Newly released documents give more information on CIA torture techniques

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has released 50 documents giving details of its brutal interrogation and torture techniques used on terror suspects after 9/11.

The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The CIA used interrogation techniques that President Obama has called "torture" but the CIA refers to either as "expanded interrogation" or "enhanced interrogation techniques." Under "Description of Pressures" are discussed facial slaps, use of diapers, "insects" and "mock burial." Under insects there is the suggestion to use the threat of stinging insects being placed within a confined box with suspects but non-stinging insects would be released. In the "mock burial" the suspect was placed in a cramped confinement box resembling a coffin but the box had hidden air holes to prevent suffocation.

One much redacted communique sent on August 12, 2002, warned employees about using speculative language as to the legality of their activities or making judgement calls about their legality. One CIA official wrote in an email that the interrogation program was a train wreck waiting to happen and he was getting off the train before the crash. A Senate torture investigation in 2014 had made much of the information public earlier.

One document shows that even President Bush showed concern about the processes. A memo dated June 7, 2006, said that Porter Goss then director of the CIA said that 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". While CIA officers and others acting on behalf of the CIA were warned only to use permissible techniques that included waterboarding and forcing detainees to wear adult diapers for purposes of "humiliation".

The documents also confirm the torture of German citizen Khalid Al-Masri who was mistakenly abducted in Macedonia and then rendered to Afghanistan where he was detained for over four months. He was held even after it had been determined he was innocent. He had been tortured during his internment. Before the Senate torture report, the CIA had denied that the US had any role in the affair. The CIA flew El-Masri out of Afghanistan and released him at night on a desolate road in Albania. Albanian guards found him. They believed he might be a terrorist because of his unkempt condition. He was returned to Germany. El-Masri was so disoriented he thought that the release was a ruse and he would be executed. Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director said:"These newly declassified records add new detail to the public record of the CIA's torture program and underscore the cruelty of the methods the agency used in its secret, overseas black sites,"

One portion of the documents deal with Gul Rahman who died from hypothermia at a secret CIA prison in 2002. The family of Rahman is now suing CIA-contracted psychologists James Mitchell and John Jesse who helped design the torture program. The Wikipedia entry on Rahman says: Gul Rahman (died 20 November 2002) was a suspected Afghan militant and torture victim. He died in a secret CIA prison, or black site, located in northern Kabul, Afghanistan and known as the Salt Pit.[1][2] He had been captured October 29, 2002.[3][4]His name was kept secret by the United States for more than seven years although his death was announced. In 2010 the Associated Press reported that before his death he was left half-stripped and chained against a concrete wall on a night when the temperature was close to freezing.[3] The United States government did not notify his family (wife and four daughters) of his death, according to the report.[3]

Another report shows that Zubaydah Abu Zubaydah who was waterboarded 83 times was probably willing to cooperate with his captors according to medical personnel who were involved. Zubaydah said he made up fake terrorist plots in an attempt to make the torture stop. As noted in the Wikipedia entry on Zubaydah he was subject to other torture than waterboarding and lost an eye while in custody:During the time in CIA custody Zubaydah was extensively interrogated; he was water-boarded 83 times[2] and subjected to numerous other torture techniques including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, confinement in small dark boxes, deprivation of solid food, stress positions, and physical assaults. While in CIA custody, Zubaydah lost his left eye.[3] Videotapes of some of Zubaydah's interrogations are amongst those destroyed by the CIA in 2005.[4][5][6][7]

Zubaydah was arrested in 2002 and is still being held in Guantanamo. CIA interrogators apparently apologized to him as they found out he was not a senior figure in Al-Qaeda as they thought but probably a minor "fixer" whose role was to arrange transportation to training camps for militants in Pakistan.

At a military hearing in Guantanamo Zubaydah said that the interrogators said that they were sorry they made a big mistake. He said that during custody he was beaten, prevented from using the bathroom for up to 36 hours. He testified: “They didn’t care that I almost died from these injuries. Doctors told me that I nearly died four times.” His case is mentioned in the accompanying video. Tapes of interrogation videos have been destroyed.

