WEBVTT

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I wanna be absolutely clear
with our people in the world.

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The United States does not torture. We do
not condone torture. It’s against our laws,

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and it’s against our values. I have never
ordered torture. I have not authorized…

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Funding for Torturing Democracy

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has been provided by the Ford Foundation, the
Schumann Center for Media and Democracy,

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the Park Foundation, the Jeht Foundation,

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the HKH foundation, and
the Arca Foundation.

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The attacks were

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unprecedented in their daring
and their destructiveness.

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When the President heard the first
reports in a Florida elementary school,

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the Vice President had already
been rushed to the bunker beneath

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the White House. There, he
watched the second tower fall.

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[sil.]

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Tonight we are a country awakened to danger

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and called to defend freedom.
Our grief has turned to anger

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and anger to resolution.

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Whether we bring our enemies to justice
or bring justice to our enemies,

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justice will be done.

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In the White House,

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the fear of a second attack was
palpable, the tone aggressive.

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We also have to work sort of,
the dark side, if you will.

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We have to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence
world. Umm… A lot of what needs to be done here

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will have to be done quietly, without any
discussion, using sources and methods

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uh… that are available to our intelligence agencies
uh… if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world

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these folks operate in.

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When 9/11 happens, new,
radical, revolutionary,

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even strange ideas are brought to the fore.

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9/11 created or contributed to
what became a perfect storm.

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At the eye of the storm was
Vice President Dick Cheney.

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When photos went up in

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the executive branch offices,
in the past it had been,

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like in the Department of Defense, it would
be the President, the Secretary of Defense.

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In this administration, it was the
President and the Vice President

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and then the Secretary of Defense. Richard
Shiffrin was a top civilian lawyer in the Pentagon

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at the time. The Vice President is not in the chain
of command, in the military chain of command.

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The Secretary of Defense reports directly
to the President. But the Vice President

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clearly took on a role that was, at least,

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untraditional from recent history. In that role, the
Vice President and his long-time legal adviser,

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David Addington, would
press their shared belief

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in unfettered presidential power.
Addington convened

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a group of like-minded political appointees,
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales,

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who had been the President’s legal arm
since their days together in Texas.

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Gonzales’ White House deputy, Tim Flanigan,

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William \"Jim\" Haynes, Addington’s protégé

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who was now the Pentagon’s
General Counsel, and John Yoo,

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whom a colleague called a \"godsend.\" Yoo’s
post in the Justice Department meant

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that within the executive branch,
legal opinions he penned

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had the weight of law. The five
lawyers met behind closed doors

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in the White House or the
Pentagon, and called themselves

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the \"War Council.\" Two weeks to the day

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after the terrorist attacks, they
launched their legal revolution.

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A radical opinion

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asserted that Congress could not… Place any limits on the
President’s determinations as to any terrorist threat,

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the amount of military force
to be used in response,

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or the method, timing, and
nature of the response.

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These decisions, under our Constitution,
are for the President alone to make.

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Impatience with the rule of law,

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and the firm conviction that the commander
in chief had the authority to ignore it,

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would become a hallmark
of the war on terror.

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More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders
a series of clear and specific demands.

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None of these demands were met

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and now the Taliban will pay a price.

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The assault on the Taliban in Afghanistan

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was built around American air power, and U.S.
agents on the ground calling in the shots.

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But as Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda
disappeared into the rugged mountains

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on the Afghan/Pakistan border,
the Pentagon increasingly relied

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on bounty hunters.

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Tens of thousands of leaflets promising
\"Enough money to take care of your family

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and your village for the rest of your life\"
were dropped by psychological ops teams.

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Where is Arab? Where is Arab?
Where is Arab?

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$1,000 for one Arab. 30,000.

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40,000. 60,000. And helicopter

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loud speaker announcing these things.
Any Arab in the region was at risk

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of being turned in as a terrorist.

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As soon as we were handed
over to the U.S. military,

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they tied our hands behind our
back and put sacks over our heads.

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Twenty-four-year old Shafiq
Rasul was among hundreds of men

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who had been rounded up by a
warlord in Northern Afghanistan.

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We couldn’t see what was going on. We couldn’t see anything around. We
didn’t know where they were taking us. We didn’t know what was happening.

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They kept shouting things like we
were the ones responsible for 9/11.

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We… we killed members of their
family, and they were gonna

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take their revenge out on us. And they had rifles in
their hands and they could have shot us at any time.

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We were hauled like animals,

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one drawing the other in its walk.\"

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They started making us
run towards the unknown.

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The prisoners started shouting and
crying because of their severe pain.

