Enhanced interrogation techniques

Enhanced interrogation techniques, rough interrogation, the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods, and alternative set of procedures are used by US military intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which they claimed were necessary to extract information from unlawful enemy combatants as part of the War on Terror. There is dispute as to whether the enhanced interrogation techniques led to the extraction of useful intelligence. Members of the Bush administration, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, hold that the techniques have saved many lives, while the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, holds that the information could have been acquired using other means .

The lawsuit carried out by the ACLU, helped to release memos on certain techniques to be used in interrogations toward Al-Queda detainees. The U.S. Department of Justice from the Office of Legal Counsel determined that the techniques to be used did not violate U.S. Constitutional laws.

Despite the use of the term "enhanced interrogation techniques", the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations,Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, Human Rights First (HRF) and Physicians for Human Rights (PFH),Amnesty International, the National Lawyers Guild, , the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , Dame Stella Rimington and many other experts classify them to be torture, and also consider the techniques ineffective. For its use on Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, the government of Canada added the United States to a list of countries that employ interrogation methods that amount to torture.

Although reactions by the administration and its supporters were ambiguous, former President Jimmy Carter is among those who publicly stated in an interview on October 10, 2007: "The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law." A December 2008 report involving both of the US' main parties referred to:

a February 2002 memorandum signed by President George W. Bush, stating that the Third Geneva Convention guaranteeing humane treatment to prisoners of war did not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees, and a December 2002 memo signed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, approving the use of "aggressive techniques" against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, as key factors that lead to the extensive abuses.

and more precisely:

Senate investigators said the seeds of the policy originated in a Feb. 7, 2002, memo signed by President Bush declaring that the Geneva Conventions, which outline standards for the humane treatment of detainees, did not apply to captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Responding to the report, Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that the CIA asked his advice regarding these techniques less than a year after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and he helped get the "process cleared."

SERE program

West coast, Navy SERE Insignia

Main article: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape

According to Human Rights First:

Internal FBI memos and press reports have pointed to SERE training as the basis for some of the harshest techniques authorised for use on detainees by the Pentagon in 2002 and 2003.

And Salon stated:

A March 22 2005, sworn statement by the former chief of the Interrogation Control Element at Guantánamo said instructors from SERE also taught their methods to interrogators of the prisoners in Cuba.

While Jane Mayer reported for The New Yorker:

According to the sere affiliate and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11th several psychologists versed in SERE techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially “tried to reverse-engineer” the SERE program, as the affiliate put it. “They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way,” another of the sources said. Interrogators and BSCT members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the SERE program.

and continues to report:

many of the interrogation methods used in SERE training seem to have been applied at Guantánamo.

In addition, Stephen Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson also wrote an article describing how these techniques mimic what was taught in the SERE-program: "the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program that trains US Special Operations Forces, aviators and others at high risk of capture on the battlefield to evade capture and to resist 'breaking' under torture, particularly through giving false confessions or collaborating with their captors." Soldz et al., Salon, and Mayer cite the following examples:

1. Prolonged isolation,
2. Prolonged sleep deprivation,
3. Sensory deprivation,
4. Extremely painful "stress positions,"
5. Sensory bombardment (such as prolonged loud noise and/or bright lights),
6. Forced nakedness,
7. Sexual humiliation,
8. Cultural humiliation (such as desecration of holy scriptures),
9. Being subjected to extreme cold that induces hypothermia,
10. Exploitation of phobias,
11. Simulation of the experience of drowning, i.e., waterboarding.

Regarding these techniques a 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. The techniques included forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, and until 2003, waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.

The War on Terror

Main article: War on Terror

At the onset of the "War on Terror", only 35 days after the September 11 attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it was looking at "alternative interrogation techniques" that might include administering truth serums or renditioning prisoners to foreign countries with "more rigorous and brutal" methods of interrogation.

Department of Defense

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.'"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 Convention and quoted from the same: "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".

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. Why is standing (by prisoners) limited to four hours?" There have been no comments from either the Pentagon or US army spokespeople in Iraq on Karpinski's accusations.

Senior law enforcement agents with the Criminal Investigation Task Force told MSNBC.com in 2006 that they began to complain inside the U.S. Department of Defense in 2002 that the interrogation tactics used in Guantanamo Bay by a separate team of military intelligence investigators were unproductive, not likely to produce reliable information, and probably illegal. 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.

