Torture planning began in 2001, Senate report reveals (from 2009)

[Solly Mack]

Just a blast from the past. 2009 Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treatment of Detainees

To hear former President Bush tell it, you would think the United States only turned to the techniques in desperation. When Bush announced the existence of the CIA’s interrogation program in September 2006, for example, he argued that suspected al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah stopped cooperating with interrogators after his capture on March 28, 2002, forcing the agency to get rough. “We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives,” Bush said. “But he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation,” the president said. “And so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures.”

Not to worry, the president explained. “The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively, and determined them to be lawful.”


But that’s not how it happened


To set up the torture program, the Department of Defense and the CIA reverse engineered something called SERE training, which was conducted by the JPRA. Based on Cold War communist techniques used to force false confessions, in SERE school elite U.S. troops undergo stress positions, isolation, hooding, slapping, sleep deprivation and, until recently, waterboarding to simulate illegal tactics they might face if captured by an enemy who violated the Geneva Conventions.

In either December 2001 or January 2002, two psychologists affiliated with the SERE program, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, developed the first written proposal for reverse engineering the training for use on al-Qaida suspects. Their paper made its way to the Joint Staff. (Salon first zeroed in on the pair in a June 2007 article.) The military also then began discussions at that time about using the ideas at Guantánamo.

In early March 2002, Jessen began two-week, “ad-hoc ‘crash’” courses for training government interrogators slated for Guantánamo. The courses therefore began before the allegedly uncooperative Zubaydah was ever captured, and Zubaydah was the first allegedly high-level al-Qaida operative in U.S. custody after 9/11.


Torture planning began in 2001, Senate report reveals

[Major Hogwash]

1. Thanks for this thread, Solly.

As many of us suspected, the torture program was put into place first!

[Solly Mack]

3. Bush's DOJ put out their 1st Torture Memo just 4 months after Sept. 11.

To give the appearance of legality to their crimes.

The knew they would use torture and then sought to redefine torture with the Torture Memos.

[Major Hogwash]

4. I remember Alberto Gonzalez saying the Geneva Conventions was quaint.

He was Bush's White House Counsel before being elevated to Attorney General.

I didn't know their plan to use torture extended back that far.
Thank you.

[Solly Mack]

6. You're welcome.

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

2. .

[G_j]

5. K&R

thank you

[Solly Mack]

7. again from 2009: CIA threaten to kill children

CIA Threatened To Kill Suspect's Children

Another interrogator allegedly tried to convince a different terror suspect detainee that his mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him...

A CIA contractor beat another prisoner with a heavy flashlight, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr. The report notes, "The detainee died in custody." And Abd al-Nashiri, suspected bomber of the USS Cole, was threatened with a handgun and power drill. "The debriefer ... revved the drill while the detainee stood naked and hooded," the report said.

The report, written in 2004, examined CIA treatment of terror detainees following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It has been declassified as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

CIA Report from 2004, released in 2009 because of ACLU FOIA


We've known some of this for years and years.

[Solly Mack]

8. The "Salt Pit" from 2005

CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described

The sources said that in that case a young, untrained junior officer caused the death of one detainee at a mud fort dubbed the "salt pit" that is used as a prison. They say the death occurred when the prisoner was left to stand naked throughout the harsh Afghanistan night after being doused with cold water. He died, they say, of hypothermia.

According to the sources, a second CIA detainee died in Iraq and a third detainee died following harsh interrogation by Department of Defense personnel and contractors in Iraq.

Gul Rahman

More than seven years ago, a suspected Afghan militant was brought to a dimly lit CIA compound northeast of the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. The CIA called it the Salt Pit. Inmates knew it as the dark prison.

Inside a chilly cell, the man was shackled and left half-naked. He was found dead, exposed to the cold, in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Marci Wheeler claims that a footnote reveals that

Gul Rahman was a case of mistaken identity. We murdered some folks.

[Solly Mack]

11. We murdered them even if they were guilty.

You don't torture even the bad guys.


If they died by torture or abuse...or just flat out ignoring the Geneva Conventions...they were murdered.

[Volaris]

12. You don't torture ESPECIALLY the bad guys.

At least, that's how it USED to be in this country.
My sisters right. She should ex-pat, and I should go with her.
I'm tired of this not-justice bullshit.

[Solly Mack]

13. You're correct. Especially the bad guys.

I know how you feel.

[Luminous Animal]

16. I 100% agree.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

9. K&R

[Solly Mack]

14. From 2008: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'

Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'

At the time, the Principals Committee 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.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

Contacted by ABC News today, spokesmen for Tenet, Rumsfeld and Powell declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals Meetings. Powell said through an assistant there were "hundreds of [Principals] meetings" on a wide variety of topics and that he was "not at liberty to discuss private meetings."

The White House also declined comment on behalf of Rice and Cheney. Ashcroft could not be reached for comment today.

[NightWatcher]

15. I left the government employ when I saw where this was heading back in 02

And damnit all if I'm not tired of constantly getting proved right. Today's report was nothing new.

Not too long after 9/11 I could see the setup for what was to come (and did come to pass).

[Solly Mack]

18. I'm glad the summary came out and I want the full report w/o redactions to come out.

Primarily to see the framing and for my files. Not because I think justice will be done.

