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Today's Must Read
Welcome to the black sites, the off-the-books detention facilities where the CIA subjected senior al-Qaeda captives to a methodically harsh regime of interrogation.
In this week's The New Yorker, Jane Mayer gives the first reportorial glimpse into the black sites after the Washington Post exposed their existence in 2005. She relies on new sources, including those with direct knowledge of the interrogations, as well as on the Council of Europe's investigation into European Union complicity with the CIA on terrorism detentions.
Inside the black sites, detainees are subject to psychological and physical abuse -- from simulated drowning to prolonged nudity -- so severe that CIA officials fear prosecution. Yet many CIA veterans describe the interrogations there as "nothing like Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo," in the words of a former chief of the agency's Counterterrorism Center, Robert Grenier. "They were very, very regimented. Very meticulous."
Some of the methods employed in the black sites, however, did appear in both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. military, not the CIA, primarily handled detention and interrogation operations. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, was paraded on a dog leash, much like at Abu Ghraib. Black-site denizens, additionally, are subject to exposure to extremely cold cells, which can induce hypothermia, and extended periods of sleeplessness, both of which have been documented by official inquiries (pdf) into Guantanamo Bay. While Mayer's article does not explore the connection, she reports that psychologists from the Special Forces' program to survive torturous interrogations, known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape), helped design the interrogation regime, much as they had at Guantanamo.
The origins of the interrogation regime at the black sites had more to do with inexperience in interrogation than deliberate cruelty, Mayer reports.
The SERE program was designed strictly for defense against torture regimes, but the C.I.A.’s new team used its expertise to help interrogators inflict abuse. “They were very arrogant, and pro-torture,” a European official knowledgeable about the program said. “They sought to render the detainees vulnerable—to break down all of their senses. It takes a psychologist trained in this to understand these rupturing experiences.”The use of psychologists was also considered a way for C.I.A. officials to skirt measures such as the Convention Against Torture. The former adviser to the intelligence community said, “Clearly, some senior people felt they needed a theory to justify what they were doing. You can’t just say, ‘We want to do what Egypt’s doing.’ When the lawyers asked what their basis was, they could say, ‘We have Ph.D.s who have these theories.’ ” He said that, inside the C.I.A., where a number of scientists work, there was strong internal opposition to the new techniques. “Behavioral scientists said, ‘Don’t even think about this!’ They thought officers could be prosecuted.”
Inside the black sites, doctors kept close tabs on detainees' health -- though it's not clear whether they assisted interrogators design abusive routines. Mayer obtained a memo highlighting some of the methods that the SERE advisers recommended:
A secret government document, dated December 10, 2002, detailing “SERE Interrogation Standard Operating Procedure,” outlines the advantages of stripping detainees. “In addition to degradation of the detainee, stripping can be used to demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor or to debilitate the detainee.” The document advises interrogators to “tear clothing from detainees by firmly pulling downward against buttoned buttons and seams. Tearing motions shall be downward to prevent pulling the detainee off balance.” The memo also advocates the “Shoulder Slap,” “Stomach Slap,” “Hooding,” “Manhandling,” “Walling,” and a variety of “Stress Positions,” including one called “Worship the Gods.”
Grenier said that by the time the detainees were moved to the European black sites -- such as in Poland and Romania -- from ones that existed in Afghanistan (a timeline isn't provided), the interrogations became "less aggressive." It's not clear what that means. In Poland, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was apparently waterboarded five times, a technique that the CIA considered particularly valuable. According to a former agency official, "Drowning is a baseline fear. So is falling. People dream about it. It’s human nature. Suffocation is a very scary thing. When you’re waterboarded, you’re inverted, so it exacerbates the fear. It’s not painful, but it scares the shit out of you."
It's clear from Mayer's piece that several officials inside the CIA believe that the black-site interrogations worked. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed divulged significant information about the 9/11 plot, and officials state unequivocally that his interrogations yielded information that helped avert three active terrorist conspiracies. But he also confessed involvement in additional terrorist acts that he probably had nothing to do with, such as the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. CIA officials, like George Tenet's former chief of staff, John Brennan, accept the likelihood of false information as a cost of doing business in coercive interrogation. Another told Mayer that "ninety per cent of the information was unreliable."