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There were many young people with us,

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and the soldiers increased
their insults and beatings.

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Over the noise and the din of the
engines, the screaming of the soldiers.

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Profanity, swearing,

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the flashes that could be
made out even despite wearing

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a black hood over my head.
Trophy pictures being taken.

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[sil.]

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In Washington, the question of what
to do with the captives grew urgent.

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And the Vice President grew impatient.

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While he led a ceremony marking
Veteran’s Day, behind the scenes,

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his legal counsel crafted a plan that
would deny the prisoners’ access

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to America’s civilian and military justice.

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Veteran’s weekend I got a
phone call from Jim Haynes

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and it was, \"We have a small
group working on a… a document.

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Uh… We would like for you to come
up and review the document.\"

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General Tom Romig was one of the top
military JAGs pushed to the side

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from the beginning. Some of the things they were
initially talking about were very draconian.

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There were issues about how
many members of the panel

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did it take to convict, and
then sentence, to death.

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General Romig convened

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an urgent meeting of senior
military lawyers to war game

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how to respond to a far-reaching
military order. We had hoped

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we could make a difference in changing
a number of things. We didn’t.

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They didn’t, in part, because the Vice
President had convened a meeting of his own

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to finalize the plan. David
Addington and other lawyers

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from the War Council were there.
The military lawyers were not.

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Within 48 hours, Cheney
took the four-page order

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to the weekly lunch he and President
George W. Bush privately shared.

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Less than two hours later, it was
signed by the commander in chief.

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The President, it said,
had the unilateral power

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to declare that all prisoners
were war criminals. And, further…

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They shall not be privileged to seek any
remedy, in any court of the United States,

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or any international tribunal.

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They could be held indefinitely
and would be tried, if at all,

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in a new process with new rules.

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Conviction could mean… …Life
imprisonment or death.

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Pentagon General Counsel
Haynes said it would be

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the \"Nuremberg of our
time.\" They viewed this as

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accomplishing what
Nuremberg accomplished for

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the losers in World War II, and that is

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the legal imprimatur on umm…
imposing the death penalty.

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There would be maybe dozens of people,

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Bin Laden on down, who would be captured

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and who would qualify
for the death penalty.

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We couldn’t execute them
without some sort of system.

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\"We think it’s the appropriate way to go.
We think it guarantees

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that we’ll have the kind of
treatment of these individuals

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that we believe they deserve.\" That,
of course, was premised on the idea

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that everyone we captured and detained
really was a bad person. As it turns out,

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a large percentage of them
were merely shepherds.

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Historically, the military has carried out

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battlefield interrogations and operated
according to strict, bright line rules.

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In the days after 9/11,
President George W. Bush

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had ordered the Central Intelligence Agency
to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives

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around the world. 24 In
the chaos of Afghanistan,

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agents took their pick of the prisoners.

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We’re in the middle of a global war on
terror and commanders have information needs

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that need to be answered now. In fact, better
yet, they should have been answered yesterday.

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Colonel Steve Kleinman is a
veteran Air Force interrogator

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who served in both Iraq wars. At some
point when we realized interrogation

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was going to be very important after
9/11, uh… the agency apparently

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looked within its capabilities, its personnel,
and found that they didn’t have a real,

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formal, structured
interrogation capability.

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Hobbled by its lack of experience
in dealing with this new enemy,

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the CIA scrambled. For interrogation
advice, they turned to Arab countries

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the U.S. had long accused of torture.

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Private contractors were hired.
And someone pulled the CIA’s old

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\"Bible of Interrogation\" off the shelf.

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The manual code named \"KUBARK\"
was an artifact of the Cold War.

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[sil.]

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During the Korean War,

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American prisoners were tortured
by their communist captors.

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Confiscated films show the Red press conferences…
Thirty-six of them airmen shot out of the sky

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were kept isolated, and tortured psychologically. Statements
broadcast by the Communist propaganda machine throughout the world.

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They confessed to elaborate conspiracies.

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… Our two outboard wing bombs
were germ bombs we dropped on….

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The thing I forgot to mention
about the germ bombs the …

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Very well educated, committed
people, committed to a cause,

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suddenly appearing in… in a trial and making
these wild allegations about their role

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in some insurgent group within the Soviet Union, their
role as recruited assets of the CIA when we knew

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that they weren’t. So it scared a lot of people. How, what
method were they using to get people to do these things?

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It was a propaganda coup
for the North Koreans

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until the war ended, and the POWs
were released. All this information

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given in this so-called confession
was entirely uh… without basis.

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It was wrung out of me by torture,
both mentally and physically.\"

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One pilot, trying to explain
what happened to him,

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described a \"slow, quiet and
diabolical poisoning\" of the mind.

