These techniques include, but are not limited to, all lawful forms of questioning employed by U.S. law enforcement and military interrogation personnel. Among standard interrogation techniques are the use of isolation, sleep deprivation not to exceed 72 hours [reduced in December 2003 to 48 hours' maximum], reduced caloric intake (so long as the amount is calculated to maintain the general health of the detainee), deprivation of reading material, use of loud music or white noise (at a decibel level calculated to avoid damage to the detainee’s hearing), the use of diapers for limited periods (generally not to exceed 72 hours), [REDACTED] at moderate psychological pressure. The DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] Interrogation Guidelines do not specifically prohibit improvised actions. A CTC/Legal officer has said, however, that no one may employ any technique outside specifically identified standard techniques without Headquarters approval.

Before then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began the process of expanding the definitions of what military interrogation personnel were allowed to do in November 2002 and culminating in April 2003 — a process significantly based, in chicken-and-egg fashion, on what the CIA was already doing to detainees — none of these listed techniques would have been acceptable for U.S. military interrogators. And FBI interrogators (like Ali Soufan) objected to similar treatment of detainees witnessed in 2003 at Guantanamo Bay. It’s unclear what basis Tenet had for thinking that keeping someone in a diaper for up to three days was acceptable for non-CIA interrogators. But it’s also an example of how torture, once adopted, spreads — and becomes normative. Remember, these techniques aren’t even “enhanced” ones.

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.

“Terry McAuliffe is slipperier than an eel in olive oil,” Nader said in an interview.

He said McAuliffe, who was the Democratic National Committee chairman at the time, had offered Nader’s campaign an unspecified amount of money, believed to be party funds, to spend in 31 states in exchange for an agreement to withdraw from 19 battleground states where he could potentially hurt Democrat John Kerry.

Perhaps more shockingly, McAuliffe’s not denying it. He’s not exactly admitting it, either — but he’s certainly not calling Nader a liar.

In fact, McAuliffe aides are even attempting to spin this in his favor, basically saying that any effort he made to thwart Nader and prevent the re-election of George W. Bush might actually play well with party loyalists.

In a statement to The Post, spokeswoman Liz Smith said McAuliffe “was concerned that Ralph Nader would cost John Kerry the election as he did Al Gore in 2000 and give us another four years of George W. Bush.” She then jabbed Nader, saying it appears he “misses seeing his name in the press.”

The problem is, Ralph Nader doesn’t need to find a new project to make him relevant these days — with corporate bailouts and credit card reform dominating the public psyche right now, a man who built his reputation on consumer advocacy should be as happy as a pig in mud. And he is busy critiquing everything from the government-led restructuring of General Motors to the handling of swine flu.

The Daily Beast points out that Nader was willing to take cash from wealthy Republicans trying to siphon votes from Democrats in that same election. He told The Post, however, that he turned down McAuliffe’s offer.

So why talk now, five years after the fact? The disclosure of the alleged bribe — which comes less than two weeks before Virginia’s June 9 Democratic gubernatorial primary — will apparently be played up in an upcoming book written by a former Nader campaign manager. Today’s news will likely drive up interest in that project, which is scheduled for release the week after the primary.