Psychiatrists and psychologists have long history of work with the CIA

A new report reveals that the American Psychological Association(APA) collaborated in secret with the G.W. Bush administration to help support the legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners in the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks.

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The report discussed in a New York Times article shows the APA secretly supported and cooperated with the G.W. Bush administration to provide both legal and ethical justification for torture of prisoners captured in the war on terror initiated after the 9/11 attacks.

The report uses newly disclosed emails that it argues show that the group acted to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program just when the Bush administration was trying to salvage the program after the release back in 2004 of photos showing extensive abuse of prisoners by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The use of psychologists and psychiatrists by the military has a long history often involving association with universities as well.

A military staff study in May of 1951 recommended that “a major contract be awarded to a recognized educational institution to provide for the formation of an Army Human Resources Research Office, which would have primary responsibility for conducting research in the areas of training methods, motivation and morale, and psychological warfare” (Department of the Army, 1951). A contract was signed with George Washington University on July 31, 1951 with Dr. Meredith Crawford assuming the directorship of HumRRO or the Army's Human Resources Research Organization. As the Wikipedia entry on the APA notes: A year after the establishment of Human Resource Research Organization by the U.S. military, CIA began funding numerous psychologists (and other scientists) in the development of psychological warfare methods under the supervision of APA treasurer Meredith Crawford. Donald O. Hebb, the APA president in 1960 who was awarded the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1961, defended the torture of research subjects, arguing that what was being studied was other nations' methods of brainwashing.

Not only psychologists were recruited by the CIA but eminent psychiatrists as well. The Project MKUltra was the code name of what is often described as the CIA mind control program. The program consisted of experiments on human subjects sometimes without their knowledge or consent. It was developed by the CIA and was intended to develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations in order to obtain confessions through mind control. The program was quite extensive:The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies.[10] The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.

One participant in the program was Dr. Ewen Cameron: Donald Ewen Cameron (24 December 1901 – 8 September 1967) ...was a Scottish-born psychiatrist who served as President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, American (1952–1953) and World Psychiatric Associations, the American Psychopathological Association and the Society of Biological Psychiatry during the 1950s. Notwithstanding his high professional reputation, he has been criticized for his administration, without informed consent, of disproportionately-intense electroshock therapy and experimental drugs, including LSD, which rendered some patients permanently comatose. Some of this work took place in the context of the MKUltra mind control program.

Note the high positions Cameron held. Cameron's work was in part based upon the ideas of Donald Hebb, the former head of the APA who defended torture of prisoners. Alfred McCoy writes:"Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Dr. Cameron's experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method," which refers to first creating a state of disorientation in the subject, and then second creating a situation of "self-inflicted" discomfort in which the disoriented subject can alleviate their pain by capitulating.[48]

The authors of the new report conclude that the APA secretly worked with the CIA, the White House, and the Department of Defense to create an APA ethics policy on national security organizations which fit in with the legal guidance, then classified, that authorized the CIA torture program. The APA has since changed its policy after many of its own members and others were critical of what was going on.

Castro targeted for assassination by CIA

This confirms what was often conjectured years ago. I wonder if Chavez is now in the sights of the CIA? Birds of a feather get along together as the billing and cooing of the CIA and the Mafia illustrates.


CIA tried to get mafia to kill Castro: documents
Tue Jun 26, 2007 12:45PM EDT

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA worked with two of the country's
most-wanted criminals in a botched attempt to assassinate Cuban
President Fidel Castro in a "gangster-type action" in the early 1960s,
according to documents released by the CIA on Tuesday.

The CIA declassified hundreds of pages of long-secret records that
detail some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during about 25 years
of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping.

The documents are known in the CIA as the "Family Jewels," and some
describe the agency's efforts to persuade Johnny Roselli, believed to
be a mobster, to help plot the assassination of Castro.

