FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan was in charge of the interrogation of Mohamed Al Qahtani. While Al Qahtani’s interrogation was later the subject of an escalation of use of torture techniques by the military, which was itself a matter of some protest within DoD and FBI circles, while the FBI was in charge, Soufan had Al Qahtani placed in harsh isolation.

Soufan went so far as to remove Al Qahtani from the usual cellblock and built a special cell for him alone, meant to duplicate the hard isolation conditions Jose Padilla had been placed into in a Charleston, South Carolina Navy brig. When Soufan, NCIS Chief Psychologist Mark Gelles, and others protested use of other techniques of physical and psychological torture on Al Qahtani, their alternate proposal was to put the already near-psychotic and ailing prisoner in months more intense isolation.

The use of isolation to break prisoners has a long history. When two former prisoners in the USSR gulags, writing under the pen names F. Beck and W. Godin, published their account of Soviet torture in 1951 in a book entitled Russian Purge and the Extraction of Confession, they described the use of isolation at the start of their detention by the Stalin secret police:

“When a man was arrested he was completely isolated from the outside world….

“Each prisoner was carefully isolated from fellow prisoners who knew him. Consultation with defense counsel was unheard of, and in the overwhelming majority of cases no defense of any kind was permitted.” (pp. 40-41)

American sociologist Albert Biderman studied the effects of coercive interrogation on prisoners. His famous “chart of coercion” was taught to interrogators at Guantanamo. With its emphasis on isolation to deprive the prisoner of all social report and the will to resist, it could be a blueprint for modern FBI interrogation, minus Biderman’s emphasis on induction of debility.

For instance, Biderman’s chart describes demonstrating interrogator “omnipotence” and the use of threats and degradation of the prisoner. The FBI manual explicitly allows AFM “techniques” that play exactly on this, including “Emotional Fear Up,” “Emotional Pride and Ego Down,” “Emotional Futility,” and “The All Seeing Eye or We Know All.”

Changes in Procedures for Law Enforcement Interviews Overseas

Unremarked by the ACLU or other commentators is the FBI manual’s Annex B, “Conducting Custodial Law Enforcement Interviews Overseas.” The first FBI concern is evidence tainted by torture (though they don’t use the word “torture” anywhere in the document, at least in its redacted form).

The FBI counterterrorism Section Chief notes, drily, “Given the extensive media coverage of interrogation activities at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and other facilities the threshold is particularly high for establishing that any statement you obtained overseas was not coerced in some way.”

Three sentences in the document are then redacted, and the text continues, “The assumption of the court may be that you used prior knowledge of the subject’s statements to obtain a statement which you are asserting is admissible even if you did not confront the subject with information he previously provided. Always keep in mind that you may one day be on the stand swearing that you had no knowledge of the subjects previous statements during intelligence interviews.” [Bold emphasis in original]

A second concern is the videotaping of interrogations. Recognizing that DoD routinely videotapes all interrogations, the FBI manual infers that the government may destroy or has destroyed such interrogation recordings.

“This creates a tremendous suppression hearing issue,” the FBI notes, “because the defense will become aware that the U.S Government (USG) taped the interview but the tape cannot be provided to the defense if a copy was not retained. The obvious accusation will be that the tape was destroyed to hide the fact that the confession was coerced. Seek out information on the videotaping policy for any facility you work in and document it.”

A third concern is the reading of rights to a subject held by a DoD or a foreign power, while emphasizing that the FBI agent has “no control” over such detainees and how they are held. While it requires the agents to document the subject’s condition, the manual does not forbid agents from interrogating subjects held in tortuous or cruel, degrading or inhuman conditions. In fact, the FBI manual’s section about “Recommended practices” regarding agents in such situations is entirely redacted.

A further distortion of normal FBI functioning concerns the advice of rights given to interrogation subjects held by DoD or another state.  The FBI uses a “modified advice of rights” form in such cases, which begins with standard wording regarding the right to remain silent, to have an attorney present.

The “modified” rights form continues:

“If you cannot afford lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish.

“Our ability to provide you with counsel at this time, however, may be limited by the decisions of local authorities or the availability of an American or qualified attorney.”

The “modified” form concludes the same as the FBI standard form, informing the individual that even if they talk without an attorney present, they “have the right to stop answering at any time.”

The modification of procedure is necessary because, as the FBI manual states, “there is no way that a detainee in DOD or foreign custody will be allowed access to an American defense attorney…”

Conclusion

The FBI is often contrasted with the military and the CIA in regards to its use of abusive procedures during interrogation. While eschewing “enhanced interrogation” techniques that amount to torture, such as waterboarding, close confinement, and stress positions, the FBI relies instead on psychological manipulations of “rapport” building procedures, while using the harsh pressure of isolation and sensory deprivation to break down the prisoner psychologically.

