The primary argument that officials in the Bush administration made in defense of their authorization for the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EIT) — otherwise recognized as torture — is that their use in interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects resulted in obtaining vital intelligence information that “saved American lives.” That…
The Office of Legal Counsel was established to serve as the “constitutional conscience” of the Justice Department: “OLC is, and views itself as, the frontline institution responsible for ensuring that the executive branch charged with executing the law is itself bound by law. The danger, of course, is that OLC…
In December 2001, a small group of professors and law enforcement and intelligence officers gathered outside Philadelphia at the home of a prominent psychologist, Martin E. P. Seligman, to brainstorm about Muslim extremism. Seligman is most famous for his work in the 1960s in which he was able to psychologically…
Al Qaeda were labelled “unlawful enemy combatants.” President Bush effectively denied prisoners in the War on Terror the legal protections and minimum standards for humane treatment under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. He did so while stating that, as a matter of policy, the U.S. Armed Forces shall treat…
The CIA and the Department of Justice were the lead government agencies that authorized the use of torture techniques against prisoners in the War against Terror. The CIA contracted psychologists to devise and supervise tough innovative interrogation techniques whose use would have arguable “scientific and psychological” justification. James Mitchell and Bruce…
Feb. 2002: President Bush Executive Order authorizes JTF-170 GTMO Intelligence Corps. Guantanamo Bay Detention Center opens (Jan. 2002) and is almost immediately transformed into a “Battle Lab” – the term used to describe the intelligence operation by Commander MG Dunlavey and later MG Miller – where prisoners are subjected to…
Katherine Eban, in her extraordinary report Rorscharch and Awe in Vanity Fair (2007), unmasked the fabricated lie crediting torture as the key to successful interrogations. In fact, it was the F.B.I.’s humane treatment and rapport-building techniques that prompted of Abu Zubaydah to divulge actionable information. But this success story evaporated…
Abu Zubaydah was described as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of attacks who helped manage an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He was detained at a “black site” in Thailand and first interrogated from March to June 2002, by two seasoned FBI agents, Ali Soufan and Steve Gaudin, who spoke English and…
The Senate Armed Services Committee Report (2009) shows that in memos to the Office of Legal Counsel in both the Justice Department and Defense Department, senior officials in the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) openly referred to torture: “the memo did not purport to address the ‘myriad legal, ethical or moral implications…
SERE is the acronym for “survival, evasion, resistance escape”, a military training program.(Read more above ) Published reports indicate that the acute stressful SERE techniques have produced physiological and psychological harm. Investigative reporter and psychologist Jeffrey Kaye has written numerous articles reporting physiological and psychological harm produced by stressful SERE techniques….
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a series of infamous “Torture Memoranda” redefining the criminal prohibition against torture as defined in 18 USC 2340A-2340B, which “is the controlling legal constraint on interrogations of detainees outside the United States. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and…
Alberto Gonzales Counsel to the President, David Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, Jim Haynes DoD General Counsel, John Rizzo Acting CIA General Counsel, Michael Chertoff Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, and other senior administration officials travelled to Guantanamo Bay and were briefed on future plans for detention…