General Counsel Mora and Navy Judge Advocate General Michael Lohr believed the detainee treatment to be unlawful, and campaigned among other top lawyers and officials in the Defense Department to investigate, and to provide clear standards prohibiting coercive interrogation tactics. In response, on January 15, 2003, Rumsfeld suspended the approved interrogation tactics at Guantánamo Bay until a new set of guidelines could be produced by a working group headed by General Counsel of the Air Force Mary Walker. The working group based its new guidelines on a legal memo from the United States Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel written by John Yoo and signed by Jay S. Bybee, which would later become widely known as the "Torture Memo." General Counsel Mora led a faction of the Working Group in arguing against these standards, and argued the issues with Yoo in person. The working group's final report, was signed and delivered to Guantánamo without the knowledge of Mora and the others who had opposed its content. Nonetheless, Mora has maintained that detainee treatment has been consistent with the law since the January 15 2003 suspension of previously approved interrogation tactics.

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. The FBI agents wrote in memorandums that were never meant to be disclosed publicly that they had seen female interrogators forcibly squeeze male prisoners' genitals, and that they had witnessed other detainees stripped and shackled low to the floor for many hours."

On July 12, 2005, members of a military panel told the committee that they proposed disciplining prison commander Major General Geoffrey Miller over the interrogation of Mohamed al-Kahtani, who was forced to wear a bra, dance with another man, and threatened with dogs. The recommendation was overruled by General Bantz J. Craddock, commander of US Southern Command, who referred the matter to the army's inspector general.

CIA

ABC News reported on April 9, 2008 that "the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency." The article states that those involved included:

Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In December 2007 CIA director Michael V. Hayden stated that "of about 100 prisoners held to date in the C.I.A. program, the enhanced techniques were used on about 30, and waterboarding used on just three."

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said on BBC Radio 4 that since these methods are not intended to punish they do not violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, barring "cruel and unusual punishment", and as such may not be unconstitutional.

According to ABC News, former and current CIA officials have come forward to reveal details of interrogation techniques authorized in the CIA. These include:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes them
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap to the face aimed at causing pain and triggering fear
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the abdomen. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor, for more than 40 hours
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius)
6. Waterboarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Material is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over them. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt

US governmental legal opinions

John Yoo, author of the "torture memos"

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, several memoranda were written by John Yoo, analysing the legal position and possibilities in the treatment of prisoners. The memos, known today as the "torture memos," advocate enhanced interrogation techniques, while pointing out that avoiding the Geneva Conventions would reduce the possibility of prosecution under the US War Crimes Act of 1996 for actions taken in the War on Terror. In addition, a new US definition of torture was issued. Most actions that fall under the international definition do not fall within this new definition advocated by the U.S. 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 24 July 2008. The interrogator's "good faith" and "honest belief" that the interrogation will not cause such suffering protects the interrogator, the memo adds. "Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture", Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general, wrote in the memo. 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.

Another memo released on the same day advises that "the waterboard," does "not violate the Torture Statute." It also cites a number of warnings against torture, including statements by President Bush and a then-new Supreme Court ruling "which raises possible concerns about future US judicial review of the [interrogation] Program."

A third memo instructs interrogators to keep records of sessions in which "enhanced interrogation techniques" are used. The memo is signed by then-CIA director George Tenet and dated January 28, 2003.

The memos were made public by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the three CIA-related documents under Freedom of Information Act requests.[1]

Following the release of the CIA documents and now released from non disclosure agreements he had signed Philip Zelikow, a former State Department lawyer and adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, stated that he had argued it was unlikely that "any federal court would agree (that the approval of harsh interrogation techniques) ... was a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution." He was told to destroy copies of his own memo and claimed that the Bush Administration had ordered that other dissenting legal advice be collected and destroyed.

Unitary Executive Theory

Further information: Commander-in-Chief, Unitary executive, and War on Terror

At the heart of policies in the "War on Terror" is the notion that during a time of war the President, in his duty as Commander-in-Chief, cannot be bound by law, i.e., Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, UN Convention Against Torture, Geneva Conventions- or Congress. Since the primary task of the President during a time of war is protecting US citizens, anything hindering him in that capacity -US and international law or even Congress- can be considered unconstitutional. John Yoo contends that the Congressional check on Presidential war making power comes from its power of the purse, and that the President, and not the Congress or courts, has sole authority to interpret international treaties such as the Geneva Convention "because treaty interpretation is a key feature of the conduct of foreign affairs". These views on executive power, known as the unitary executive theory, are controversial since they suggest that the President's war powers place him above any law.

