CONFIRMED – CIA destroyed tapes of interrogations that showed detainees being subjected to interrogation techniques that alter recollections, erase memories, and coerce false confessions, methods banned by the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law.
Abu Zubaydah was one of several “high-value” al Qaeda detainees subjected to oxygen deprivation during torture, continuous sensory bombardment, long periods of sleep deprivation, and other techniques shown to induce psychosis, memory loss, and extreme psychological confusion and vulnerability to the suggestions of interrogators.
The use of torture based on banned Cold War "brainwashing" techniques effectively rendered such interrogations legally useless and made those tortured unfit to credibly testify in any subsequent proceedings to what they had once known. This outcome was not unforeseeable when the White House authorized waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation."
leveymg's diary :: ::
CIA Psychologists Used Banned Cold War "Brainwashing" Techniques Zubaydah was interrogated by a team overseen by James Elmer Mitchell, a consulting psychologist under contract to the CIA, who reportedly adapted “brainwashing” techniques originally developed by the Chinese in the Korean War.
According to an article in Vanity Fair, Mitchell and a staff CIA psychologist, Bruce Jessen, took over the interrogation of this al-Qaeda detainee in May, 2002, and for months subjected Zubaydah to a variety of extreme physical and pyschological abuses: See,
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707?currentPage=1The tactics were a "voodoo science," says Michael Rolince, former section chief of the F.B.I.'s International Terrorism Operations. According to a person familiar with the methods, the basic approach was to "break down through isolation, white noise, completely take away their ability to predict the future, create dependence on interrogators."
Mitchell and Jessen are credited as having authored a curriculum of counter-interrogation techniques used by the U.S. military to teach soldiers how to resist torture, known as SERE training. Those techniques developed by the pair are based on Chinese and Soviet torture methods, said to have been adapted for use on prisoners held by the CIA at “black sites”. Aspects of this torture curriculum also migrated into the abuse carried out in Abu Ghraib and prisons run by the military in Afghanistan. The Vanity Fair article continues:
Each branch of the U.S. military offers a variant of the sere training curriculum. The course simulates the experience of being held prisoner by enemy forces who do not observe the Geneva Conventions. The program evolved after American G.I.'s captured during the Korean War made false confessions under torture. Sure enough, those in sere training found that they would say anything to get the torment to stop.
During a typical three-week training course, participants endure waterboarding, forced nudity, extreme temperatures, sexual and religious ridicule, agonizing stress positions, and starvation-level rations. Some lose up to 15 pounds. "You're not going to die, but you think you are," says Rolince.
James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen played a key role in developing the Air Force's sere program, which was administered in Spokane, Washington. Dr. Bryce Lefever, command psychologist on the U.S.S. Enterprise and a former sere trainer who worked with Mitchell and Jessen at the Fairchild Air Base, says he was waterboarded during his own training. "It was terrifying," he remembers. "I said to myself, 'They can't kill me because it's only an exercise.' But you're strapped to an inclined gurney and you're in four-point restraint, your head is almost immobilized, and they pour water between your nose and your mouth, so if you're likely to breathe, you're going to get a lot of water. You go into an oxygen panic."
MK-ULTRA REBORN]
In actuality, the level of torture applied to CIA detainees far exceeds in severity and duration ever experienced in training by U.S. troops. The most extreme of these interrogation techniques were developed by the CIA during the 1950’s as part of the notorious MK-ULTA program, techniques that were banned subsequent to the Church Committee hearings under U.S. law and forbidden as war crimes and torture under international conventions.
The MK-ULTRA program, itself, has its origins in Chinese torture techniques used durig the Korean War that proved effective, at least temporarily, in “reconstructing or remodeling thought”: See,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing In 1961, two specialists in the field published books which synthesized these studies for the non-specialists concerned with issues of national security and social policy. Edgar H. Schein wrote on Coercive Persuasion, and Robert J. Lifton wrote on Thought Control and the Psychology of Totalism. Both books focussed primarily on the techniques called "xǐ nǎo" or, more formally "sī xiǎng gǎi zào" (reconstructing or remodeling thought). The following discussion largely builds on their studies.
