WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2009
Report Says CIA Conducted Mock Executions
Interrogators Threatened Suspect with Gun and Power Drill
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(CBS/AP)
The disclosures are contained in a 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general, which has been kept secret and is to be released next week, two officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been cleared for release.
The report's findings were first reported by Newsweek on its Web site Friday night.
In one case, interrogators brought a gun and power drill into a session with suspected Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the report says. The suicide bombing of the warship USS Cole killed 17 U.S. sailors in Yemen in 2000.
In another episode, a gunshot was fired in a room next to a detainee to make the prisoner believe another suspect had been killed, according to the report, which a federal judge has ordered to be made public Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nashiri was one of three CIA prisoners subjected to waterboarding, a brutal interrogation technique that simulates drowning that was among 10 techniques approved by the Bush administration's Justice Department in 2002. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have denounced waterboarding as torture.
"The CIA in no way endorsed behavior- no matter how infrequent- that went beyond formal guidance," said agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano. He declined to comment on the contents of the IG report.
Threatening a prisoner with death violates U.S. anti-torture laws.
Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation practices, a controversial move that would run counter to President Barack Obama's wishes to leave the issue in the past.
"The findings are sure to put more pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder, who is now considering whether to initiate a criminal probe into whether and to what extent government agents or private contractors violated the law or formal policy in interrogating these guys," said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.
"The CIA says that if these things occurred they were performed by rogue agents and operatives who presumably would be left out to dry if the Justice Department decides to start a criminal probe. We saw a similar scenario when the abuse at the prison at Abu Ghraib was made public."
Gimigliano said the career prosecutors at the Justice Department have reviewed the report to determine if any laws were broken and whether the interrogators should be prosecuted.
"Professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution," he said. "That's how the system was supposed to work, and that's how it did work."
Just one CIA contract interrogator, David Passaro, has been prosecuted. He was found guilty in 2007 in the beating death of a prisoner in Afghanistan.
The Los Angeles Times reported Aug. 9 that a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk. One of the congressional officials told the AP that referred to the interrogation of the USS Cole suspect.
The IG review was completed in May 2004. The ACLU has sought its release since then. It was expected to be released earlier this year but was delayed by government request.
The IG review cast doubt on the effectiveness of the harsh interrogation methods employed by CIA interrogators, according to quotes from the report that were contained in Bush-era Justice Department memos declassified this spring. It says no attacks were averted by information obtained using harsh interrogation methods.
The CIA detained and interrogated 94 terrorist suspects; 28 were subjected to harsh methods. Of those three were waterboarded, according to government documents made public earlier this year.
"Now we can understand a little more why the Bush Administration and even some officials in the Obama White House did not want this information made public," Cohen said. "One unanswered question is whether these tactics actually worked to ferret out useful information from these prisoners. "
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said this week at a panel discussion in Washington that the review also credits the harsh interrogation with yielding information on al Qaeda's basic infrastrucutre, which in turn allowed the CIA to fight the organization behind the 9/11 hijackings.
John L. Helgerson, the now-retired CIA inspector who spearheaded the investigation, told the AP in June that the report is a comprehensive review of everything the CIA did in the secret detention and interrogation program begun in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The investigation was undertaken in response to concerns expressed by agency employees about the program, he added.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 11 Comments
- "Truth is defined by the weakest of us who must suffer through it."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- "We found ourselves left to the whims and consequence of a barbarity we ourselves embraced."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- "One small drop of blood from the innocent.
Horror is often described that way."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- "Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
George Washington, Circular to the States, May 9, 1753
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- jahmourner... Try to calm down, You need help desparately. There are Doctors & Medication for your type of Psychosis. Oh, wait a minute... your Private health insurance probably won't cover it! In the meantime, try to borrow some Oxycontin from Rush Limbaugh, it may help calm you down. Oh yeah, get some Viagra from him also. You probably need help in that area too!!
- Reply to this comment
- "I writhed in anguish for years. Always knowing pain was coming, but never knowing what I should attempt to say next, or how I should appear so that my American torturers would believe me.
The problem was that I was innocent."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
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- "Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787
A Future of the Brave
- "Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves."
- We have met the enemy and he is us.
Fear and cowardice have turned America into what we never thought we'd become. - Reply to this comment
The road ahead in Afghanistan, and the crucial decision Obama faces.