What remains unclear is whether the black sites still exist, and what's allowed within their walls. Last year's Supreme Court ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld provided for the application of Geneva Conventions protection to all detainees in U.S. custody, which led the CIA to transfer fourteen "high value targets" -- including Mohammed -- to Guantanamo Bay. But some remained in CIA custody after the transfer, including an al-Qaeda operative named Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi -- turned over to the Pentagon in April -- and President Bush recently signed an executive order detailing new, presumably less harsh rules for future CIA interrogations. Critics have said that the new rules appear to allow sleep deprivation to continue, meaning that the debate over the efficacy and morality of coercive interrogations will as well.
Comments (34)
Billy Pilgrim wrote on August 6, 2007 10:31 AM:America's great new contribution to Western civilization -- enhanced torture techniques.
No small wonder that Americans who now travel abroad are despised in nearly every country they visit.
And this is the country for which James Madison and the Founding Fathers worked so hard to provide a form of government worth preserving. They would surely be ashamed were they to see the fruits of their labors.
Mellors wrote on August 6, 2007 10:39 AM:Please be more attentive when referring to New Yorker issues.The 8-6 issue contains no such article. You mean the 8-13 issue. Identify the issue by date not by "this week's."
thanks
carol lam wrote on August 6, 2007 10:45 AM:Go to NION
NEVER IN OUR NAMES
To see what you can do to help stop these atrocities.
Is the recently arrested Thomas Tamm THE MYSTERY POSTER who thought that bushinc could and would be prosecuted for war crimes because of these satanic torture techniques?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/6/81143/73736
Frankly, I'm wondering if this man is the anon from last week who was advising how we can beat them at their game. He/she was definitely an insider with legal expertise. I'm a little worried about Kossacks getting in on that. I admit, I've been terrorized and am living in fear for no known reason other than I know that they would stop at nothing to maintain their power, including a strike against their own country. They like death. They love to kill Americans and Iraqis.
osisbs wrote on August 6, 2007 10:54 AM:A government that waterboards people should be brought down. I learned this in 6th grade when studying the Nazis. A government that spies on its citizens should be destroyed, I learned this in 8th grade studying the USSR and the East German Stasi. Why is the Bush Regime different?
za wrote on August 6, 2007 10:55 AM:"But some remained in CIA custody after the transfer, including an al-Qaeda operative named Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi"
Careful with this. The claims made by the Pentagon, Bush/Cheney, etc. are merely claims. Few of these people have been tried. NONE have been tried fairly. To perpetuate rumors about any of these prisoners is unprofessional at best.
Billy Pilgrim wrote on August 6, 2007 10:55 AM:carol lam
Our Founding Fathers provided this nation with one remedy for a chief executive run amok. It is impeachment. If that remedy is not applied at this critical moment in our history, the United States as a democratic institution is doomed.
AnneW wrote on August 6, 2007 10:57 AM:Beyond the morality (and legality) of torture, it DOESN'T freaking work.
This guy confessed to personally killing Daniel Pearl. Which by the way, the (probable) real killer is now using in his defense.
You can "break down" most people to the point that they will confess to anything their captors ask them to. Oh boy, we can say that the perpetrators of any terrorist plot have been captured when in fact the real culprits can keep going on about their business.
I wonder how all those people who have been freed from Guantanamo & Abu Ghraib feel about the US now. I wonder if we've created any new al-Zawahiri's from our conduct.
za wrote on August 6, 2007 10:59 AM:"If that remedy is not applied at this critical moment in our history, the United States as a democratic institution is doomed."
We need to make clear to our Congresspeople that they are COMPLICIT in these high crimes and misdemeanors, if they do not impeach.
Remember, impeachment is merely the indictment. It's the beginning of INVESTIGATING the crimes. If Congress won't even go that far, than yes, we ARE doomed.