SNIP
Lifton and Schein discussed coercive persuasion in their published analyses of the treatment of Korean War POWs. They defined coercive persuasion as a mixture of social, psychological and physical pressures applied to produce changes in an individual's beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Lifton and Schein both concluded that such coercive persuasion can succeed in the presence of a physical element of confinement, "forcing the individual into a situation in which he must, in order to survive physically and psychologically, expose himself to persuasive attempts". They also concluded that such coercive persuasion succeeded only on a minority of POWs, and that the end-result of such coercion remained very unstable, as most of the individuals reverted to their previous condition soon after they left the coercive environment.
Litton, Schein and others found that the weakness of the Chinese approach to brainwashing was that once the prisoner was removed from the coercive environment, most recovered their previous belief systems and memories.
Further CIA investigation, much of it carried out in the late 1950s by Dr. Ewen Cameron, a prominent psychiatrist, resulted in “psychic driving” techniques that resulted in permanent alteration of personality and memory. Cameron’s research involved long periods of isolation with repetitive sensory stimulation as a means of breaking down individual identities and resistance to suggestion. The techniques and results are similar to those described as having been used in recent years on detainees in the GWOT, particularly Zubaydah, along with the accused “dirty bomb”suspect, Jose Padilla. Cameron’s techniques are described as follows: See,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKULTRA His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.<19> His treatments resulted in victims' incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.<20>
It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal only a decade earlier.<21>
One irony of this story is that the torture of Zubaydah and others appears to have been counter-productive to interrogation that had already been carried out, sending investigators after false leads. In Zubyadah’s case, we learned from Gerald Posner that Zubaydah revealed the most important details of what he knew when he was simply tricked by questioners who posed as Saudis. After he thought he had been turned over to Saudi intelligence, Zubaydah revealed the details of the involvement of five leading Saudi and Pakistani figures in planning for the 9/11 attacks. This resulted within a few months in the apparent assassination of four out of five of those named. See, www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/10/133754/60/799/420257
Prompted by political pressure from the White House, the CIA decided to take over the interrogations of Zubaydah and other GWOT detainees. The decision to use waterboarding and other “agressive interrogation procedures” came after Michael Chertoff, who would head Homeland Security, declares them “legal”. Similarly, on the advise of lawyers such as John Yoo, the White House announced in February 2002 that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Taliban, al-Qaeda suspects or other so-called Unlawful Combatants.
Paul Thompson has chronicled the conflict between the CIA and FBI over the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah under the Bush White House to hand over al-Qaeda interrogations to the CIA:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&startpos=0&complete_911_timeline__war_on_terrorism__outside_iraq=complete_911_timeline_destruction_of_cia_tapes#alate2001egyptsovietsLate 2001-Mid-March 2002: CIA Looks to Brutal Torture Techniques of Egyptians, Saudis, and Soviets in Setting Up Its Interrogation Program On September 17, 2001, President Bush gave the CIA broad powers to interrogate prisoners (see September 17, 2001), but the CIA does not have many officers trained in interrogation. As a result, in late 2001 and early 2002, while the CIA waits for high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders to be captured, senior CIA officials begin investigating which interrogation procedures to use.
The CIA “constructs its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture.” Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia are notorious for their brutal and widespread use of torture.
The Soviet interrogation techniques mentioned were designed not to get valuable intelligence, but to generate propaganda by getting captured US soldiers to make statements denouncing the US. The CIA hires two psychologists willing to use the techniques, James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, even though the two have no never conducted any real world interrogations and there is no evidence at the time (or later) that the Soviet torture techniques are effective in obtaining valuable intelligence and not just false confessions (see Mid-April 2002).
In mid-March 2002, the CIA will draw up a list of ten permissible aggressive interrogation techniques based on the advice from these governments and psychologists (see Mid-March 2002).
