CIA documents detail waterboarding of suspects after 9/11
WASHINGTON -- The CIA has released once-classified documents from its "enhanced interrogation program," showing how it dealt with suspected terrorists after 9/11.
The release was in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims the CIA tortured suspects.
The heavily censored documents give a real-time look into what the CIA was thinking when it began waterboarding senior al Qaeda captives.
"This is a train wreck waiting to happen," one officer wrote, announcing he was quitting the CIA.
But then-director George Tenet assured the White House so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" "...enabled CIA to disrupt terrorist plots, capture additional terrorists and collect... critical intelligence on al Qaeda."
The first al Qaeda prisoner to be waterboarded was Abu Zubaydah. A draft memo shows that before the waterboarding began, the CIA wanted former Attorney General John Ashcroft to state in writing he would not prosecute anyone for what they were about to do.
A cable from the secret prison where Abu Zubaydah was held said he must never be allowed to tell what happened.
"We need to get reasonable assurances that subject will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life," the cable said.
Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, but an evaluation by the CIA'S Office of Medical Services said "AZ probably reached the point of cooperation even prior to the... institution of 'enhanced' measures."
The same Office of Medical Services also pointed out what appears to be a glaring conflict of interest -- psychologists who had a say in whether the enhanced interrogation should continue were getting paid $1,800 for each day they worked.
Eventually, the CIA stopped using some of the harsher techniques. The CIA director told his staff President Bush was "concerned about the image of a detainee chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper and forced to go to the bathroom on themselves."