Legalize wrote on August 6, 2007 11:08 AM:No problem. I'm sure the Congress will be happy to bend over and legalize this activity so that no more questions into will be needed! The rules will always save us!! It doesn't matter that the rules do nothing to protect us, and in fact might actually cause us more harm, as long as we FEEL safer!!!
Using exclamation points makes idiotic statements more valid!!!!
All hail the Decider.
Anonymous wrote on August 6, 2007 11:12 AM:za
It is very important to point out that during the impeachment investigation, executive privilege claims are invalid. Congress has unfettered access to all required evidence. Failure of the executive to comply provides additional grounds for removal from office.
TheraP wrote on August 6, 2007 11:19 AM:This is the "united" "states" - and if the "federal" government does not provide redress for We the People, then we must convince our states to act jointly - to compel the federal government to comply with the constitution.
So, we need to work on two fronts here. One is to try and convince the Congress. (But we saw what happened on Saturday.) The other is to turn to our states. We are a "federal" system - the states must not allow a dictatorship to take root.
Our state Attorney General can act on our behalf. One in each state. The State AG, on behalf of its citizens, can empower a Grand Jury to look into the crimes being committed in our names. And the seizure of tyrannical power happening before our eyes.
sc:"pain" And yes this pains me more deeply than I can even put into words. Anguish. How can we be seeing this happen in a country that has such high ideals?
busdrivermike wrote on August 6, 2007 11:22 AM:Has all this torture caught Osama Bin Laden? No.
But maybe it is to the powerful peoples advantage to keep the wolf alive in order to sheep frightened, and begging for better guard dogs.
Billy Pilgrim wrote on August 6, 2007 11:37 AM:TheraP
"How can we be seeing this happen in a country that has such high ideals?"
We are all feeling the same pain, but you used the wrong tense in your last sentence. The word "has" regrettably needs to be replaced with the word "had."
It may well be that the Golden Age of the American experiment in democracy has eclipsed. The other great republic, the Roman, began its decline the moment it became an empire. Unless the progression to a Republican Party-controlled empire is arrested, the American experiment will be recorded in history as a failure.
ron wrote on August 6, 2007 11:37 AM:I am deeply...profoundly...ashamed to be an American.
Doesn't the biblical verse go, "ye shall know these people by their presents"? Take one look at Dick Cheney who so loved his country that he sought (and got) FIVE deferments to AVOID military service.
Cast your eyes on George W. Bush who was so dedicated to his country that he took a "daddy-arranged" slot in a "champagne unit" whose most dangerous mission was to prevent a Mexican invasion.
The current "war on terror(???)" is a "piss-ant operation" that can not even qualify as a REAL WAR (except to those on the ground in Iraq). But the aforementioned cowards and slackers beat it with all of their might.
In World War II, over FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND American military personnel were killed...nearly three times the total number of soldiers in ALL of Iraq. And over FIFTY MILLI0N people around the world died of war-related causes.
And yet....and this is the big bomb...we NEVER...NEVER found it necessary to abuse or torture our prisoners. THAT TACTIC IS RESERVED FOR GUTLESS COWARDS!!!
....and we certainly do have a SURPLUS of those in today's America !!!!
Alguien wrote on August 6, 2007 11:44 AM:I thought I heard Dick Cheney say in an interview something like "We do not torture"...
Alguien wrote on August 6, 2007 12:06 PM:Did he mean "we, personally" as in "George and I"?
Why didn't anybody in the press (e. g Larry King, Chris Matthews, etc.) confront HIM with all this evidence?
Billy Pilgrim:
TherP wrote on August 6, 2007 12:27 PM:The decline of most empires/superpowers usually starts when there is some lunatic in the throne (or Oval Office) with unlimited power, living in a bubble, removed from reality and surrounded by corrupt, complying officials. We have reached those conditions, so the end is clearly imminent.
China is the new emerging superpower. Their passive invasion, albeit slow has been much more effective and insidious. Before we know it, they will own the US and we'll have nothing to fight back.
Billy Pilgrim @ 11:37:
I personally still have high ideals. So do many others. The thugs in the executive branch may have lost their ideals long ago. And others in many areas of government and business.