Suggested origin of legal opinions

Horton contends that John Yoo's analysis that the US President was not bound by the Geneva Conventions was based upon work about World War II by Carl Schmitt. Examples of arguments used by Schmitt (according to Horton):

1. Particularly on the Eastern Front, the conflict was a nonconventional sort of warfare being waged against a “barbaric” enemy which engaged in “terrorist” practices, and which itself did not observe the law of armed conflict.
2. Individual combatants who engaged in “terrorist” practices, or who fought in military formations engaged in such practices, were not entitled to protections under international humanitarian law, and the adjudicatory provisions of the Geneva Conventions could therefore be avoided together with the substantive protections
3. The Geneva and Hague Conventions were “obsolete” and ill-suited to the sort of ideologically driven warfare in which the Nazis were engaged on the Eastern Front, though they might have limited application with respect to the Western Allies
4. Application of the Geneva Conventions was not in the enlightened self-interest of Germany because its enemies would not reciprocate such conduct by treating German prisoners-of-war in a humane fashion
5. Construction of international law should be driven in the first instance by a clear understanding of the national interest as determined by the executive. To this end niggling, hypertechnical interpretations of the Conventions that disregarded the plain text, international practice and even Germany’s prior practice in order to justify their nonapplication were entirely appropriate.
6. In any event, the rules of international law were subordinated to the military interests of the German state and to the law as determined and stated by the German Führer.

Compared to what is known about Yoo's legal advice Scott Horton, historian Heinrich August Winkler, Sandy Levinson, David Abraham and Christopher Kutz see similarities with the writings of Carl Schmitt. According to legal experts Scott Horton, David Abraham, Ahmad Chehab the concept of the "unitary executive," which lies at the heart of controversies -i.e. NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Signing statement (United States), unlawful enemy combatant- seems to be based upon his state of exception.

Official positions and reactions

Official position of the Bush Administration

Notwithstanding the suggestion of official policy, the administration repeatedly assured critics that the publicised cases were unrepresentative incidents, and President Bush later stated that:

"The United States of America does not torture. And that's important for people around the world to understand."

The administration adopted the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 to address the multitude of incidents of detainee abuse. However, in his signing statement, Bush made clear that he reserved the right to waive this bill if he thought that was needed.

Contrary to prior official statements, the Washington Post reported in January 2009 that Susan J. Crawford, convening authority of military commissions, stated in response to the interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker" of the September 11 attacks:

"The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent.... You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. 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. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge", i.e., to call it torture.

The reason Crawford decided not to prosecute al-Qahtani was because his treatment fell within the definition of torture.

Public and international reaction

Over the years numerous incidents have been made public and a UN report denounced the abuse of prisoners as tantamount to torture.

The US Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that, contrary to what the Bush administration advocated, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to all detainees in the war on terrorism and as such the Military Tribunals used to try suspects were violating the law. The Court reaffirmed that those involved in mistreatment of detainees violate US and international law.

А report by Human Rights First (HRF) and Physicians for Human Rights (PFH) stated that the aforementioned ten techniques constitute torture. Their press release said:

The report concludes that each of the ten tactics is likely to violate U.S. laws, including the War Crimes Act, the U.S. Torture Act, and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

According to HRF, PFH and Stephen Soldz et al. medical and psychological literature shows that torture may have "profound long-term negative effects upon individuals, including psychosis, depression, suicidal ideation and/or post-traumatic stress disorder." They also cite the Office of the Inspector General report which concluded that

SERE-type interrogation techniques constitute "physical or mental torture and coercion under the Geneva conventions."

Also, according to the New York Times:

Experts advising the Bush administration on new interrogation rules warn that harsh techniques used since 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

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.

In an interview with AP on February 14, 2008 Paul Rester, chief military interrogator at Guantanamo Bay and director of the Joint Intelligence Group, said most of the information gathered from detainees came from non-coercive questioning and "rapport building," not harsh interrogation methods.