Isolation itself is a form of sensory deprivation, and is described as such in the KUBARK manual.

This form of psychological torture is added to standard police techniques, and in particular a form of interrogation procedure known as the Reid Technique. The FBI manual references several times the 1963 work on this technique, Criminal interrogation and confessions.

A 2009 study of this kind of interrogation technique in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology found “innocent people are sometimes induced to confess to crimes they did not commit as a function of certain dispositional vulnerabilities or the use of overly persuasive interrogation tactics.”

These are exactly the tactics the FBI uses, though they are then supercharged via use of isolation of a prisoner, which, as the FBI itself notes, “advantages” the interrogator by playing off the human need for “affiliation” or communication with others. Modern psychological and neuroscience investigators understand that this “need” is hard-wired in the brain, and deprivation of such social stimulation is a direct attack on the nervous system of the individual.

The failure to hold anyone accountable for the use of torture by U.S. officials, including accountability for those who planned and sanctioned such torture, meant that forms of torture were institutionalized in U.S. policy documents, such as the Army Field Manual.

The declassification of this FBI interrogation manual has allowed us to understand that such institutionalization has extended as well to the Department of Justice and the FBI. 

[This article has been altered to reflect feedback from Col. Steven Kleinman received after the story was first published.]

Cross-posted at MyFDL/Firedoglake

More Evidence SERE Training Caused PTSD in Some Soldiers

The fact that the brutality of the stress-inoculation version of torture perpetuated by DoD's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program can cause Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has gone totally unremarked by the nation's media, including "progressive" bloggers and various human rights groups. The issue has greater import when you consider that when the government was looking to SERE authorities and the military to vet the possible dangers of these techniques (they wanted to use them for "interrogations," right?), they were told that nobody, or practically nobody ever had a serious injury or response from SERE training.

John Yoo wrote it up accordingly in his August 2002 torture memo (PDF) to CIA's John Rizzo: "Through your consultation with various individuals responsible for such [SERE] training, you have learned that these techniques have been used as elements of a course of conduct without any reported incident of prolonged mental harm."

Hence, this is an interesting case to ponder, today being Memorial Day and all, from a government record:

A May 1989 service medical screening form for survival, evade, resist and escape (SERE) training shows that the line for whether the veteran had been seen by a doctor or psychologist in the past three months was unchecked. The veteran reported he was under no emotional strain at present. It was commented that the veteran no longer drank or was dependent, and it was not felt this would be a problem.

A psychiatric disorder was not diagnosed at the appellant's February 1993 separation examination.

In February 1994, the veteran filed a claim of entitlement to service connection for an anxiety disorder.

On VA examination in March 1994, the veteran reported symptoms of anxiety and depression over the past few months. He stated the symptoms increased since his wife left him in November 1993. The veteran reported he had panic attacks in 1989, which started following in-service survival training. During the training, he was "drowned" on a torture board, and since then he had nightmares of the incident. He reported being distressed about the flashbacks and nightmares. The veteran stated that he continued with the survival training since he volunteered to do so. Prior to 1989, he did not have anxiety or panic attacks, but since then he had unusual fears.

After examination, it was commented that the veteran by history had symptoms of anxiety, panic disorder, and symptoms suggestive of PTSD. The trauma in his case was the training he had received in the military. The drowning incident had affected his life quite significantly. Although he had PTSD symptomatology, his disability was related to associated anxiety, depression, and psychosocial stressors, particularly regarding his two difficult marriages. The diagnoses were major depression, recurrent, in partial remission; PTSD, delayed, of mild severity; panic disorder, in remission; and history of alcohol use, active.

By rating action of April 1994, with notice to the veteran in the same month, service connection for PTSD was denied. The RO determined that the VA examiner accepted the veteran's report regarding the incident in service at face value, and there was no independent verification that the rigorous training actually existed.

Evidence included in the claims file subsequent to the April 1994 rating action, includes VA treatment records dating from December 1993 to December 2002 that show treatment for alcohol abuse, PTSD, panic disorder, depression, and anxiety. A record from December 1993 shows the veteran was seen with sleep disorder. He had a history of anxiety attacks for three and one-half weeks. He reported he could not sleep, and was paranoid and edgy. He thought this related to his survival training in service when drowning was simulated. The diagnostic impression was anxiety/depression and question panic.

A record from February 1994 shows the veteran reported anxiety and panic attacks. He had survival training in service where he was strapped and tied. A few months later, he started having panic attacks. Stressors were trauma while in a service prisoner of war training, leaving service, break up of marriage, and finding a place in civilian life. The impression was dysthymia, anxiety, panic, and adjustment reaction to civilian life.