Entity Tags: James Elmer Mitchell, Bruce Jessen, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere
Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes, High Value Detainees, War on Terrorism
2002-2003: Chertoff Advises CIA Can Use Waterboarding and ‘False Flag’ Trickery on Detainees
The New York Times will later report that in 2002 and 2003, Michael Chertoff repeatedly advises the CIA about legality of some aggressive interrogation procedures. Chertoff is head of the Justice Department’s criminal division at the time, and will later become the homeland security secretary. Chertoff advises that the CIA can use waterboarding. And the Times will claim he approves techniques “that did not involve the infliction of pain, like tricking a subject into believing he was being questioned by a member of a security service from another country.”
It will later be reported that the CIA tricked al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida into believing he was in the custody of the Saudis when in fact several US officials were merely pretending to be Saudis (see Early April 2002). Furthermore, Chertoff seems to have been advising on the legality of techniques used against Zubaida, strengthening allegations that ‘false flag’ trickery was used on him. “In interviews, former senior intelligence officials said CIA lawyers went to extraordinary lengths beginning in March 2002 to get a clear answer from the Justice Department about which interrogation techniques were permissible in questioning Abu Zubaida and other important detainees. ‘Nothing that was done was not explicitly authorized,’ a former senior intelligence said. ‘These guys were extraordinarily careful.’” Chertoff also opposed one technique that “appeared to violate a ban in the law against using a ‘threat of imminent death.’”
This appears to match claims that the CIA proposed but did not implement a plan to place Zubaida into a coffin to convince him he was about to die (see Between Mid-April and Mid-May 2002).
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Abu Zubaida, Michael Chertoff
Timeline Tags: Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere
Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes, High Value Detainees, War on Terrorism
January-April 2002: FBI Gives Control of Al-Qaeda Prisoners to CIA; Bush Rejects Law Enforcement Approach
In the first months after 9/11, the FBI is generally in charge of captured al-Qaeda detainees and the assumption is that these detainees will be sent to the US for criminal prosecutions. However, beginning in January 2002, this policy begins to change. The highest ranking al-Qaeda detainee in US custody at the time, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, is transfered from FBI to CIA custody and then flown to Egypt to be tortured by the Egyptian government (see January 2002 and after).).
Also in January, the CIA, not the FBI, begins secretly flying detainees to the US-controlled prison in Guantanamo, Cuba (see January 14, 2002-2005). Journalist James Risen will later comment, “By choosing the CIA over the FBI, Bush was rejecting the law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that had been favored during the Clinton era. Bush had decided that al-Qaeda was a national security threat, not a law enforcement problem, and he did not want al-Qaeda operatives brought back to face trial in the United States, where they would come under the strict rules of the American legal system.”
This change of policy culminates in the arrest of Abu Zubaida (see March 28, 2002). The Washington Post will later report, “In March 2002, Abu Zubaida was captured, and the interrogation debate between the CIA and FBI began anew. This time, when FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III decided to withhold FBI involvement, it was a signal that the tug of war was over. ‘Once the CIA was given the green light… they had the lead role,’ said a senior FBI counterterrorism official.” The CIA decides that Guantanamo is too public and involves too many US agencies to hold important al-Qaeda detainees. By the time Zubaida is captured the CIA has already set up a secret prison in Thailand, and Zubaida is flown there just days after his capture (see March 2002). Risen will comment, “The CIA wanted secret locations where it could have complete control over the interrogations and debriefings, free from the prying eyes of the international media, free from monitoring by human rights groups, and most important, far from the jurisdiction of the American legal system.”
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Abu Zubaida, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere
Category Tags: High Value Detainees, War on Terrorism, Destruction of CIA Tapes
February 7, 2002: White House Declares Geneva Convention Does Not Apply to Taliban or Al-Qaeda
The White House declares that the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the conflict in Afghanistan, but will not grant prisoner-of-war status to captured Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Though Afghanistan was party to the 1949 treaty, Taliban fighters are not protected by the Conventions, the directive says, because the Taliban is not recognized by the US as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. Likewise, al-Qaeda fighters are not eligible to be protected under the treaty’s provisions because they do not represent a state that is party to the Conventions either. The presidential directive is apparently based on Alberto Gonzales’ January 25 memo (see January 25, 2002).