On May 19 2006, the UN Committee against Torture issued a report stating the U.S. should stop, what it concludes, is "ill-treatment" of detainees, since such treatment, according to the report, violates international law. It also calls for cessation of the US-termed "enhanced interrogation" techniques, as the UN sees these methods as a form of torture. The UN report also admonishes against secret prisons, the use of which, is considered to amount to torture as well and should be discontinued.

Destruction of evidence

In December 2007 it became known that the CIA had destroyed videotapes depicting prisoners being interrogated. This was allegedly done to protect the agents' identities from being disclosed. The New York Times reported that according to "some insiders" an inquiry into the C.I.A.’s secret detention program which analysed these techniques "might end with criminal charges for abusive interrogations." In an Op-ed for the New York Times Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission stated:

As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. 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. We call that obstruction.

Responding to the so-called "torture memoranda" Scott Horton pointed out

the possibility that the authors of these memoranda counseled the use of lethal and unlawful techniques, and therefore face criminal culpability themselves. 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.”

Jordan Paust concurred by responding to Mukasey's refusal to investigate and/or prosecute anyone that relied on these legal opinions

it is legally and morally impossible for any member of the executive branch to be acting lawfully or within the scope of his or her authority while following OLC opinions that are manifestly inconsistent with or violative of the law. General Mukasey, just following orders is no defense!

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 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody (43 pp., February 2007). 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 Guantanomo. (According to Danner, the report was marked "confidential" and was not previously made public before being made available to him.)

Danner provides excerpts of interviews with detainees, including Abu Zubaydah, Walid bin Attash, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. 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 quotes the ICRC report as saying that, "in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

U.S. State Department position on the use of similar treatment by other nations

Human Rights Watch (HRW) observed that numerous countries engage in activities that are similar to the ones allegedly used by the CIA:

1. Forced standing
2. Sleep deprivation
3. Exposure to cold
4. Waterboarding

The organization also reported that:

The U.S. State Department has condemned as torture or other inhuman treatment many of the techniques that have allegedly been used by the CIA in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at secret detention sites in other countries.

Legality

International law

• The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

It also states that:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

• In 1994, the United States filed a declaration qualifying its compliance with the Convention against Torture. According to the UN Secretary General, the Government of the United States of America said, "... nothing in this Convention requires or authorises legislation, or other action, by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States."
• Countries that are signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights agreed that Article 5 prohibits "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
• Marty Lederman observes that:

Even if some of these techniques are arguably short of legally defined "torture" in some cases, surely they are the sort of "cruel treatment" that the Geneva Conventions prohibit -- particularly when one recalls that those treaties were written largely with Germany's practices in mind. (The techniques might also, at least in many cases, violate the federal assault law and the McCain Amendment, as well.) And therefore the techniques are plainly unlawful -- and a President committed to faithful execution of the law would not authorise their use by the CIA -- whether or not they are subject to the criminal sanctions reserved for "torture" as such.

US law

Senior law enforcement agents with the Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) told MSNBC.com in 2006 that they complained inside the Defence Department in 2002 that the "interrogation" tactics used by a separate team of intelligence investigators were unproductive, not likely to produce reliable information, and probably illegal. 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.. General Counsel Mora and Navy Judge Advocate General Michael Lohr believed the detainee treatment to be unlawful, and campaigned among other top lawyers and officials in the Defence Department to investigate, and to provide clear standards prohibiting coercive interrogation tactics. In response, on January 15 2003, Donald Rumsfeld suspended the approved interrogation tactics at Guantánamo until a working group, headed by General Counsel of the Air Force Mary Walker, could produce a set of guidelines. The working group based its new guidelines on a legal memo from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel written by John Yoo and signed by Jay S. Bybee, which would become known as the "Torture Memo". General Counsel Mora led a faction of the Working Group in arguing against these standards, and argued the issues with Yoo in person. The working group's final report, was signed and delivered to Guantánamo without the knowledge of Mora and the others who had opposed its content. Nonetheless, Mora maintained that detainee treatment complied with the law since the January 15 2003 suspension of previously approved interrogation tactics.

Ban on interrogation techniques

On February 13, 2008 the US Senate, in a 51 to 45 vote, approved a bill limiting the number of techniques allowed to only "those interrogation techniques explicitly authorized by the 2006 Army Field Manual." The Washington Post stated:

The measure would effectively ban the use of simulated drowning, temperature extremes and other harsh tactics that the CIA used on al-Qaeda prisoners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

President George W. Bush has said in a BBC interview he would veto the such 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.