A VA record from September 1998 notes that the veteran reported that he had experienced panic attacks over the prior 10 years which he believed stemmed from specialized "POW training" in service when he was nearly drowned. He believed that he was going to die and experienced panic attacks and nightmares ever since. He stated he drank to avoid panic attacks. He also described problems with relationships, and wanted to be isolated. A December 1998 record shows that the veteran had PTSD with the traumatic event being well documented in the record.

A Vet Center record from November 1998 shows that the veteran reported that in service he volunteered for a survival, evasion, resistance, and escape school in May 1989. He reported being tied, stripped of clothing and beaten. He also reported that a bag was placed over his head, an unloaded gun was placed to his head and the trigger was pulled. With respect to the drowning episode the veteran stated that he was strapped to a table with a cloth over his mouth and was unable to breath and water was poured in his mouth when the cloth was removed and replaced quickly to prevent breathing. He reported experiencing panic attacks one month later and having violent nightmares. The diagnosis was chronic PTSD....

In response to a request from the veteran sent to people who had been in the SERE program with the veteran, Mr. G. stated that he would like to help concerning the VA claim, however all events that occurred during SERE school were classified and could not be discussed without the service's permission.

Interesting, eh?

Don't worry, I wouldn't bum you out on Memorial Day. There is a happy ending to this story. In June 2003, the VA heard this vet's appeal, and decided to consider a statement he made under oath in November 2001 about his experiences to constitute "new evidence", even though it mainly repeated his earlier story. In any case, the VA appeal board stated:

In light of the fact that the veteran has been diagnosed with PTSD, as the evidence shows that the appellant did experience a verified in-service stressor at SERE school, and as the SERE school experience is the basis for the diagnosis of PTSD, the undersigned finds that service connection for PTSD is in order.

Now, this is not the only case in which a VA service connection for PTSD related to SERE training has taken place. A few years ago, I wrote about another such case here.

Given the inherent interest of these cases for their impact on the lies that were used to justify SERE-style torture and the psychological and permanent damage resulting therefrom -- even in school training -- lies presented by and to OLC, DoD, CIA, etc., and not to mention the fact that SERE training may just be too dangerous to use in general... how much media interest has there been in these cases? I'll tell you. Zero.

"Guidebook to False Confessions": Key Document John Yoo Used to Draft Torture Memo Released

Originally published at Truthout
by Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye

In May of 2002, one of several meetings was convened at the White House where the CIA sought permission from top Bush administration officials, including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to torture the agency's first high-value detainee captured after 9/11: Abu Zubaydah.

The CIA claimed Zubaydah, who at the time was being held at a black site prison in Thailand, was "withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions," according to documents released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in April 2009.

So, "attorneys from the CIA's Office of General Counsel [including the agency's top lawyer John Rizzo] met with the Attorney General [John Ashcroft], the National Security Adviser [Rice], the Deputy National Security Adviser [Stephen Hadley], the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council [John Bellinger], and the Counsel to the President [Alberto Gonzales] in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S."

One of the key documents handed out to Bush officials at this meeting, and at Principals Committee sessions chaired by Rice that took place between May and July 2002, was a 37-page instructional manual that contained detailed descriptions of seven of the ten techniques that ended up in the legal opinion widely referred to as the "torture memo," drafted by Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attorney John Yoo and signed by his boss, Jay Bybee, three months later. According to Rice, Yoo had attended the Principals Committee meetings and participated in discussions about Zubaydah's torture.

That instructional manual, referred to as "Pre-Academic Laboratory (PREAL) Operating Instructions," has just been released by the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The document sheds additional light on the origins of the Bush administration's torture policy and for the first time describes exactly what methods of torture Bush officials had discussed - and subsequently approved - for Zubaydah in May 2002.

The PREAL manual was prepared by the Department of Defense's (DOD) Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) and used by instructors in the JPRA's Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) courses to teach US military personnel how to withstand brutal interrogation techniques if captured by the enemy during wartime. The manual states one of the primary goals of the training is "to give students the most reliable mental picture possible of an actual peacetime governmental detention experiences [sic]."

A US counterterrorism official and an aide to one of the Bush officials who participated in Principals Committee meetings in May 2002, however, confirmed to Truthout last week that the PREAL manual was one of several documents the CIA obtained from JPRA that was shared with Rice and other Principals Committee members in May 2002, the same month the CIA officially took over Zubaydah's interrogation from the FBI. As National Security Adviser to President George W. Bush, Rice chaired the meetings.

Rice and Bellinger have denied ever seeing a list of SERE training techniques. But in 2008, they told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which conducted an investigation into treatment of detainees in custody of the US government, that they recalled being present at White House meetings where SERE training was discussed.

Sarah Farber, a spokeswoman at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where Rice teaches political economy, said she would pass on Truthout's queries about claims that Rice reviewed and discussed the PREAL manual to Rice's office. But Rice's office did not respond to our inquiries.

