CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described

[DallasTim]

Nov. 18, 2005 — Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

[NanceGreggs]

1. Okay, I'm about to get some flack here ...

... but if this Admin thinks that THIS is the way to extract honest and truthful answers, why doesn't Bush send all of his WH staffers and advisors to one of his 'secret prisons' to be waterboarded until they 'fess up as to who outed Valerie Plame?

[WhiteTara]

2. yeah! Let's waterboard KKKarl

and to get info from that scummy scooter - I choose the scare him into thinking he'll be drowned...oh, okay only AFTER they have been slapped shackled and been shoved around some.

[ThePopulist]

21. O/T - who is that hispanic-looking woman on your avatar?? eom

[WhiteTara]

23. That is the great writer and activist

Arundati Roy. BTW TP welcome to DU :hi:

[ThePopulist]

24. Thanks for the welcome and the info. BNL :)

:hi:


Here's to you:
:toast:

[54anickel]

3. Cuz when they say it was Cheney he'll just turn around and say

"This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear."


Ahh, but when the information extracted is just what Cheney wants to hear THAT'S a different matter. Then it becomes the truth, at least long enough to be used to support whatever evil deed he has in mind for the day. When the truth later comes out, he can blame it on faulty information. :eyes:

Guess that's why Cheney endorses torture. You really can have it both ways!

[ThePopulist]

4. They really don't do their own interrogations.....

they hire the Egyptian secret police to beat the fuck out of the detainees and knock their teeth out every time they don't give them the answer they're looking for.

[ddeclue]

19. Yet another example of outsourcing American jobs.. somebody call Lou Dobbs

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[ThePopulist]

20. That was fucking sweet man

((Yet another example of outsourcing American jobs.. somebody call Lou Dobbs))

- regarding the hiring of foreigners by the CIA to do our torturing for us.



Well said friend.

[deadparrot]

5. CIA agents reveal interrogation tactics

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - CIA agents have revealed details of six interrogation tactics approved by top brass for use at secret CIA jails in Asia and Eastern Europe, ABC News reported.

The techniques have lead to questionable confessions and the death of one man since March 2002, the network said, after interviewing current and former CIA officials.

Former CIA officer Bob Baer told ABC the techniques amounted to "bad interrogation. I mean, you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough."

CIA sources speaking on condition of anonymity described six techniques: "Attention Grab, Attention Slap, Belly Slap, Long Time Standing, Cold Cell, Water Boarding."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usattacksprisonsciainterrogation

[shance]

6. "You can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough."

Bingo.

That is why people are tortured by abusers. To get them to falsely incriminate themselves so it can be used for the abusers benefit.

[ddeclue]

7. Surprise, surprise, surprise... it's the bad cop / bad cop technique.. :O

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[Ouabache]

8. So WHY does CHENEY want the CIA to have an EXEMPTION for this?

The agents are spilling, how far up, and back to where, in the CHAIN OF COMMAND, guys? Please, do tell. We would never be able to guess in a million years.

[ddeclue]

9. Nobody expected an American Inquisition.

We all know the scenes. We even know the lines by heart. They are embedded in our collective consciousness.

Captain Renault in Casablanca telling Victor Lazlo in the presence of Nazi Major Strasser about the "death" of Señor Ugarte - "I'm making out the report right now. We haven't decided whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape."

Darth Vader in Star Wars telling Princess Leia "The time has come, Princess, for us to discuss the location of your rebel base" as an ominous torture droid with syringes and other menacing attachments hovers in her detention cell on the Death Star.

Nazi Major Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark saying "Fraulein Ravenwood. Let me show you what I am used to." as he threatens her with a red hot poker to learn of the location of the headpiece to the staff of Ra.

Torture is what we expect from Nazis, imperial storm troopers, and other villains in black hats.

We certainly didn't expect it from our own American democracy.

Yet President Bush is now promising to veto any legislation containing Senator John McCain's recent anti-torture legislation which was passed 90-9 by the United States Senate. Vice President Cheney is also actively campaigning against this anti-torture legislation by pressuring Congressmen to vote against it.

Senator McCain as a downed U.S. Naval aviator and prisoner of war in Vietnam was repeatedly tortured by the North Vietnamese and has clear moral convictions on this subject borne of his own personal pain and that of his fellow prisoners. Lieutenant Bush and Mr. Cheney meanwhile avoided both Commander McCain's war and his pain through the National Guard and multiple college deferrments.

We have already seen the atrocities at Abu Ghaarab on the evening news and heard of others at Guantanamo Bay. We have seen the publishing by Cambridge University Press of "The Torture Papers" by Greenberg and Dratel, a 1248 page collection of actual source documents from the U.S. government detailing the systemic government plan to torture prisoners for information.