A CIA official at the time, Richard Bissell, in August 1960 approached
Col. Sheffield Edwards of the agency's Office of Security to determine
if Edwards "had assets that may assist in a sensitive mission
requiring gangster-type action," according to the documents.

"The mission target was Fidel Castro," one memo said.

Roselli was believed by the CIA to have been a high-ranking member of
the crime syndicate and who controlled all the ice-making machines on
the Las Vegas Strip.

He was approached by a go-between, Robert Maheu, who reckoned Roselli
had connections leading into Cuban gambling interests. The story
Roselli was to be told was that several international business firms
were suffering heavy financial losses in Cuba as a result of Castro's
action and they were willing to pay $150,000 for his removal.

"It was to be made clear to Roselli that the United States government
was not, and should not, become aware of this operation," a document
said.

In documents that often read like a cheap detective novel, the story
is outlined: The pitch was made to Roselli at the Hilton Plaza Hotel
in New York and Roselli was initially cool to the idea. But the
contact led the agency to two top mobsters, Momo Salvatore Giancana
and Santos Trafficant, who were both on the U.S. list of most-wanted
men.

Giancana, who was known as Sam Gold, suggested firearms might be a
problem and said using a potent pill that could be slipped into
Castro's food or drink might work.

Eventually, six pills of "high lethal content" were provided to Juan
Orta, identified as a Cuban official who had been receiving kickback
payments from gambling interests and who still had access to Castro
and was in a financial bind.

"After several weeks of reported attempts, Orta apparently got cold
feet and asked out of the assignment. He suggested another candidate
who made several attempts without success," the document said.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan)

(c) Reuters 2006.

--

CIA meddling in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon

Of course when it is the US it is never meddling. By definition only US defined enemies meddle. The US is even able to occupy Iraq without meddling. The US uses terrorist groups within and without Iran without meddling or even harming the war on terror.

CIA running black propaganda operation against Iran, Syria and Lebanon, officials say Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Monday June 4, 2007






Some intelligence sources more wary of covert Pentagon operations

The Central Intelligence Agency has received approval at least twice in the last several years to conduct an “information war” against several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon and Syria, according to current and former intelligence officials.

In addition, the Bush Administration has been running operations out of the Defense Department that are not subject to Congressional oversight, intelligence sources say. These programs appear murkier, and have included support for an alleged terrorist group in Iran.

A recent ABC News report revealed that President George W. Bush had signed a presidential finding giving the CIA the authority to conduct “non-lethal” covert operations against Iran. Former and current intelligence sources tell RAW STORY, however, that there have been “at least two” presidential findings over the past few years which have empowered the agency to run an “open-secret” information war against Iranian interests, mainly leveraging resources and assets “within the United States and France.”

Although the resources – people, groups, organizations – were not identified, sources say that they are not terrorist organizations or groups using violent tactics to achieve their goals. “It's a propaganda operation,” said a former intelligence case officer who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the information. “It is not new or aggressive,” the source added, explaining that the operation has been going on for some time and has Congressional funding and oversight.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would not comment about the allegations made in the ABC report or discuss the existence of the presidential findings identified to RAW STORY.

“The CIA does not, as a matter of course, publicly discuss allegations of covert action, whether the assertions are wrong, right, or somewhere in-between,” Gimigliano said. “That's one reason why the term ‘covert action’ still exists.”

“But it's important to remember that, through the Congress, there is vigorous oversight of secret intelligence activities,” he added.

According to current and former intelligence officials, the various presidential findings are not limited to Iran. Several countries within the Middle East – including Syria and Lebanon – as well as groups such as Hezbollah, are being targeted through what sources call “black propaganda” efforts.

Iran is being targeted by the CIA's activities with a “pro-democracy” message, sources say, and the agency is supporting overt “pro-democracy” groups.

The program’s particulars are highly classified. Intelligence sources stress, however, that the groups being used are rather mainstream and the operations are almost entirely restricted to information warfare.

Sources would not identify what mechanism was being employed to distribute the propaganda, if it included news media, individuals or organizations, or whether that information was seeping back into domestic news reports.