Guidebook to False Confessions

Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, a career military intelligence officer recognized as one of the DOD's most effective interrogators as well a former SERE instructor and director of intelligence for JPRA's teaching academy, said he immediately knew the true value of the PREAL manual if employed as part of an interrogation program.

"This is the guidebook to getting false confessions, a system drawn specifically from the communist interrogation model that was used to generate propaganda rather than intelligence," Kleinman said in an interview. "If your goal is to obtain useful and reliable information this is not the source book you should be using."

Indeed, in their newly published book "The Hunt for KSM," which refers to self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, investigative reporters Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer wrote that the torture of the top al-Qaeda figure resulted in false confessions about pending attack plans.

Kleinman, who has testified before four committees of Congress about interrogation and detainee policy - and the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" - has publicly called for a thorough investigation into how a program such as this could have found its way into the interrogation doctrine that guided US-sanctioned operations.

"In SERE courses, we emphatically presented this interrogation paradigm as one that was employed exclusively by nations that were in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and international treaties against torture," Kleinman said. "We proudly assured the students that we - the United States - would never resort to such despicable methods."

Rice said she was assured the interrogation methods that were used on Zubaydah, which she and other officials signed off on, "had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm," according to written responses to questions about the origins of the torture program Rice provided the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Kleinman, however, said that's simply untrue.

"Dr. Rice is clearly an exceptionally bright individual, as were her colleagues. At the same time, however, they understood little about human intelligence gathering and even less about resistance to interrogation training. I simply don't understand how they could have promoted the assertion that, because these techniques have been used safely with tens of thousands of US military personnel in a carefully controlled training environment, they would also be employed safely in a real-world interrogation environment?" said Kleinman, who testified before the Armed Services Committee about the use of SERE techniques. "A critical distinction that has been consistently overlooked is that detainees have no idea whether interrogators are using [techniques like waterboarding] to intimidate them or to kill them. In a training environment, waterboarding would end as soon as you raised your hand, and the student could be absolutely confident that SERE instructors and medical personnel were always ready to respond to ensure they wouldn't be injured. In contrast, from the detainee's perspective, he is in the presence of the enemy."

Kleinman pointed to one of the techniques in the PREAL manual to demonstrate how the safety of detainees subjected to the methods was clearly not a cause for concern among the government officials who designed and approved of Bush's torture program. In a section describing the use of cramped confinement, one of the torture techniques Zubaydah was subjected to, the training manual says, "The maximum time allowed for a student to be in cramped confinement in 20 minutes." But the Yoo/Bybee torture memo says, "Confinement in the larger space can last up to eighteen hours; for the smaller space confinement lasts no more than two hours."

The PREAL document notes that the purpose of cramped confinement, like the 55-gallon drum and the water pit, is used to "demonstrate the reaction to uncooperative behavior, inconsistent logic, or to accelerate the physical and psychological stresses of captivity."

It also appears that James Mitchell, the psychologist under contract to the CIA and credited as being one of the architects of Bush's torture program, received some form of authorization to use cramped confinement and sleep deprivation in May 2002, the same month the PREAL manual appears to have been accessed and discussed among top Bush officials and the CIA.

The introduction of a cramped confinement box in May 2002 is what led Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who first interrogated Zubaydah shortly after he was captured, to leave the CIA black site prison in Thailand that month.

Soufan had complained to officials at FBI headquarters that Mitchell's interrogations of Zubaydah amounted to "borderline torture," according to a report released in 2008 by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine related to the FBI's role in harsh interrogations.

Soufan's partner on the other hand, FBI Special Agent Steve Gaudin, opted to remain at the black site prison. He told Fine's investigators that unlike Soufan, he had no "moral objection" to the interrogation techniques Mitchell subjected Zubaydah to because they were "comparable" to the "harsh interrogation" techniques he "himself had undergone" as part of the US Army's SERE training.

In his book, "The Black Banners," published last September, Soufan refers to the methods of interrogation Mitchell subjected Zubaydah to during May 2002 as "experiments."

Breaking Down the Prisoner

The CIA, apparently, was not legally authorized to subject detainees to some of the more extreme forms of torture described in the manual, such as immersion in an icy "Water Pit" and forced confinement in a 55-gallon drum or barrel, the purpose of which was to "demonstrate the reaction to uncooperative behavior and accelerate the physical and psychological stresses of captivity."

But other techniques cited in the PREAL instructional manual, such as walling, cramped confinement, facial slap, sleep deprivation, attention grasp, facial hold and stress positions were included in Yoo and Bybee's August 1, 2002 torture memo.

The manual also describes how the use of hooding (a form of sensory deprivation) and sexual humiliation can be used as a form of torture, which military interrogators employed against detainees at Guantanamo. Moreover, SERE trainees were also subjected to isolation, according to the PREAL manual (another form of torture detainees underwent), including a harsh form where the isolated prisoner was hooded and cuffed in what the manual called "Iso-stress." OLC, however, never signed off on isolation as a specific interrogation technique.