I understand the point you are making. And I too have feared, for some time, that we are watching the decline and fall of this republic. But meanwhile, I - and I hope you are too - am trying to do whatever I can to help turn things around.
I refuse to give up my ideals. I too am deeply ashamed at the moment to be an american. But I hope we can go through some kind of process, as the Germans did, to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world.
I may be naive. I may be idealistic. But I'm bent on trying to salvage what we can and turn things around. I'm trying to turn my pain into action - in my little way.
Every one of us can do our part. I have great faith in many who post here at tpm - and other places. We may fail. But I'd rather die failing than die having tried to do nothing.
But thanks for your comment, Billy Pilgrim. I know you're with us!
And the word is "join." Join us, whistle-blowers and persons of conscience. Your country needs you.
TheraP wrote on August 6, 2007 12:31 PM:ron: "By their fruits, you shall know them."
Alguien: Remember, their definition of torture is "organ failure." Up to that point... they think it's not torture. (My comment: @*&%$#@*&^$# - over and over!)
astilbe wrote on August 6, 2007 12:59 PM:Learn our real history. We are brainwashed from day one in this country. This administration is not an anomally, it is only the most obvious one in it's aims; in a way we should be thankful they have been so blatant. So much that has been done in OUR NAME in past administrations is so disheartening that I feel as Ron does. I am having a hard time seeing the good in this country.
Molly Ivans wrote on August 6, 2007 1:10 PM:raise hell !!
moondancer wrote on August 6, 2007 1:35 PM:My mind is spinning, I cant get over the horror of what they are doing.
SocraticGadfly wrote on August 6, 2007 2:17 PM:The worst of it is they have nothing to show for all this black ops. Trust me they would be crowing about this and that if they could. They best so far is 2 pathetic domestic groups that could be handled by any random neighborhood watch.
I would like to recommend an EXCELLENT book at this point, "The Lucifer Effect" by Philip Zimbardo. He, the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment, was a psychological expert counsel to Chip Frederick and has much to say about the "bad barrel" vs. "bad apple" analysis of why this all happened.
Billy Pilgrim wrote on August 6, 2007 2:35 PM:TherP
That was an ominous analogy you made, stating that, as the Germans did, the U.S. may be able to go through a redemptive process. However, you failed to note that prerequisite to the German rebirth, Germany as a nation was destroyed.
Can the U.S. right itself short of the catastrophe that befell Germany? When it had the chance to halt the rising cult of totalitarianism Germany failed, in large part because the of the complicit silence of the middle class. That experience should serve as a stark warning to Americans facing a near parallel threat in 2007. The resident cabal in Washington is counting on the silence of the American populace to perpertrate its atrocities against civilization. If we, the persons of conscience and the potential whisle-blowers do nothing, the cabal succeeds. The public that James Madison and the Founding Fathers relied on for the preservation of the republic, will have abrogated its critical responsibility.
Long Memory wrote on August 6, 2007 3:13 PM:At some point after the current occupant leaves the White House, a U.S. president is going to have to go and apologize to the rest of the world for the things we did in the recent past. Saying we were terrorized by terrorists isn't going to cut it.
Mike Valentine wrote on August 6, 2007 3:16 PM:Saying we did inhuman things to them because they did inhuman things to us isn't going to cut it.
We're just going to have to apologize.
And if someone wants to turn every last high-ranking person in the current administration over to the World Court, then that's OK by me.
Bush is the MBA President.
Money is his overwhelming concern.
You can not serve both money and God.
Anyone who disagrees is (Codeword) wrong.
Scooter Liddy wrote on August 6, 2007 3:26 PM:See also "Rorschach and Awe" in Vanity Fair:
Mooser wrote on August 6, 2007 4:11 PM:http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707#content
I've never seen people so eager to turn down a great bargain! As usual for liberals, you are refusing to see the up-side of the equasion out of a childish sqeamishness about torture.
The men (and women) who are performing these interrogations (selfless heroes all!) will return home, and their expertise (and their desire to "help" their country) will be available to local police departments. The US Government recognises the laudable accomplishments of these interrogators; they will have "veterans preference" in hiring. And they can transfer their expertise in interrogations to the other members of your local police force, those who might be afflicted with the same liberal sqeamishness about torture which is so prevalent here.
