The Senate Torture Report: CIA Internal Communications
In December 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the executive summary of its 6,700-page report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. The report drew on over 6 million pages of internal CIA documents, including cables, emails, and memos. The communications between CIA headquarters, field officers, and medical personnel reveal a program that was far more brutal and less effective than the agency had represented to the White House, Congress, and the public.
Medical staff push back
November 2002, CIA cable
CIA Medical OfficerThe techniques we are being asked to use are not in line with what any of us signed up for. We are not interrogators. We are doctors. Our role is to ensure the detainee survives the interrogation, not to design the interrogation itself.
CIA HeadquartersUnderstood. But the program requires medical monitoring. You are the only qualified personnel on site. The techniques have been approved at the highest levels. Your participation is not optional.
Medical OfficerWe are being asked to calibrate the degree of pain inflicted. That is not medicine. That is the opposite of medicine. I am formally requesting to be reassigned.
HeadquartersRequest denied. The program is a national priority. Do your job.
[From internal CIA cable traffic, November 2002, cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Findings and Conclusions, p. 4.]
The “ineffective” interrogation of Abu Zubaydah
August 2002, CIA cable
Field Officer, ThailandSubject is compliant. He is providing information freely. We have not needed to escalate past the initial phase. The waterboard has not been used. I do not believe it will be necessary.
HeadquartersYou are not authorized to deviate from the plan. The plan is the plan. Execute the plan as approved.
Field OfficerI am telling you that the plan is counterproductive. He is talking. The more we escalate, the less he gives us. We are getting actionable intelligence right now.
HeadquartersThe plan was approved by the Principals. Execute it. We will evaluate after the full cycle is complete.
Field OfficerYou are asking me to continue a procedure that I am telling you is not working. I am formally noting my objection for the record.
[From internal CIA cable traffic, August 2002, cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, pp. 40-42, regarding the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.]
The “ineffective” interrogation of Abu Zubaydah
September 2002, CIA cable
Field OfficerAfter the full cycle, subject provided no new intelligence. He repeated information he had already given us during the earlier phase. The waterboard produced no actionable leads. I am requesting authorization to cease the enhanced techniques and return to standard interrogation.
HeadquartersAuthorization granted. Return to standard interrogation.
Field OfficerCopy. For the record, the intelligence that led to the disruption of the Jose Padilla plot was obtained during the initial phase of the interrogation, before any enhanced techniques were applied. The waterboard added nothing.
[From internal CIA cable traffic, September 2002, cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, pp. 42-44.]
The Panetta briefings
2009, CIA internal memo
Leon Panetta, CIA DirectorI've read the cables. I've read the OLC memos. I need someone to tell me, straight, what happened in these sites. Not what the memos say we did. What we actually did.
Senior CIA OfficerDirector, the techniques used exceeded what was authorized. In multiple sites. The enhanced techniques were applied more frequently and more aggressively than the OLC memos permitted. We have a problem.
PanettaHow much of a problem?
Senior OfficerA significant problem. The tapes that were destroyed in 2005? They showed techniques that were not in any memo. The decision to destroy them was made because people who saw the tapes said they would be, quote, devastating if they ever became public.
PanettaI'm shutting this down. Effective immediately. All sites. I'm going to brief the President. Get me everything. Every cable. Every tape that still exists. Every memo. I want it on my desk by Monday.
[From internal CIA communications, 2009, cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Findings and Conclusions, pp. 12-15. The destruction of the interrogation tapes was the subject of a separate criminal investigation.]
The “fabricated” intelligence
CIA cable, 2003
Field OfficerSubject provided information on an alleged meeting between Iraq and al-Qa'ida in Prague. We assess this information as unreliable. Subject has been providing information that he believes the interrogators want to hear. He has no firsthand knowledge of this meeting. Recommend we do not disseminate this intelligence.
HeadquartersNoted. However, this information is consistent with other reporting. We will disseminate with appropriate caveats.
Field OfficerI must reiterate: this information was obtained under enhanced techniques. The subject has been waterboarded 83 times. He has provided extensive information that we have determined to be fabricated. Disseminating this intelligence carries significant risk of downstream error.
HeadquartersYour objection is noted. Disseminate.
[From internal CIA cable traffic, 2003, cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, pp. 88-92. The Prague meeting intelligence was later determined to be false and was a key component of the case for the Iraq War.]