Where the PREAL manual and the torture memo differ is in the detailed descriptions of the purpose of subjecting a prisoner to these torture techniques. For example, the PREAL manual says the purpose of walling, where a prisoner is slammed against a "flexible" wall, would be to instill "fear," "despair" and "humiliation." The torture memo, however, states "walling" is a method used to "shock" or "surprise" the detainee.

The most controversial of the ten torture techniques used on Zubaydah - waterboarding - is not included in the PREAL manual. Waterboarding was cited in other SERE documents the CIA and DOD obtained from JPRA, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee that probed the treatment of detainees in custody of the US government.

The PREAL manual also includes a lengthy description on the use of water as a torture method, such as "water dousing." That technique, which the manual says was used to "create a distracting pressure, to startle" and to "instill humiliation or cause insult," was not approved until August 2004, when the head of OLC, Steven Bradbury, drafted a second torture memo to replace the one by Yoo and Bybee.

However, high-level intelligence source told Truthout in April 2010 that Zubaydah was repeatedly doused with cold water from a hose (an example cited in the PREAL manual's of how water could be used to torture a prisoner) while he was naked and shackled by chains attached to a ceiling in the cell he was kept in at the black site prison in Thailand.

The harsh physical techniques included in the manual are consistent with notes written by psychologist Bruce Jessen for a SERE survival-training course more than two decades ago, which said enemies who captured US personnel used methods of torture, such as those outlined in the PREAL manual, as a way of gaining "total control" over the prisoner. The "end goal," according to Jessen's handwritten notes, was to make the prisoner feel "completely dependent" on his captors so they would "comply with [their] wishes."

The purpose of such dependence, according to Jessen, who worked with Mitchell in designing Bush's torture program, was to coerce the prisoner's cooperation, the better to use the prisoner for "propaganda, special favors, confession, etc." Jessen's handwritten notes provided the first look into the true purpose of the "enhanced interrogation" program and were the subject of an exclusive investigative report published by Truthout last year.

The PREAL manual also notes the importance of propaganda in the prisoner of war setting. For instance, in a mock torture scenario prisoners are brought before a "press conference" to answer questions from "reporters." According to the manual, "reporters play the role of legitimate American newspersons," raising the question as to whether professional reporters were recruited as part of the PREAL training.
 
"Found" in OLC's Files

The PREAL manual was first identified in a report released by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in February 2010, which was the result of an investigation conducted by OPR over five and a half years into the legal work Yoo and Bybee did prior to writing the August 2002 torture memo. (Jeffrey Kaye was the first reporter to discuss the PREAL manual in a report published in Truthout in March 2010.)

The OPR report states that the "May 7, 2002" PREAL manual, marked "For Official Use Only," was found in OLC's files, but investigators said there was "no indication of how or when it was obtained."

Aaron Graves, a spokesman in DoD's FOIA division, said he did not know if the May 7, 2002, date at the bottom of each page of the manual meant it was drafted on that date, accessed from  a government hard-drive, or placed into OLC's files on that date.

Jason Darelius, a DoD FOIA officer, told Truthout Monday that the manual was cleared for release late last year and posted to DoD's FOIA reading room March 15. It was requested under FOIA by McClatchy Newspapers, but the news organization never filed a report about the significance of the document as it pertains to the origins of the Bush administration's torture program.

"Learned Helplessness"

The Justice Department's OPR report stated that interrogation methods US military personnel may experience after enemy capture differed from the mock prisoner of war scenarios SERE trainees underwent "in one significant respect ..." Quoting from the PREAL manual, the OPR report said, "Maximum effort will be made to ensure that students do not develop a sense of 'learned helplessness'" during role-playing scenarios.

That citation, we now know, can be found on page 4 of the PREAL manual, under "[P]re-Academic Laboratory Goals." It underscores how military and CIA interrogators deviated from the lessons of the SERE training when they subjected detainees to the same torture techniques used in the role-playing scenarios.

"Learned Helplessness" was one of the main goals of the Bush administration's torture program as overseen by Mitchell and Jessen. It is defined as "a laboratory model of depression in which exposure to a series of unforeseen adverse situations gives rise to a sense of helplessness or an inability to cope with or devise ways to escape such situations, even when escape is possible," according to the American Heritage Medical Dictionary.

The learned helplessness theory was developed by psychologist Martin Seligman, who discussed it in May 2002 at the SERE training school in San Diego, the same month Mitchell, who attended the lecture, began subjecting Zubaydah to various torture techniques. The CIA sponsored Seligman's lecture.