[brer cat]

17. Thanks for the thread, Solly Mack.

I hate that you came back to this disgusting crap, but I know you are in your element...you have been on top of this for a long time. Take good care of yourself!

[Solly Mack]

19. Hey, brer cat!

Thanks!

It's pretty much been my focus for over a decade now.

[Solly Mack]

20. CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described - from 2005

CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described

The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. 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. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

Related: That the combination of abusive (cruel/humiliating) techniques used constitute torture. Waterboading is always torture.

From 2009

Guantanamo Detainee Was Tortured, Says Official Overseeing Military Trials

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture.

Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani's health led to her conclusion. "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" to call it torture,

[madokie]

21. I went through and graduated from this SERE school they speak of

and spent a tour of duty there as a part of the training. I'm really not at liberty to talk about it much so I'll leave it at that.

[Solly Mack]

22. OK.

[suffragette]

23. No matter the euphemism they used, it's still TORTURE

Thanks for posting this Solly.
It's important to note they did this because it's what they wanted to do and the new 'Pearl Harbor' of 911 just gave them the excuse to put their plans into action.

[Solly Mack]

25. Thanks, suffragette

Yep. They wanted to do it.

[KoKo]

24. Recommend...

[Solly Mack]

26. from 2009 : Rumsfeld: Architect of torture

Rumsfeld: Architect of torture

When Donald Rumsfeld heard about plans to force detainees at Guantánamo Bay to stand for hours on end, in order to soften them up and make them talk to U.S. interrogators, he made a joke about it. “I stand for 8-10 hours a day,” the then-defense secretary wrote on Dec. 2, 2002, at the bottom of a memo authorizing military officials to use extreme techniques against prisoners. “Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”

As a newly released Senate Armed Services Committee report makes clear, the effects of Rumsfeld’s cavalier attitude toward what the report calls “detainee abuse” — and what international law would probably call torture — didn’t just stop at the military prison on Cuba. The techniques Rumsfeld approved for use at Guantánamo oozed into prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, undermining decades of U.S. policy about humane treatment of detainees and leading to some of the worst outrages of the Bush administration, including the Abu Ghraib abuses, which Salon has covered extensively.

“The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply a result of a few soldiers acting on their own,” the Senate report says. “Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at [Guantánamo] … Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officers conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.”

The Bush administration, including Rumsfeld, all treated Abu Ghraib as the actions of a few rogue soldiers. Eleven enlisted personnel were convicted of crimes because of the way they treated Iraqis held there; the longest sentence, 10 years, went to former Cpl. Charles Graner. (One officer, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, was convicted of disobeying an order not to discuss the case, but acquitted on more serious charges.) But the Senate investigation, completed last fall but only released this week, found the abuses there — forcing prisoners into “stress positions,” stripping them naked, menacing them with dogs — were directly inspired by similar behavior top administration officials had already approved elsewhere.

The article goes on to talk about the Pentagon contacting the SERE schools and how Rice & others "began evaluating the CIA’s plans to set up an interrogation program at Guantánamo using tactics developed by the SERE schools" in the Spring of 2002.



From 2006


What Rumsfeld knew

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in the late 2002 interrogation of a high-value al-Qaida detainee known in intelligence circles as “the 20th hijacker.” He also communicated weekly with the man in charge of the interrogation, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the controversial commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center.

During the same period, detainee Mohammed al-Kahtani suffered from what Army investigators have called “degrading and abusive” treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved. Kahtani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women’s underwear and to perform “dog tricks” on a leash. He received 18-to-20-hour interrogations during 48 of 54 days.

...

[Solly Mack]

27. From 2005: Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller (a continuation from the above post w/ added info)

The Truth About Abu Ghraib

FOR 15 MONTHS now the Bush administration has insisted that the horrific photographs of abuse from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were the result of freelance behavior by low-level personnel and had nothing to do with its policies


The latest evidence has emerged from hearings at Fort Meade about two of those low-level Abu Ghraib guards who are charged with using dogs to terrorize Iraqi detainees. On Wednesday, the former warden of Abu Ghraib, Maj. David DiNenna, testified that the use of dogs for interrogation was recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison who was dispatched by the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib in August 2003 to review the handling and interrogation of prisoners. On Tuesday, a military interrogator testified that he had been trained in using dogs by a team sent to Iraq by Gen. Miller.



In statements to investigators and in sworn testimony to Congress last year, Gen. Miller denied that he recommended the use of dogs for interrogation, or that they had been used at Guantanamo. "No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented at any time by the assistance team that I took to [Iraq]," he said under oath on May 19, 2004. Yet Army investigators reported to Congress this month that, under Gen. Miller's supervision at Guantanamo, an al Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was threatened with snarling dogs, forced to wear women's underwear on his head and led by a leash attached to his chains -- the very abuse documented in the Abu Ghraib photographs.


You can see how the methods used at GTMO early on migrated to Iraq (and other places)


One of the reasons that releasing all the photos of abuse is important is because it would further show how the abuse was systemic and based on instructions from the Bush administration. The common elements of the abuse would be further proof of a planned program of torture and abuse.

[Bandit]

28. until recently, waterboarding to simulate illegal tactics they might face

When these tactics were being taught at SERE training they claimed they were illegal at that time.