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But poisoning his mind
left no physical scars.

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Out of the bitter prisoner of war lessons learned
in Korea comes \"the School for Survival\"

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at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. The
US military created a secret program

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to inoculate troops at highest
risk of capture. They were trained

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in \"Survival, Evasion, Resistance
and Escape\" called \"SERE\"

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using harsh methods copied
from the Communists.

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The prisoner is subjected, sometimes for
hours, to machine gun questioning….

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The CIA also studied the communist techniques
that had produced the false confessions,

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and concluded that prolonged
isolation and deprivation

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\"reduced prisoners to animals.\"
Rigorous training for young Americans

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who must face an implacable foe and not break
on the rack of physical and mental torture.

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Those secret studies led to KUBARK - which

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the CIA itself later set aside
amidst Congressional investigations

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into the legality of the
interrogation methods.

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But in 2001,

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at an American prison camp in
Afghanistan, KUBARK would be revived.

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[sil.]

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In Kandahar, it seemed to be
an initiation ceremony almost,

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and a pre-cursor to something a
lot more intensive. Moazzam Begg,

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a British citizen, had been seized
by Pakistani officers who burst

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into the Islamabad apartment where
he and his family were living.

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It’s almost like a conveyor
where you can hear

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sounds of other prisoners screaming,
being screamed at, dogs barking.

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KUBARK’S menu of coercive
interrogation techniques

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instructed that prisoners
be \"cut off from the known\"

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and \"plunged into the strange.\"

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If you can’t see anything, you’re going to be terrified.
It’s the dark that humans are afraid of, not the light.

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Somebody puts a black bag over your head
and you hear the sound of a gun, \"ch ch,\"

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you think, \"My head is gonna be blown off.\"
And that did happen. I heard that sort

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of \"ch ch\" sound several times.
If the Americans are doing it,

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and they’re not accountable, then
who’s gonna come to your rescue?

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In Washington,

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top officials were contemplating
interrogations of unprecedented harshness.

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A violation of Geneva’s Article 3

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ban on torture is a war
crime under U.S. law.

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The prohibition in the Geneva
Conventions against cruel treatment

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turns out to have been probably the most important of the legal
restrictions that the Bush administration had to deal with.

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Martin Lederman was a senior
adviser in the Justice Department

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
at the beginning of the Bush
Administration. In this administration,

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President George W. Bush has, by all
accounts, been quite forthright in

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that he’s asked his lawyers not to give him the best
view of the law, but instead, to push the envelope.

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The metaphor that they’ve used is to go as close
to the legal line as possible without going over.

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So the metaphor they’ve come up with
is to \"get chalk on one’s spikes. Umm…

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\"This was the message that went out from
the White House. On January 9th, 2002,

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in the first of a series of opinions
that would provide legal cover

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for coercive interrogations,

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John Yoo began to push the envelope. Customary
international law of armed conflict

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in no way binds the President or
the US Armed Forces concerning

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the detention or trial of members
of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

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In other words, the President has the power

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to suspend or simply ignore
the fundamental laws of war.

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That includes Geneva and its
guarantees of basic human rights

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to prisoners and civilians alike.

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Our views were well known in this matter.
We were not on board.

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Richard Armitage served three combat tours in Vietnam. For the most
part, the Department of State was left out of this discussion,

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
uh… I think precisely because
we’d have no part of it.

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The State Department’s top lawyer called

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John Yoo’s legal reasoning \"seriously
flawed\" and warned that if heading

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to the dark side meant violating
Geneva: This raises a risk of

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future criminal prosecution for US civilian
and military leadership and their advisers,

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by other parties to the Geneva Conventions.

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That is, if officials, including
President George W. Bush

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
were accused of torture or inhumane
treatment, they could be prosecuted

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for war crimes.

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While the clash escalated in Washington,

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in Afghanistan, most every Arab captured by

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or sold to the United States
was being readied for a trip

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halfway around the world.

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The soldiers just grab you, pick you up
and basically drag you to the plane.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
And they put gloves on our hands, taped the
gloves to our hands so you can’t take them off.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
And they put handcuffs on.

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
They went round our waist, down to our
feet, shackled our feet together.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
They had destroyed all our
senses: Neither to see,

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
neither to hear, neither
to speak, neither to feel,

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
nor to move our fingers.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
A guard hissed: From now
on, we dictate your food,

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
your water, your sleep and your shit.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
You have no life. That whisper lived
with me for five years. It became louder

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
and louder in my ears.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
The photographs of shackled and blindfolded
prisoners provoked alarm and an urgent letter

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
from Amnesty International reminding
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
that \"The term ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment’… should be interpreted…

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
to extend the widest possible protection against
abuses…including the holding of a detained

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
or imprisoned person in conditions
which deprive him…of the use

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
of any of his natural senses.\"

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
How do you respond to charges hooding, shaving,
chaining, perhaps even… What are the words?