Brent Mickum, Zubaydah's habeas attorney, reviewed the PREAL document and said it confirms what he has long believed: that Zubaydah's torture took place prior to the issuance of Yoo and Bybee's August 2002 torture memo.

"This document confirms, in my view, that my client's torture was over before that memo was ever issued," said Mickum. "I can't go into detail and why that is the government can only explain. I have been muzzled wrongfully even though the government contends that everything it did was legal."

Echoing Kleinman, Mickum added he was also struck by the PREAL manual's extensive warnings to SERE instructors about the safety of trainees subjected to brutal interrogation methods.

"Without commenting about anything that my client told me about what was done to him, what I can tell you is that there is no correlation between the safe treatment of SERE trainees listed in this particular document and what happened to my client. None whatsoever."

Author's Note: When the Department of Defense released the PREAL manual last month, several pages were missing from the PDF file and the file also contained a number of duplicate pages. We contacted the FOIA office about the issue and officials there restored the missing pages, except for one: page 33, which a FOIA officer said he is unable to track down.

Despite New Denials by Rumsfeld, Evidence Shows US Military Used Waterboarding-Style Torture

Originally posted at Truthout

In the controversy over whether torture, especially waterboarding, was used to gather information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Fox News' Sean Hannity recently that "no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the US military. In fact, no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo, period."

In his memoir, "Known and Unknown," Rumsfeld maintained, "To my knowledge, no US military personnel involved in interrogations waterboarded any detainees,not at  Guantanamo or anywhere else in the world." But as we shall see, Rumsfeld was either lying outright, or artfully twisting the truth.

Others have insisted as well that the military never waterboarded anyone. Law and national security writer Benjamin Wittes wrote in The New Republic last year that "the military, unlike the CIA, never waterboarded anybody." Harper's columnist Scott Horton also noted last year, "There is no documentation yet of waterboarding at Gitmo, but the case book is far from closed on that score, too."

Yet, though not widely reported and scattered among various articles and reports on detainee treatment by the military, including first-person accounts, there are a number of stories of forced water choking or drowning, both at Guantanamo and other US military sites.

In little-known testimony in May 2008 before Congress, former Guantanamo detainee Murat Kurnaz testified he endured a form of simulated drowning. In his testimony before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kurnaz said that under US military captivity at Khadahar, Afghanistan, prior to his transfer to Guantanamo, his head was "dunked under water to simulate drowning."

Asked by Republican Congressman Rohrabacher if he hadn't then been waterboarded, Kurnaz responded, "No, it's not waterboarding. It's called 'water treatment.' There was a bucket of water."

KURNAZ: There was a bucket of water. And they stick my head in it and at the same time, punch me into my stomach.

Rohrabacher reportedly commented, "The CIA is claiming that only three people have been waterboarded. And this may be a loophole that they're suggesting that's not 'waterboarding.'"



According to a report on Kurnaz's testimony at the time by The Christian Science Monitor, Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon replied to the torture charges: "The abuses Mr. Kurnaz alleges are not only unsubstantiated and implausible, they are simply outlandish."

Whether implausible or not, waterboarding was one of a number of "counter-resistance techniques" requested for use at Guantanamo by Maj. Gen. Mike Dunleavy, commander of Task Force 170. In an October 2002 memo from Dunleavy's intelligence chief requesting use of a number of techniques, including sensory deprivation, isolation, stress positions, forced nudity and death threats, there was also a proposal for "Use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation."

In a follow-up memo approving most, but not all of the requested techniques, Department of Defense (DoD) general counsel William J. Haynes II said of the "wet towel" and other so-called "aggressive" "Category III" techniques, "While all Category III techniques may be legally available, we believe that, as a matter of policy, a blanket approval of Category III techniques is not warranted at this time." (Emphasis added.)

Water Torture at Guantanamo

Evidence regarding waterboarding or other forms of water torture by suffocation or choking at Guantanamo has been reported, but this article is the first collection of the various reports in one place.

Last April, a report by two doctors who were allowed to examine "medical records and relevant case files ... of nine individuals for evidence of torture and ill treatment," found at least one case of "near asphyxiation from water (i.e., hose forced into the detainee's mouth)" and another case where a detainee's head was forced into a toilet.

The report, by doctors Vincent Iacopino and Stephen N. Xenakis, was published at PLoS Medicine. Dr. Xenakis is also a retired brigadier general in the Army, who has worked as a medical consultant on a number of Guantanamo legal cases.

Additionally, accusations of military waterboarding turned up in a Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) report on "FBI Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations" that was released at almost the same time as Kurnaz's testimony (May 2008). The IG noted that the chief of the FBI's Military Liaison and Detainee Unit at Guantanamo told DoD Assistant Attorney General Dave Nahmias, "one of the planned or actual techniques used on [purported 9/11 would-be hijacker, Mohammed] Al Qahtani was simulated drowning."

