Report details CIA torture use

The Australian
Sep. 10, 2006

THE first top Al-Qaeda operative captured by the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Abu Zubaydah, was stripped naked by his CIA interrogators, held in an icy-cold room and subjected to earsplitting music, The New York Times reported on its website overnight.

US President George W. Bush mentioned Mr Zubaydah's case in a speech last Wednesday, insisting that he had never authorised torture, but arguing that methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency in its interrogations had helped uncover other Al-Qaeda plots.

However, citing interviews with nearly a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials whom it did not name, The New York Times said the interrogation of Mr Zubaydah had caused a rupture between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA that has yet to heal.

According to the report, Mr Zubaydah was interrogated in a secret safe-house in Thailand, where he was brought shortly after his capture in the early spring of 2002.

Mr Zubaydah, who was seriously wounded during his capture, was initially questioned by FBI agents, who used standard interview techniques, The Times said.

They bathed Mr Zubaydah, changed his bandages, gave him water, urged improved medical care, and spoke with him in Arabic and English, languages in which he is fluent.

But the team was then replaced by CIA operatives, who came armed with a sweeping classified directive signed by President Bush on September 17, 2001, which authorised the CIA to capture, detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, providing the foundation for a secret-prison system abroad, according to the report.

The new CIA team concluded that under standard questioning, Mr Zubaydah was revealing only a small fraction of what he knew, and decided that more aggressive techniques were warranted, The Times said.

At times, Mr Zubaydah, still weak from his wounds, was stripped and placed in a cell without a bunk or blankets, the paper said.

He stood or lay on the bare floor, sometimes with air-conditioning adjusted so that, one official said, Mr Zubaydah seemed to turn blue.

At other times, the interrogators piped in deafening blasts of music by groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the paper said.

Sometimes, the interrogator would use simpler techniques, entering his cell to ask him to confess.

FBI agents on the scene angrily protested the more aggressive approach, arguing that persuasion rather than coercion had succeeded, the report said.

But leaders of the CIA interrogation team were convinced that tougher tactics were warranted and said that the methods had been authorised by senior lawyers at the White House.