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Interrogators went beyond wide latitude given under Bush, documents say

WASHINGTON - With just two weeks of training, or about half the time it takes to become a truck driver, the CIA certified its spies as interrogation experts after Sept. 11, 2001 against the U.S. and handed them the keys to the most coercive tactics in the agency's arsenal.

It was a haphazard process, cobbled together in the months following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington by an agency that had never been in the interrogation business. The result was a patchwork program in which rules kept shifting and the goals often were unclear.

At times, the interrogators went too far, even beyond the wide latitude they were given under the Bush administration's flexible guidelines, according to newly unclassified documents released Monday. Interrogators took the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding beyond what was authorized. Mock executions were held. Family members were threatened. There were hints of rape.

If it was a terrifying process for the detainees, it was a bureaucratic nightmare for the interrogators. Until 2003, the agency provided its interrogators with rules on a case-by-case basis, sometimes giving permission by e-mail or even orally from CIA headquarters.

Despite the lack of clarity, interrogators were required to sign documents saying they understood the rules and would comply with them. Yet they were given ample room to improvise and make decisions about how much humanity to show to terror detainees.

While former Vice President Dick Cheney said the interrogation program was run by "highly trained professionals who understand their obligations under the law," the newly released documents suggest otherwise, at least in the early months.

'How cold is cold?'
The interrogators slapped prisoners, held a handgun to one's head, used power drills to make threats and left men shackled and naked in frigid rooms until they cooperated.

"How cold is cold?" one officer said in the 2004 CIA inspector general's report released Monday. "How cold is life threatening?"

The CIA's Counterterrorism Center began training interrogators in November 2002, two months after suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah already had been repeatedly subjected to waterboarding.

But because the CIA had so little information about al-Qaida, CIA analysts could only speculate about what the detainees "should know," hobbling the interrogators' ability to ask meaningful questions and identify misleading or useful answers.

Some in the CIA correctly feared that the existence of the program would leak out someday. Others worried they would be identified by name in news stories.

"One officer expressed concern that, one day, agency officers will wind up on some 'wanted list' to appear before the World Court for war crimes," the inspector general wrote.

Another added, "Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this ... (but) it has to be done."

Even the Justice Department, which authorized the interrogation program, conceded in a 2004 memo that "at least in some instances and particularly early in the program," the program appeared to have gone off track.

Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a prosecutor Monday to look into whether such incidents amounted to violation of federal law. He said nobody who operated within the framework of the Justice Department's legal opinions will be charged.

But the program that the Bush administration's Justice Department approved in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks began to short-circuit almost immediately.

'It is for real'
In August 2002, government lawyers said interrogators were not supposed to use harsh tactics until all other methods had failed. But three months later, when officials captured the terrorism suspect Abd al-Nashiri, believed to be behind the bombing of the USS Cole, interrogators immediately launched into enhanced tactics.

And the method of waterboarding used by the CIA did not always resemble the clinical, closely supervised process that the Justice Department approved. One official, explaining why interrogators were pouring excessive amounts of water over a detainee's cloth-covered mouth and nose, said, "It is for real."

Another interrogator repeatedly choked off the carotid artery of a prisoner, causing the detainee to pass out, then shaking him awake again. The interrogator had only recently been trained in interrogation tactics and had previous experience only in debriefing, the practice of questioning people already willing to cooperate.

As late as September 2003, the CIA was still sending mixed signals to its interrogators.

"No formal mechanisms were in place to ensure that personnel going to the field were briefed on the existing legal and policy guidance," the report said.

It was a debriefer, not a trained interrogator, who threatened alleged al-Nashiri with a power drill and an unloaded gun. Such threats violate U.S. anti-torture laws.

It is not clear from CIA reports whether waterboarding or other aggressive tactics made America safer, as Cheney has long claimed. CIA officials credited the detention and interrogation program with thwarting several terrorist attacks. But investigators said it's less certain that waterboarding or other coercive tactics directly contributed to that success.

CIA terror tactics spur changes, new probe
Obama administration orders changes in future interrogations


WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is setting strict new standards for treatment of terror suspects, as the U.S. Justice Department launches a criminal probe of past interrogation tactics during President George W. Bush's efforts to combat terrorism.

A newly declassified version of a CIA report revealed Monday that CIA interrogators once threatened to kill a Sept. 11 suspect's children and suggested another would be forced to watch his mother sexually assaulted.

The fresh crop of damaging revelations only intensified the long-running political fight about the secret interrogation program — whether it protected the United States then, and whether spilling its secrets now will weaken the nation's future security.

Top Republican senators said they were troubled by Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to begin a new criminal probe, which they said could hamper U.S. intelligence efforts.

And former Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that the CIA's interrogation of terror suspects "saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks." In a statement, Cheney said those who carried out the interrogations "deserve our gratitude" and do not deserve "to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions."

He said that Monday's Obama administration decisions serve as a reminder "if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security."

'Dark road of excusing torture'
Investigators credited the detention-and-interrogation program for developing intelligence that prevented multiple attacks against Americans.

But the inspector general said it was unclear whether so-called enhanced interrogation tactics contributed to that success. Those tactics included waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that the Obama administration says was torture. Measuring the success of such interrogation is "a more subjective process and not without some concern," the report said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the revelations showed the Bush administration went down a "dark road of excusing torture."

Holder said Monday he had chosen a veteran prosecutor, John Durham, to open a preliminary investigation to determine whether any CIA officers or contractors should face criminal charges for crossing the line on rough but permissible tactics. Durham already is investigating the destruction of CIA interrogation videos.

At the same time, President Barack Obama ordered changes in future interrogations, bringing in other agencies besides the CIA under the direction of the FBI and to be supervised by his own national security adviser. The administration pledged that questioning would be controlled by the U.S. Army Field Manual, with strict rules, and said the White House would keep its hands off the professional investigators doing the work.

Despite the announcement of the criminal probe, White House aides declared anew that Obama "wants to look forward, not back" at Bush-era tactics.

'It has to be done'
White House officials said they plan to continue the controversial practice of rendition of suspects to foreign countries, though they said that in future cases there would be greater safeguards to ensure such suspects are not tortured.

Monday's five-year-old report by the CIA's inspector general, newly declassified and released under a federal court's orders, described severe tactics used by interrogators on terror suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Seeking information about possible further attacks, interrogators threatened one detainee with a gun and a power drill, choked another and tried to frighten still another with a mock execution of another prisoner.

And other once-secret documents released late Monday show that parts of the CIA's tough treatment program continued even after Bush's September 2006 transfer of agency prisoners to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, appointed by Bush in 2006, expressed dismay at the prospect of prosecutions for CIA officers. He noted that career prosecutors already had reviewed and declined to prosecute the alleged abuses.

Obama has said interrogators would not face charges if they followed legal guidelines, but the report by the CIA's inspector general said they went too far — even beyond what was authorized under Bush era Justice Department legal memos that have since been withdrawn and discredited. The report also suggested some questioners knew they were crossing a line.

"Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this (but) it has to be done," one unidentified CIA officer was quoted as saying, predicting the questioners would someday have to appear in court to answer for such tactics.