In fact, the military admits the use of pouring water over al Qahtani's head, as is discussed below.

At another point in the report, the IG describes one FBI agent who "once heard a discussion at GTMO when someone mentioned using water as an interrogation tool and someone else in the group said, 'Yeah, I've seen that.'" According to the IG report, no FBI agent actually reported seeing waterboarding or water torture him or herself.

Whether or not waterboarding was observed by FBI agents at Guantanamo, we know from the minutes of a "Counter-resistance Strategy meeting" at Guantanamo on October 22, 2002, that waterboarding (called the "wet towel" technique) was discussed (see Tab 7 at link). The meeting included legal officials from the CIA, DIA, the Guantanamo intelligence chief, as well as members of the Guantanamo Behavioral Science Consulting Team (BSCT).

At one point, Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, the Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo asked whether SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) employed "the 'wet towel' technique." Jonathan Fredman, then chief counsel to the CIA's counter-terrorism center, replied:

"If a well-trained individual is used to perform [sic] this technique it can feel like you're drowning. The lymphatic system will react as if you're suffocating, but your body will not cease to function. It is very effective to identify phobias and use them (ie, insects, snakes, claustrophobia). The level of resistance is directly related to person's experience."

At this point, a BSCT psychiatrist noted, "Whether or not significant stress occurs lies in the eye of the beholder. The burden of proof is the big issue." Fredman replied, "These techniques need involvement from interrogators, psych, medical, legal, etc."

Fredman continued "The CIA makes the call internally on most of the types of techniques found in the BSCT paper and this discussion." In a reference to the approvals for waterboarding and other techniques given the CIA by Office of Legal Counsel memos a few months before, he added, "Significantly harsh techniques are approved through the DOJ." There was no indication in the minutes from the meeting that waterboarding was not allowed for Defense Department use.

Waterboarding of Mohammed al Qahtani

Mohammed al Qahtani was a Saudi Arabian citizen brought to Guantanamo in early 2002. Ostensibly believed to be a part of the 9/11 plot, when interrogators became frustrated at their inability to get information out of him, or force his compliance, they turned to methods of interrogation that the Guantanamo Convening Authority Susan Crawford would later herselfconclude amounted to torture.

By November 2002, al Qahtani had become the "first subject of a Special Interrogation Plan," which relied heavily on the military's SERE torture school techniques, including isolation, stress positions, sexual humiliation and apparently, a form of waterboarding. SERE was created to provide US military personnel with training to resist torture.

Even years before Crawford's admission, DoD's Schmidt-Furlow report, looking at early allegations of detainee abuse, concluded that "the creative, aggressive and persistent interrogation of the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan [al Qahtani] resulted in the cumulative effect being degrading and abusive treatment." No one has ever been charged for such crimes committed against this or any other Guantanamo detainee.

The Schmidt-Furlow report details the use of water torture on al Qahtani, an aspect of his torture that has been little reported:

On seventeen occasions, between 13 Dec 02 and 14 Jan 03, interrogators, during interrogations, poured water over the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan head....

There is evidence that the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan regularly had water poured on his head. The interrogation logs indicate that this was done as a control measure only.

Time Magazine published al Qahtani's interrogation logs  in 2005. The use of water to drench al Qahtani's head does not appear to be a "control measure" when it is discussed in the logs themselves.

On December 23, 2002, a log selection describes how interrogators hung pictures of swimsuit models around al Qahtani's neck. Then the lead interrogator "pulled pictures of swimsuit models off detainee and told him the test of his ability to answer questions would begin. Detainee refused to answer and finally stated that he would after [the] lead [interrogator] poured water over detainees [sic] head and was told he would be subjected to this treatment day after day. Detainee was told to think about his decision to answer questions."

The day before, when al Qahtani had refused to look at "fitness photos," saying it was against his religion, interrogators had "poured a 24 oz bottle of water over detainee's head." The log notes dryly, "Detainee then began to look at photos."

In their investigation of detainee abuse, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) noted in a 2008 report that the Navy limited waterboard demonstrations to two pints (32 oz.) of water. A January 13, 2003, memo, described in the SASC report, underreported how much water was poured over Qahtani, saying that "up to eight ounces of water" was poured over Qahtani's head as a "method of asserting control" when Khatani exhibited ''undesired behavior."

The SASC report also said that the interrogation plan for another Guantanamo detainee, Mohamadou Walid Slahi, included the practice of pouring water over Slahi's head to "enforce control" and "keep [him] awake."

Three More Guantanamo Detainees Report Suffocation by Drowning

Besides Kurnaz and al Qahtani, at least three other detainees have reported being tortured at Guantanamo by application of water meant to cause suffocation, choking or the sensation of drowning.