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
Hooding, shaving, chaining,
perhaps even tranquilizing

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
some of these people are
violating their civil rights.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
Umm… That uh… that’s not correct.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
That you’ve done it? That it’s
a violation of their rights.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
It simply isn’t. Whether
or not they agreed,

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
the Administration had its first public
warning: The war on terror was pushing the edge

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
of international law.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
The prison camp at Guantanamo, the
\"legal equivalent of outer space,\"

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
one official called it, would
push even closer to that edge.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
When I had the goggles as
well as the shackles removed,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
I thought I was hallucinating. I
could just see a series of cages

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
with people wearing orange.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
In many Arab countries, orange
is the color worn by prisoners

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
condemned to die.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
They were, Secretary Rumsfeld said, the \"most
dangerous, best trained, vicious killers

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
on the face of the Earth.\"

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
Interrogators assumed they were in
custody because they should be.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
They’d say if you don’t admit

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
to being a member of al-Qaeda, if you
don’t admit to meeting Osama bin Laden,

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
that if you… if you… if you don’t care what happens to
yourself, we can do whatever we want to your family,

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
we can deport them back to their home countries, Pakistan,
and the Pakistani government can do whatever they want.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
They were held in isolation and secrecy

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
locked into a system of
punishment before any evidence

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
of guilt was established.
You start losing hope,

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
you think you’re gonna spend
the rest of your life here.

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:58.000
[sil.]

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell,
the most experienced military man among

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
the President’s top advisers stepped up
his defense of Geneva’s half century

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
of war-fighting rules. We were trying to
wrestle with how to fight both an enemy

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
and an idea, uh… and… and I think
came up with a wrongheaded solution,

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
uh… opting out of Geneva. We,
after all, want our soldiers,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
should they be unfortunate enough to be captured,
to be treated in a proper uh… way. Uh…

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
And yet, we weren’t willing to afford that to others.
That seems a little counter-intuitive to me.

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
It did at the time, and it does now.
Before the Secretary of State

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
could make his case to the President
personally, he was undermined

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
by the Vice President. In a blunt
memo written by Cheney’s counsel,

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
David Addington, but delivered by
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
George W. Bush was advised that the war on terror.
Renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
on questioning of enemy prisoners.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
And in an argument that could have been
written by a criminal defense lawyer,

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
the President was told that opting
out of the Geneva Conventions:

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
Substantially reduces the threat of domestic
criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
If you were twisting yourselves
into knots because you’re fearful

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
that you may be avoiding some war crimes, then
you’re probably tripping too closely to the edge.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
Addington, clearly, was the
brainpower behind this,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
and I think they felt
like their flexibility

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
within what they had designed was such

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
that there wouldn’t be any fear of… of
repercussions, legal repercussions.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
Colonel Larry Wilkerson, a 31-year military veteran,
had long been an aide to General Colin Powell.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
They had a vision, they were
ruthless in carrying it out,

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
and they executed it very well.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
We’re discussing all the legal
ramifications of how we… what we…

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
how we characterize uh… the
actions at Guantanamo Bay.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
A couple of things we agree on. One, they
will not be treated as prisoners of war.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
They’re illegal combatants. Secondly,
uh… they will be treated humanely.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
And then we’ll, I’ll figure
out, I’ll listen to all the…

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
the legalisms and announce
my decision when I make it.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
There were a number of things
that people were ready

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
to jettison because these
were different times.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
That’s a dangerous thing because uh…
then you can always have the excuse

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
uh… to… to… to jettison
the law, the procedures,

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
the due process, the Conventions, whatever
you want, uh… when it’s convenient.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
On February 7th, 2002,

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
for the first time in history,
President George W. Bush declared

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
that the United States would not be constrained
by Geneva’s prohibitions against cruel

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
and inhumane treatment.
None of the prisoners

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
in U.S. custody would be
protected by the laws of war.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
[sil.]