One former intelligence case officer did explain that the CIA's program is operating largely outside of the Middle East and is aimed at identifying potential allies, as well as using already existing well known groups through whom information can be delivered. The type of “information” and the “groups” and “organizations” involved were not identified.

ABC News may have reported the presidential finding as “new” because of the recently passed massive intelligence budget. Under the bill, roughly $50 million was appropriated for the “Democracy Fund” and the “Broadcasting Board of Governors,” both earmarked for Iran operations.

Sources close to the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence would not discuss any aspect of the CIA program or comment on anything relating to the presidential findings.

“This is an area I simply cannot get into,” said one source.

Pentagon operation supporting terrorist group kept from Congress

RAW STORY has also learned that the Pentagon is continuing to conduct more aggressive “black” operations, approved by the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.

Current and former intelligence officials would not identify new specific covert programs running out of the Pentagon, though sources stressed these are far riskier and more truly covert operational activities against Iran than the activities of the CIA.

These operations started almost immediately after the Iraq war and have continued for several years. Because they can be considered part of a military operation, they are not subjects to the same requirements for Congressional authorization as the activities of the CIA.

The majority of these efforts to destabilize Iran through a covert war of aggression have been carried out by the Department of Defense, largely steered by the Office of the Vice President and by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

A series of RAW STORY reports has identified some of the “off book” or black operations running out of the Pentagon over the last several years. In 2003, the Defense Department began working with terrorist and dissident groups in an effort to destabilize Iran, bypassing traditional intelligence channels. One of the assets the Pentagon used was a terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which was being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran, including a Shia region where a series of attacks in 2006 left many dead and hundreds injured.

These activities have often been guided by the same individuals whose actions during Iran-Contra were the reason for a 1991 law on covert activities which for the first time clearly defined covert activities and how their oversight should be handled.

During Iran-Contra, the Reagan White House – via the National Security Council – sold weapons to Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States, and used the money to fund various terrorist and dissident groups, collectively called the Contras, to fight a proxy war against the government of Nicaragua.

Sources say that MEK has been used for intelligence collection, an activity which has traditionally fallen under the CIA. The administration also appears to be looking the other way as groups such as MEK commit acts of violence.

Intelligence sources interviewed for this article all expressed concern over the lack of attention to the Pentagon’s covert activities. Some believe illegal activities like those of the Iran-Contra days are now being hidden under the loophole of “traditional military activities” to avoid Congressional oversight.

Steven Aftergood, director for the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, says this loophole exists in Congressional oversight with regards to military covert activities.

“CIA covert actions have to be authorized by a written presidential finding, which must be provided to Congress,” Aftergood said. “By contrast, DOD operations, including clandestine or covert operations, are not subject to this procedure.

“As a result,” he added, “there may be a temptation to opt for a purely military action to take advantage of the loophole in congressional notification requirements.”

Covert economic warfare may not be limited to CIA

Another former intelligence official said that the CIA has been cleared to target Iran's economic interests, but that the approval is limited to non-aggressive activities. The CIA “has been empowered to put economic pressure on Iran,” the former intelligence officer stated, but would not elaborate on what the meaning of “pressure” is.

Yet some suggest that the economic element of the covert program is either far more aggressive or is being attributed to the CIA when in fact another agency may be running it.

Foreign intelligence sources say that economic pressure is aimed at Iran's oil-rich economy, with US efforts serving to “persuade” financial institutions, oil companies, and international investment interests to pull out of Iran and even drop already existing energy projects.

These sources cite the example of an unnamed company that is being denied financing for energy projects inside Iran by international banks, indicating that many more such examples exist.

Other possible forms of pressure would include less subtle activities, such as intercepting supply convoys and confiscating equipment. Foreign sources are not sure if this covert activity is in fact part of the CIA program.

The Department of Defense did not respond to comment on this story.

Muriel Kane contributed to the research for this article.

Larisa Alexandrovna is the Managing Editor of Investigative News for Raw Story and regularly covers intelligence and national security. She can be reached at larisa@rawstory.com.

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