A 2009 article by Jeremy Scahill outlined the torture and abuse endured by former Guantanamo detainee and British resident Omar Deghayes. Scahill mentions two incidents where the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF, sometimes called the Emergency Reaction Force, or ERF) used forms of water torture on Deghayes. In one case, the detainee was shackled, his head put into a toilet. The IRF team "pressed his face into the water. They repeatedly flushed it."

The IRF or ERF team also came into Deghayes cell on another occasion and conducted a simulated or partial drowning.

The ERF team came into the cell with a water hose under very high pressure. [Deghayes] was totally shackled and they would hold his head fixed still. They would force water up his nose until he was suffocating and would scream for them to stop. This was done with medical staff present and they would join in.

According to Scahill, the IRF team conducted this form of waterboarding three times on Deghayes. Note that the presence of medical staff is consistent with the use of medical personnel under CIA descriptions of how they conducted waterboarding.

Another example of water torture involving Guantanamo guards appears in a document related to the case of Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian Berber who has been held at Guantanamo for over eight years, despite the fact he never received military or terrorist training, nor fought against the US. According to 2008 legal filing for Ameziane by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR):

In another violent incident, guards entered his cell and forced him to the floor, kneeing him in the back and ribs and slamming his head against the floor, turning it left and right. The bashing dislocated Mr. Ameziane's jaw, from which he still suffers. In the same episode, guards sprayed cayenne pepper all over his body and then hosed him down with water to accentuate the effect of the pepper spray and make his skin burn. They then held his head back and placed a water hose between his nose and mouth, running it for several minutes over his face and suffocating him, an operation they repeated several times. Mr. Ameziane writes, "I had the impression that my head was sinking in water. I still have psychological injuries, up to this day. Simply thinking of it gives me the chills." [Emphasis added.]

In March 2008, six Guantanamo detainees filed suit against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for failure "for many years to take any steps to negotiate and secure the men's release from Guantanamo." One of the men, Mustafa Ait Idr, who had been rendered to Guantanamo and "taken from his pregnant wife in violation of a Bosnian court order to free him," also reported use of water torture in a manner remarkably similar to that of Ameziane.

A CCR report on "Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba" said that on one occasion prison guards demanded to search Idr's cell. Idr cooperated, but they came in, sprayed him in the face with a chemical irritant and put him into restraints.

According to the CCR report, "Guards then slammed him head first into the cell floor, lowered him, face-first into the toilet and flushed the toilet - submerging his head. He was then carried outside and thrown onto the crushed stones that surround the cells. While he was down on the ground, his assailants stuffed a hose in his mouth and forced water down his throat." As a result, Idr's face was paralyzed for several months.

Other threats to use waterboarding on DoD prisoners, or to rendition detainees for water torture, are also on record. According to journalist Robert Windrem in a 2009 story at The Daily Beast, then Vice President Dick Cheney requested the waterboarding of Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi, the head of the M-14 section of Mukhabarat. According to the article, the official in charge of interrogations of Iraqi officials at the time, Charles Duelfer, declined the request.

According to the SASC detainee report, the lead agency for SERE, Joint Forces Personnel Agency, constructed a CONOP (Concept of Operations) plan for use at a Special Mission Unit Task Force interrogation center in Iraq. The CONOP recommended use of the "water board." Military legal figures reportedly objected to that and other techniques, but it is not known whether Special Forces in Iraq used waterboarding or other water torture techniques and the SASC report does not enlighten us on that point.

In another case, former Italian resident and Guantanamo detainee, Tunisian-born Saleh Sassi, reported that in late 2002, Tunisian agents came to Guantanamo and interrogated him. They "left no doubt about what awaited ex-Guantanamo inmates back in Tunisia: 'water torture in the barrel' and other horrors." Sassi was released and sent to Albania in 2010.

Finally, the DOJ IG report on FBI interrogations referenced earlier describes how an Abu Ghraib prisoner, Saleh Muklef Saleh, was restrained and had cold water poured over him on more than one occasion. One time, according to Saleh's own testimony, "They gave me one or two bottles of water and they asked me to drink it while I was hungry and they forced me to drink it and I did and I felt vomiting, then they ordered me to drink again and they were looking at me and laughing" (pp. 279-280).

Back in 2008, during the Congressional meeting where Murat Kurnaz testified to the use of water torture upon him, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee commented, "It seems that we have a new definition ... If you were wedded to the language of waterboarding, now we have new language called 'water treatment,' which may bear on being torture as well."

To date, there has been no investigation that specifically has looked at the use of types of water torture, including waterboarding or water treatment, on detainees. The military's current Army Field Manual on interrogation forbids the use of "waterboarding." It is the only "prohibited action" term that is described with quotation marks around it.

A Human Rights Watch report issued on July 12 called for President Barack Obama "to order a criminal investigation into allegations of detainee abuse authorized by former President George W. Bush and other senior officials."



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