Just think: Hundreds, if not a couple thousand, of expert, enthusiastic tortu...whoops!, interrogators, all ready to join local police departments and State Police, and willing to spread their disea...whoops!, expertise to the rest of the force.
And it won't cost you a cent! What's not to like?
See, even the Security Code likes it: "hope" is the winning word!
TheraP wrote on August 6, 2007 4:25 PM:Mooser:
Don't forget how child abusers will be able to learn new techniques, like they did from the Nazis.
You have put your finger on it. How these actions will come back to bite us. In so many ways.
My heart aches. Because of the torture. Because of the moral jeopardy our troops have been placed in. The broken lives. The broken bodies. The perversion of values. Ugh..... I am sick at heart.
illlich wrote on August 6, 2007 5:00 PM:"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40
(maybe we should be crucifying prisoners, that'll learn 'em).
Anonymous wrote on August 6, 2007 5:13 PM:Mooser does an admirable emulation of Jonathon Swift.
Read memoirs of expert interrogaters in WW2 and they all say that -- moral and legal considerations aside -- torture does not work.
The victim will just tell you what he thinks you want to hear.
Ironically, one of the best interrogaters of WW2 was a Luftwaffe NCO who interrogated US and British airmen. He was so effective he literally wrote a book on interrogation after the war.
He used no torture, but used clever cross examination and similar techniques to learn reams about Allied bombing efforts and strategies.
Alas, however, it looks like our intel people have no institutional memory.
Anonymous wrote on August 6, 2007 5:22 PM:SocraticGadfly
Zimbardo is a mountebank, but he and others are correct in saying that almost anyone can be made into a torturer.
Under the old Soviet system, the KGB would literally create "internships" for potential torturers. They would start by observing beatings and then progress to more horrendous efforts. Eventually they would get their own "cases" to work on.
The Gestapo would speak of "processing" prisoners -- ie, torturing them -- as if it were some morally neutral matter.
A few of their members literally lost their heads in their own guillotines when the British got hold of them.
bjobotts wrote on August 6, 2007 7:12 PM:What more did they expect to get out of them to continue such treatment? Yet it goes on...why...for practice? What was ever obtained to justify the wide spread humiliation of detainees. The people who torture are worse than murderers because they kill the soul... the inner spirit of the victim, leaving the body and mind to endure it for the rest of their lives. They are no better than Sadam or the terrorists they condemn. They create the horror of the human condition by their abuses. Death is too good for them and a cancerous insanity not enough. There are other more effective means of obtaining information. Torture is almost never needed but the US has it in wide spread use. This is not America just Cheney's sadism.
Meah Bottoms wrote on August 6, 2007 10:58 PM:We will all have to pay for these evils in one way or another. I am so sorry that my country has sunk so low, and there is blindness to the truth of things.
I never realized that there were so many people in this country who are so afraid. It is fear that makes people behave like this. It is fear that causes people to deny the humanity of others. I knew when George Bush OKd the executions of 135 people in Texas, and was named to the presidency in 2000 by the supreme court, we were in BIG trouble!
How in the world is this going to be turned around? If Al Gore ran for president we might be able to, but I have little hope for that. People all over the world know that he cares about the entire world. We don't have to embrace terrorists, we just need to treat them as we would want our soldiers to be treated were they imprisoned in an enemy country. Stupidity rules!!!
Nell wrote on August 13, 2007 6:02 PM:The CIA's protestations of "inexperience" at torturous interrogation are hard to square with the very long history of the organization's research into torture, particularly psychological torture. Read Alfred McCoy's A Question of Torture for more detail.
The SERE program itself was designed using the CIA-sponsored research, which dates from the late 1940s (i.e., from the beginning of the CIA's existence). And there was plenty of hands-on experience in the CIA's Operation Phoenix in Viet Nam, which was a program of assassination and torture on a large scale (30,000 people).
So, much as I respect Jane Mayer's work, this recent New Yorker piece has a strong whiff of her CIA sources trying to deflect responsibility.