In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”, Investigation of enhanced interrogation techniques and calls for prosecution, Request for Special Counsel Probe of Harsh Interrogation Tactics. . Condoleezza Rice specifically mentioned the SERE program during the meeting stating “I recall being told that U.S. military personnel were subjected to training to certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques…”. Why is standing [by prisoners] limited to four hours?”, According to the February 16, 2008 edition of The Economist, Rumsfeld also wrote in a 2002 memo; “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. In early 2002, immediately following Abu Zubaydah’s capture, top US Government officials including Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft discussed at length whether or not the CIA could legally use harsh techniques against Abu Zubaydah. The 18-page memo is heavily redacted, with 10 of its 18 pages completely blacked out and only a few paragraphs legible on the others. “They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way,” another of the sources said. The UN report called for cessation of the US-termed “enhanced interrogation” techniques, as the UN sees these methods as a form of torture. The psychologists relied heavily on experiments done by American psychologist Martin Seligman in the 1970s on learned helplessness. However, in his signing statement, Bush made clear that he reserved the right to waive this bill if he thought that was needed. It has been replaced by … Interrogators and BSCT members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the SERE program. On February 4, 2009 the High Court of England and Wales ruled that evidence of possible torture in the case of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident who is held in Guantanamo Bay, could not be disclosed: as a result of a statement by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, that if the evidence was disclosed the US would stop sharing intelligence with Britain. March 2009: ICRC report publicly reported: On March 15, 2009, Mark Danner provided a report in the New York Review of Books (with an abridged version in the New York Times) describing and commenting on the contents of a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody (43 pp., February 2007). Law professor Dietmar Herz explained Novak’s comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool. The US Army Field Manual on Interrogation, sometimes known by the military nomenclature FM 34-52, is a 177-page manual describing to military interrogators how to conduct effective interrogations while conforming with US and international law. President George W. Bush has said in a BBC interview he would veto such a bill after previously signing an executive order that allows “enhanced interrogation techniques” and may exempt the CIA from Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. '”The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation … playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably … Rumsfeld authorised these specific techniques.” She said that this was contrary to the Geneva Conventions and quoted the Geneva Convention as saying, “Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” According to Karpinski, the handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written, “Make sure this is accomplished.”, On May 1, 2005, The New York Times reported on an ongoing high-level military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantánamo, conducted by Lieutenant General Randall M. Schmidt of the Air Force, and dealing with: “accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who complained after witnessing detainees subjected to several forms of harsh treatment. On March 8, 2008 President Bush vetoed this bill. A Congressional bipartisan report in December 2008 established that: harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA and the U.S. military were directly adapted from the training techniques used to prepare special forces personnel to resist interrogation by enemies that torture and abuse prisoners. This report was based on previously classified documents made available by the Obama administration in 2010. He warned that criminalizing the process could cause policymakers to second-guess themselves and “harm our national security well into the future.”. The following techniques were being used by the U.S. military: In November 2006, former US army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, in charge of Abu Ghraib prison until early 2004, told Spain’s El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter signed by United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation. This creates an intense amount of pressure on the legs, leading first to pain and then muscle failure. The Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its interrogators working abroad would not violate US prohibitions against torture unless they “have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering”, according to a previously secret US Justice Department memo released on July 24, 2008. The program subjected trainees to torture techniques such as “waterboarding . The U.S. military used the Doctors consulted over the matter advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage. Senator John McCain, citing CIA Director Leon Panetta, said that the assertion that waterboarding produced information that found Osama Bin Laden is false; all the useful leads were “obtained through standard, noncoercive means.” The CIA later provided the Washington Post a letter from CIA Director Penetta to Senator McCain that confirms that enhanced interrogation techniques did not help and may have hindered the search for Bin Laden by producing false information during interrogations. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, several memoranda analyzing the legality of various interrogation methods were written by John Yoo from Office of Legal Counsel. Despite these shortcomings of experience and know-how, the two psychologists boasted of being paid $1000 a day plus expenses, tax-free by the CIA for their work. In 1963, the Central Intelligence Agency compiled the historical understanding of such non-invasive interrogation techniques into a how-to guide titled KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, informally known as the KUBARK manual. Clearly coercive. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment -Professor Manfred Nowak- on January 20, 2008 remarked on German television that, following the inauguration of Barack Obama as new President, George W. Bush has lost his head of state immunity and under international law the U.S. is now mandated to start criminal proceedings against all those involved in these violations of the UN Convention Against Torture. It is as yet unclear when US government officials first adopted the term enhanced interrogation, and there is no evidence they were aware of its antecedents in Gestapo terminology. Former President Bush in his published memoirs defends the utility of “enhanced interrogation” techniques and asserts that they are not torture. They also cite the U.S. Office of the Inspector General report which concluded that “SERE-type interrogation techniques constitute ‘physical or mental torture and coercion under the Geneva conventions. Unable to get satisfaction from the army commanders running the detainee camp, they took their concerns to David Brant, director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), who alerted Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora. After the killing of Osama bin Laden, a Washington Post report, quoting U.S. officials including former attorney general Michael Mukasey, asserted that the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi provided a courier’s pseudonym “al-Kuwaiti” which ultimately allowed them to locate Bin Laden. 17. Enhanced interrogation techniques " or " enhanced interrogation " is a euphemism for the program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at black sites around the world, including Bagram, … On December 14, 2005, the Detainee Treatment Act was passed into law, specifically clarifying that interrogations techniques be limited to those explicitly authorized by the Army Field Manual. Stop. Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Either way. Please use the links below or the search form to find the information you seek. A CIA memo on the various forms of harsh interrogation techniques from the CIA's Operational Psychologist. (A water temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) often leads to death in one hour.). In addition, in 2002 and 2003, several Democratic congressional leaders were briefed on the proposed “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These congressional leaders included Nancy Pelosi, the future Speaker of the House, and Representative Jane Harman. Browse the Collections | Advanced Search | Search Help. On June 8, 2008, fifty-six House Democrats asked for an independent investigation, raising the possibility that authorising these techniques may constitute a crime by Bush administration officials. A report by Human Rights First (HRF) and Physicians for Human Rights (PFH) stated that these techniques constitute torture. It prohibited officials from subjecting any detainee under effective U.S. control to any interrogation technique not listed in the current Army Field Manual on interrogation, Army Field Manual 2-22.3. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. Dietary Manipulation — This technique involved switching from solid foods to liquid. The SERE program, which Mitchell and Jessen would reverse engineer, was originally designed to be defensive in nature and was used to train pilots and other soldiers on how to resist harsh interrogation techniques and torture were they to fall into enemy hands. After Abu Faraj al-Libbi was captured, he provided bogus information, denying that he knew al-Kuwaiti and making up another name instead. Since 1930, the United States had defined sleep deprivation as an illegal form of torture. That, after all, is the teaching of United States v. Altstötter, the Nuremberg case brought against German Justice Department lawyers whose memoranda crafted the basis for implementation of the infamous “Night and Fog Decree.”. What it prevents: The Army Field Manual specifically prohibits most of the so-called “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” that the CIA used in its post-9/11 interrogation program, as well as any other techniques that do not comply with domestic or international law. He said, “Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good name of America in the eyes of the world.”. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. These attempts to falsify the facilitator/courier’s role were alerting. Comment from Donald Rumsfeld: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. According to Danner, the report contains sections on “methods of ill-treatment” including suffocation by water, prolonged stress standing, beatings by use of a collar, beating and kicking, confinement in a box, prolonged nudity, sleep deprivation and use of loud music, exposure to cold temperature/cold water, prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles, threats, forced shaving, and deprivation/restricted provision of solid food. ), Danner provides excerpts of interviews with detainees, including Abu Zubaydah, Walid bin Attash, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy described Bush’s veto as “one of the most shameful acts of his presidency”. President Bush stated “The United States of America does not torture. Sullivan reports that in 1948 Norway prosecuted German officials for what trial documents termed “Verschärfte Vernehmung” including subjection to cold water, and repeated beatings. Report… is a record of interviews with black site detainees, conducted between October 6 and 11 and December 4 and 14, 2006, after their transfer to Guantánamo. Atlantic Monthly writer Andrew Sullivan asserts the first use of a term comparable to “enhanced interrogation” was a 1937 memo by Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller coining the phrase “Verschärfte Vernehmung,” German for (according to Sullivan) “sharpened,” “intensified” or “enhanced interrogation” to describe subjection to extreme cold, sleep deprivation, and deliberate exhaustion among other techniques. "The Enhanced Interrogation Program saved lives, prevented attacks, & produced intel that led to Osama bin Laden. So the point I would make to folks who say, “I don’t want you doing this, and it doesn’t work anyway,” I would point out, “Whoa. Nonetheless, Mora has maintained that detainee treatment has been consistent with the law since the January 15, 2003 suspension of previously approved interrogation tactics. Enhanced interrogation techniques or alternative set of procedures were terms adopted by the George W. Bush administration in the United States to describe interrogation methods used by US military intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to extract information from individuals captured in the “War on Terror” after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The CIA Web Team, If you have reached this page from a link within CIA.gov, please. According to Jane Mayer, during the transition period for then President-elect Barack Obama, his legal, intelligence, and national-security advisers had met at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley to discuss “whether a ban on brutal interrogation practices would hurt their ability to gather intelligence,” and among the consulted experts: There was unanimity among Obama’s expert advisers… that to change the practices would not in any material way affect the collection of intelligence. The issues involving enhanced interrogation techniques are still alive today. In fact, the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding and as recently as 1983. This paper will discuss the leaked techniques approved by the Bush administration then later denied by Obama. They’re appropriate, they’re in conformity with our international requirements and with US law.” During the discussions John Ashcroft is reported as saying “Why are we talking about this in the White House? Top US Government officials including Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft discussed at length whether or not the CIA could legally use harsh techniques against Abu Zubaydah.Condoleezza Rice specifically mentioned the SERE … That would directly threaten the UK’s national security, Miliband had told the court. And coercive. The Current Legal Status of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Within United States domestic law, 18 U.S.C. Jane Mayer, author of the Dark Side, quotes Zelikow as predicting that “America’s descent into torture will in time be viewed like the Japanese internments,” in that “(f)ear and anxiety were exploited by zealots and fools.”. However, neither of the two psychologists had any experience in conducting interrogations. The Washington Post described the report by the Intelligence Science Board: There is almost no scientific evidence to back up the U.S. intelligence community’s use of controversial interrogation techniques in the fight against terrorism, and experts believe some painful and coercive approaches could hinder the ability to get good information, according to a new report from an intelligence advisory group. Following NPR’s controversial ban on using the word torture and Ombudsman Alica Shepard’s defense of the policy that “calling waterboarding torture is tantamount to taking sides”, Berkeley Professor of Linguistics Geoffrey Nunberg pointed out that virtually all media around the world, other than what he called the “spineless U.S. media”, call these techniques torture. Also Fox News reports that the enhanced interrogation techniques provided key details on Bin Laden’s location, referring to Dick Cheney saying that he “assumes” that enhanced interrogation techniques led to bin Laden’s capture. It is of note that in a 2007 report by investigator Dick Marty on secret CIA prisons, the phrase “enhanced interrogations” was stated to be a euphemism for torture. In the letter CIA Director Panetta wrote Senator McCain that. Abdomen strikes: A hard, open-handed slap is dealt to the prisoner’s abdomen. 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