We have even seen the 60 Minutes report on "renditioning" which is apparently a fancy word for kidnapping and disappearing someone without anyone's knowledge, much less a trial, a judge, a jury, or even an International Red Cross inspector so that he can be tortured by the security services of other governments where they aren't so picky about little legal "problems" like the Geneva Conventions, the Bill of Rights or the Magna Carta.

Now we are hearing reports in the news of secret prisons in Eastern Europe where the Administration is holding alleged terrorists in unknown conditions. No doubt they've "rounded up the usual suspects" once again -and, apparently just like Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, they don't think that "we can handle the truth", so they have chosen to hide it from us.

How is this any different from the behavior of South American banana republic dictators, military juntas, and death squads such as we have seen in the past in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and elsewhere in Latin America with their thousands of "desaparecidos" anyways?

Torture of prisoners is neither American nor Christian. (To paraphrase a popular bumper sticker - "Who would Jesus torture?")

This must end now.

The government must apologize and rectify the situation. We the People must know the truth, sooner - not later - and those in this Administration who responsible must be impeached and brought to justice for their crimes.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[Ouabache]

10. Damn good piece of writing there, Doug

Keep that up and you will be better than Will Pitt.
welcome to DU.

[ddeclue]

11. Thanks..

Thanks for your kind words.

I'm not new to DU but I don't post all that frequently here. I posted some back last year and again a couple of times this year. Usually what I post here is a letter I wrote to the editor that they invariably never publish.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[President Kerry]

16. Thanks for this piece. It is mind-boggling

how ANY American legislator could support torture. It's yet another bit of the bizarro nightmare we're living in. This administration is single-handedly destroying America's high standing in the world that took decades, if not centuries, to build. It's just beyond contempt.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. So I guess we can throw the few bad apples theory

out the window, when you start 'publishing' lists of torture techniques.

[lostexpectation]

13. US military use of Shannon to cease

Belfast Telegraph Home > News

US military use of Shannon to cease

By Gary Fennelly
[e-mail]
12 November 2005

The use of Shannon Airport as a stopover for US military is to be phased out by April 2008, it was revealed last night.

The Republic's Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, signed an agreement yesterday with his US counterpart, Norman Mineta, in New York.

The number of flights landing in Shannon will be reduced to one in four by November next year. While cargo flights will not be able to stop at all from that date.

On Thursday Islamic fundamentalist and lawyer Anjem Choudary caused outrage when he said the Republic was a legitimate target for terrorism because the Government allowed US troops to refuel at Shannon.

Speaking during a debate at Trinity College in Dublin Choudary said: "If you are going to allow your country to be used to refuel a US plane which is going on a bombing raid, what do you expect our reaction to be? This is not neutrality," he said.

"A US pilot is no different from the Irish person who allows the plane to land. They are collaborators."

Gardai are studying his remarks with a view to possible prosecution for incitement to hatred. A few hours earlier, Scotland Yard chief Sir Ian Blair warned Dublin was as much at risk from a major terrorist attack as any other large international city.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=669045

[Disturbed]

14. Hey! The Glorious Leader has said:

"We don't torture." Did that mean the the "we" excludes the CIA?

[President Kerry]

18. No, it just means what they do isn't torture.

We can rack somebody by the balls and it still wouldn't be torture because our war-hero fearless leader has said so. You know, having spent years in torture chambers in Vietnam, he knows. riiiight

[PhilipShore]

15. Unfortunately, cruelty is institutionalized in American culture

I spoke to a reporter for a newspaper, once, and he told me something like--he likes to watch human suffering, when he sees it makes him laugh hysterically.

I actually thought he was joking-- but now after reading this article, I can assume he was serious.

These people ironically are rewarded for their corruption.

[President Kerry]

17. At least we are not using any banned chemical weapons on anybody,

right? I mean, are we? We are? Damn. What won't those evil fucks do...

[mitchum]

22. Your tax $$$$$$$$$$$ at work

[wellst0nev0ter]

25. Actually, That's Nothing Compared To The REAL Story Further Down

<snip>
According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

"This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear," one source said.

However, sources said, al Libbi does not appear to have sought to intentionally misinform investigators, as at least one account has stated. The distinction in this murky world is nonetheless an important one. Al Libbi sought to please his investigators, not lead them down a false path, two sources with firsthand knowledge of the statements said.
<snip>


WE DO NOT TORTURE!!

Did you get that? The Bushies, did actively authorize the use of torture on a detainee, even though those methods are notoriously to be unreliable, even though those methods were DESIGNED to be unreliable in that they get the info the interrogators want, so that they can get the "evidence" they needed to sell the phony war to the American public.

The Hague is too good for them.

[Briar]

26. The problem is

the lack of public revulsion about this. How many "good" citizens think torture is justified, I wonder.