rssCIA Withheld Medical Information From the Justice Department to Obtain Torture Approvals
Monday, August 24, 2009 at 4:58 pm
- 15 Comments
It’s almost enough to generate sympathy for Jay Bybee and John Yoo, the two heads the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2002 who signed off on the infamous torture memos. According to the 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on torture, Bybee and Yoo didn’t make their decisions based on complete information, and information CIA provided to them on the efficacy of torture was, in some cases “appreciably overstated,” “exaggerated” and “probably misrepresented.”
A few months before the March 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah prompted discussion at the highest levels of the Bush administration as to what interrogation policy ought to be, the CIA in late 2001 solicited a report from James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two former SERE officials, about how to overcome “countermeasures” al-Qaeda developed to resist interrogation. As a result, the report states, the CIA’s Office of Technical Services “obtained data on the use of the proposed” torture techniques listed in Mitchell and Jessen’s report and the techniques’ “potential long-term psychological effects on detainees.” OTS also got input from the Defense Department’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which oversees the SERE program, as documented in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s torture report from last year. That OTS report was the basis for the information about proposed torture techniques provided to the Justice Department in spring 2002 that Yoo and Bybee, in their August 2002 torture memos, consider for application to Abu Zubaydah.
In the August 1, 2002 memo written by Bybee and Yoo, the lawyers summarize and refer repeatedly to what the CIA told them about how the “enhanced interrogation techniques” are supposed to work, as well as to assurances that the lawyers then consider material for whether the proposed actions violate U.S. laws. For instance, discussing waterboarding, they write, that water would be applied “in a controlled manner,” and that the CIA orally informed them that “this procedure triggers an automatic physiological sensation of drowning that the individual cannot control even though he may be aware that he is in fact not drowning.”
Just one problem: CIA medical personal objected to the description that OTS gave to the Justice Department as factually inaccurate.
Addressing the discrepancies between how waterboarding worked in the SERE school and how it worked at CIA and other torture techniques that changed between on-paper justification and in-the-field practice, a footnote to the inspector general’s 2004 report reads:
According to the Chief, Medical Services, OMS [the CIA's Office of Medical Services] was neither consulted nor involved in the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of EITs [“enhanced interrogation techniques,” nor provided with the OTS report cited in the OLC opinion. In retrospect, based on the OLC extracts of the OTS report, OMS contends that the reported sophistication of the preliminary EIT review was probably exaggerated, at least as it related to the waterboard, and that the power of this EIT was appreciably overstated in the report. Furthermore, OMS contends that the expertise of the SERE psychologist/interrogators on the waterboard was probably misrepresented at the time, as the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant. Consequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe.
This is hardly the only time during the Bush administration where the CIA cut out of the loop elements from within its own ranks that might not ratify a decision desired by the Bush administration. During the lead-up to the war with Iraq — indeed, during this same time period of early-mid 2002 — the CIA’s chief analyst, Jami Miscik, cut out of CIA analysis on the alleged relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda the agency’s own Mideast analysts, who were dubious of any substantive connection.
It is unclear if Yoo or Bybee would have changed their analysis had they been treated to a full account of OMS’s perspective. But it’s crystal clear from the report that fateful decisions were made without the benefit of complete information.
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15 Comments
Pingback posted August 24, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
[...] [”enhanced interrogatory techniques,” nor provided with the … Here is the original: The pedagogue Independent » CIA Withheld Medical Information From … Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: enhanced-interrogation, environment, help-protect, [...]
Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 2:25 am
Has everyone forgot 9-11?
We all wanted them to do any and everything to get the people responsible.
How soon our memories fade about the horror that was done to this country by the people whom the CIA interrogated.
Makes me sick
Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 4:39 am
I guess youdon'tremember the large number of innocent people swept up by the dubious means our government used to find so-called terrorists. I don't think most Americans signed on for torturing innocent people, especially since there would be no possibility of obtaining any useful information from them even if torture were a way to produce reliable information, which it isn't. I mean, isn't maiming and killing innocent people the mark of a terrorist? Is that what you think we should be, terrorists?
Pingback posted August 25, 2009 @ 6:02 am
[...] From The Washington Independent in the USA: CIA Withheld Medical Information From the Justice Department to Obtain Torture Approvals [...]
Pingback posted August 25, 2009 @ 8:39 am
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Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 7:53 am
I don't remember seeing that the CIA interrogated any Saudi royals…which is the country where most of the 9-11 hijackers came from, and got monetary support from.
Torture doesn't work, you sick little POS “iremember”.
Pingback posted August 25, 2009 @ 9:02 am
[...] The D.O.J. Office of Legal Counsel (O.L.C.) signed on on the now infamous torture memos in 2002. Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent writes: [...]
Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 11:11 am
Cheney was behind this all the way and is still talking about how torture saved lives after 9/11.
They would have tortured even if JC had doubts.
They were arrogant tools used by Cheney, Rummsfeld and Bush
Pingback posted August 25, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
[...] and benefits of EITs [â?enhanced interrogation techniques,â? nor provided with the …Read Full about this medical News / resources Related Medical informationsThe Washington Independent » DeMint: Health Care Is a Privilege [...]
Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
Re: “We all wanted them to do any and everything to get the people responsible” Except become like them and drag the nation down with them. Cheney (and Bush) botched the getting those responsible worse than the prevention of the attack in the first place.
and, actually, what we really wanted them to do was try and prevent the attacks, rather than ignoring warnings and vacationing because Middle East terrorists didn't fit into the Bush agenda, whatever that was (I think was always invade Iraq, just figure out how). If they couldn't do that, we didn't want them to make the situation worse by declaring war on a religion and entire region of the world – neither of which the US knows much about other than there's oil there and Isreal is close by.
Pingback posted August 25, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
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Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
I remember when the Bush Administration ignored intelligence provided By Richard Clark, that an attack was imminent in August of 9-11-01. I remember.
I remember when former President GW Bush and Colin Powell told the people of the world that Sadam Hussein had weapons of Mass destruction and then we found out that this intelligence was fabricated and wrong (no WMD's were found). I remember
I remember when the Former President Bush said that we needed to torture (result to methods that the Viet-Kong and Spanish Inquisitors used) to prevent a future attack. Now we know that this is not the case. I remember
And I will also remember all of the Bush enablers like yourself who backed GWB policies which drove this country into the pit economically, diplomatically and environmentally.
I remember!
Comment posted August 25, 2009 @ 6:48 pm
I am pasting this twice because of the a-hole Iremember. I too think it is important to remember:
I remember when the Bush Administration ignored intelligence provided By Richard Clark, that an attack was imminent in August of 9-11-01. I remember.
I remember when former President GW Bush and Colin Powell told the people of the world that Sadam Hussein had weapons of Mass destruction and then we found out that this intelligence was fabricated and wrong (no WMD's were found). I remember
I remember when the Former President Bush said that we needed to torture (result to methods that the Viet-Kong and Spanish Inquisitors used) to prevent a future attack. Now we know that this is not the case. I remember
And I will also remember all of the Bush enablers like yourself who backed GWB policies which drove this country into the pit economically, diplomatically and environmentally.
I remember!
Pingback posted August 26, 2009 @ 6:25 pm
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