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.

On January 22, 2009 President Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States Army Field Manual "unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance."

During his confirmation hearings for CIA Director, Leon Panetta acknowledged that in an emergency he would seek "whatever additional authority" might be needed.

Investigation of enhanced interrogation techniques and prosecution

Request for Special Counsel Probe of Harsh Interrogation Tactics

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. The congressmen involved in calling for such an investigation included John Conyers, Jan Schakowsky, and Jerrold Nadler.

The letter was addressed to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey observing that:

"... information indicates that the Bush administration may have systematically implemented, from the top down, detainee interrogation policies that constitute torture or otherwise violate the law."

The letter continues to state:

"Because these apparent 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were used under cover of Justice Department legal opinions, the need for an outside special prosecutor is obvious."

According to the Washington Post the request was denied because Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey felt that:

officials acted in "good faith" when they sought legal opinions, and that the lawyers who provided them used their best judgment.

The article also reported that:

He warned that criminalizing the process could cause policymakers to second-guess themselves and "harm our national security well into the future."

After Cheney acknowledged his involvement in authorising these tactics Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Armed Services Committee, a New York Times editorial, Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton stressed the importance of a criminal investigation:

A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse.

International calls on Obama to investigate and prosecute

Shortly before the end of Bush's second term newsmedia in other countries were opining that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture the US is obligated to hold those responsible to account under criminal law.

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. 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.

Preventing UK courts to investigate

On February 4, 2009 the British High Court 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. That would directly threaten the UK's national security, Miliband had told the court.

Responding to the ruling David Davis, the Conservative MP and former shadow home secretary, commented:

The ruling implies that torture has taken place in the [Binyam] Mohamed case, that British agencies may have been complicit, and further, that the United States government has threatened our high court that if it releases this information the US government will withdraw its intelligence cooperation with the United Kingdom.

The High Court judges also stated that a criminal investigation, by the UK's attorney general, into possible torture has begun.

Criticism

A report by Human Rights First (HRF) and Physicians for Human Rights (PFH) stated that these techniques constitute torture. Their press release said:

The report concludes that each of the ten tactics is likely to violate U.S. laws, including the War Crimes Act, the U.S. Torture Act, and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

According to HRF, PFH and Stephen Soldz et al.. medical and psychological literature shows that torture may have "profound long-term negative effects upon individuals, including psychosis, depression, suicidal ideation and/or post-traumatic stress disorder." They also cite the Office of the Inspector General report which concluded that

SERE-type interrogation techniques constitute "physical or mental torture and coercion under the Geneva conventions."

Also, according to the New York Times:

Experts advising the Bush administration on new interrogation rules warn that harsh techniques used since 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

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.

In an interview with AP on February 14, 2008 Paul Rester, chief military interrogator at Guantanamo Bay and director of the Joint Intelligence Group, said most of the information gathered from detainees came from non-coercive questioning and "rapport building," not harsh interrogation methods.

The so-called Ticking time bomb scenario is frequently used to justify extreme interrogation. Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Chief under Bush, declared that 24 "reflects real life" while Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went farther, "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Dick Cheney stated: "I know specifically of reports... that lay out what we learnt through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country" yet the only examples publicly released are the claim that the waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed helped prevent a planned attack on Los Angeles in 2002, overlooking that he wasn't captured until 2003 and that of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi who had confessed that Iraq had trained al Qaeda in the use of weapons of mass destruction which was then used as justification for the subsequent invasion of Iraq, a confession now known to be false.

See also

• 2005 CIA interrogation tapes destruction
• Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
• Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
• Behavioral Science Consultation Teams
• Black site
• Command responsibility
• Doublespeak
• Human rights abuse
• Iraq prison abuse scandal
• Jus in bello
• Newspeak
• Torture and the United States
• UN Convention Against Torture
• War crimes

Further reading

• Stephen Grey, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (2007)
• Alfred W. McCoy, A Question Of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror (2006)
• U.S. Government, Coercive Interrogation: U.S. Views on Torture 1963-2003

External links

• Brian Ross & Richard Esposito, ABC News, November 18 2005, "CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described"