The directive also concludes that President Bush, as commander-in-chief of the United States, has the authority to suspend the Geneva Conventions regarding the conflict in Afghanistan, should he feel necessary. Though not scheduled for declassification until 2012, the directive will be released by the White House in June 2004 to demonstrate that the president never authorized torture against detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Entity Tags: George W. Bush
Timeline Tags: Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Civil Liberties
Category Tags: War on Terrorism, Destruction of CIA Tapes, High Value Detainees
SNIP
But in 2007, Vanity Fair will conclude a 10 month investigation comprising 70 interviews, and conclude that the FBI techniques were effective. After being shown a series of photographs of al-Qaeda leaders, he confirms that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) is known by the alias “Mukhtar,” a vital fact US intelligence discovered shortly before 9/11 (see August 28, 2001). He confesses that KSM planned the 9/11 plot, which US intelligence did not yet know. He also lays out the details of the plot.
Vanity Fair will later comment, “America learned the truth of how 9/11 was organized because a detainee had come to trust his captors after they treated him humanely.” Zubaida also confesses to a plot against a US ally and reveals the name of Jose Padilla, an alleged al-Qaeda operative living in the US (see Mid-April 2002).
CIA Director George Tenet reportedly blows up that the FBI and not the CIA obtained the information and he demands that the CIA team get there immediately. But once the CIA team arrives, they immediately put a stop to the rapport building techniques and instead begin implementing a controversial “psychic demolition” using legally questionable interrogation techniques. Zubaida immediately stops cooperating (see Mid-April 2002). (Vanity Fair, 7/17/2007)
FBI agents appeal to their superiors but are told that the CIA is now in charge. (New York Times, 9/10/2006) In 2007, former CIA officer John Kiriakou will make the opposite claim, that FBI techniques were slow and ineffective and CIA techniques were immediately effective. However, Kiriakou led the team that captured Zubaida in Pakistan and does not appear to have traveled with him to Thailand (see December 10, 2007). (ABC News, 12/10/2007; ABC News, 12/10/2007)
Mid-April-May 2002: FBI Is Appalled by CIA Interrogation of Zubaida; Withdraws Its Personnel
Around mid-April 2002, the CIA begins using aggressive interrogation techniques on al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida. A new CIA team led by psychologist James Elmer Mitchell arrives and takes control of Zubaida’s interrogation from the FBI (see Mid-April 2002).
This team soon begins using techniques commonly described as torture, such as waterboarding. Journalist James Risen will write in a 2006 book, “The assertions that the CIA’s tactics stopped short of torture were undercut by the fact that the FBI decided that the tactics were so severe that the bureau wanted no part of them, and FBI agents were ordered to stay away from the CIA-run interrogations. FBI agents did briefly see Abu Zubaida in custody, and at least one agent came away convinced that Zubaida was being tortured, according to an FBI source.” (Risen, 2006, pp. 32)
Newsweek will similarly report in 2007 that Zubaida’s interrogation “sparked an internal battle within the US intelligence community after FBI agents angrily protested the aggressive methods that were used. In addition to waterboarding, Zubaida was subjected to sleep deprivation and bombarded with blaring rock music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. One agent was so offended he threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators, according to two former government officials directly familiar with the dispute.” (Newsweek, 12/12/2007)
The FBI completely withdraws its personnel, wanting to avoid legal entanglements with the dubious methods. The CIA then is able to use even more aggressive methods on Zubaida (see Mid-May 2002 and After). (New York Times, 9/10/2006) ______________________________________
Crossposted at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/18/141435/27Fifth in a series, also see:
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It has also been reported that other high-value detainees, KSM and Ramzi bin al-Sheibh (who was also present in Kuala Lumpur), have also been water boarded. ...
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Now, here's the third reason: Abu Zubaydah was a key Al-Qaeda figure in the CIA's secret war in Chechnya . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/10/133754/60/799/420257 
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