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
In a far corner of the U.S. military
base at Bagram in Afghanistan,

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
a former Soviet machine shop had
been converted into a prison.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
There, Moazzam Begg would be
interrogated by American agents

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
using tactics that had been
refined in the prison camps

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
of Stalin’s Soviet Union.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
The hands would be placed right
above the head, and tied

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
or shackled to the top of the door,
which was the entrance to the cage.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
I saw people who literally
were no longer able

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
to physically sustain that
position and just hung off limp.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
The entire weight of their body
being held by their wrists.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
[music]

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
That goes back to

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
the Middle Ages. It was called
Strappado by the Spanish Inquisition.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
Clive Stafford Smith has represented more
than forty prisoners in U.S. custody

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
during the war on terror,
including Moazzam Begg.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
And it basically dislocates your
shoulders slowly and very painfully.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
After one interrogation,

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
Moazzam Begg was dragged
into a cell and hog-tied,

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
his hands cuffed behind his
back and chained to his ankles,

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
and left that way overnight.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
I would be interrogated at
any given time of the day

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
or night, umm… unannounced.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
An interrogator would walk in and tell
me to get up. The guard would make sure

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
I would be seated or standing, depending
on how long I’d been in either position.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
A floodlight was aimed into
his cell 24 hours a day.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
[sil.]

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
You want to fall asleep. You want to do anything in order that you
can just lie down in the corner no matter how hard the floor is,

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
how cold it is, no matter how
uncomfortable sleep would be

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
with shackles on your arms and legs.
Depriving a prisoner of sleep

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
also has a name from the Middle
Ages \"Tormentum Insomniae.\"

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
It goes beyond being scared now.
You just want to sleep.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
[sil.]

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
They produced pictures
of my wife, my children,

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
and waved these pictures
in front of me, asking me

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
if I knew what had happened to
my wife and kids that night.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
If I thought they were safe, if I
thought I’d ever see them again.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
If I really cared about them so
much, I would tell them everything.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
A woman began to scream in a nearby cell.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
[sil.]

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
Threats against a prisoner’s family were called \"Second
Degree Torture\" during the Spanish Inquisition

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
and were commonly used by the Soviet KGB.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
For two days and two
nights, he heard the woman

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
he thought might be his
wife being tortured.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
If there’s any point in my life that I
wanted to kill somebody, it was this point.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
And if I could have got those
shackles around their necks,

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
I would have done so and got out to the
next room just to stop what’s happening.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
During the 11 months Moazzam
Begg was imprisoned in Bagram,

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
at least two men in U.S.
custody there died.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
[sil.]

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
In Guantanamo, he was locked
into a 6-by-8 foot cage

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
where he would spend the next
two years, in isolation.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
His nightmares were filled
with the screams of a woman.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:55.000
[sil.]

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
In March 2002, U.S. intelligence teams, backed
by more than one hundred police officers,

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
had moved in on a suspected
al Qaeda safe house

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
\"He said, ‘Allah Akbar, ’

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
three times. I am ready to be a martyr.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
Kill me.’\" Abu Zubaydah

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
alleged to be a major figure in
al Qaeda, was severely wounded,

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
but taken alive.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
We hauled in a guy named Abu Zubaydah.
He’s one of the top operatives

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
plotting and planning, death and
destruction on the United States.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
He’s not plotting’ and planning’ anymore.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
He’s where he belongs. The
man FBI officials called

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
al Qaeda’s \"travel agent\"
and so a minor figure,

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
had disappeared into the spider web of
secret CIA prisons spread across the globe.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
The White House and the Vice
President’s office were,

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
in 2002, urging the CIA
to engage in a detention

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
and… and interrogation program, something they apparently
had not ever done before, and to use techniques

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
that appeared on their face to violate
several different legal restrictions.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
The CIA quite understandably said,
\"We’re not going to do that,

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
unless we are given some assurance by
lawyers within the Justice Department

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
that this is lawful.\" The agency
insisted on what one official called

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
a \"golden shield.\" On August 1st, 2002,

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
they got it, in an opinion requested
by the White House and delivered by

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
John Yoo’s office in the
Justice Department.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
The Vice President’s lawyer had framed
the core premise: Congress can no more

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
interfere with the President’s conduct
of the interrogation of enemy combatants

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
than it can dictate strategic or
tactical decisions on the battlefield.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
That is, any attempt by Congress to
interfere with a Presidential order,

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
even if it crossed the line into torture,

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
would be unconstitutional. And
any interrogation would be legal

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
unless it caused pain that was:
Equivalent in intensity to

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
the pain accompanying serious physical
injury, such as organ failure,

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
impairment of bodily
function, or even death.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
If you define torture
as organ damage, death,

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
or almost death, then you can stand
up and say that you don’t do torture.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
Uh… And I think that’s
what they were doing.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
In secret White House meetings chaired by
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice,

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
a committee of top officials that included

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
Vice President Cheney,
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
and CIA director George Tenet, reviewed and
approved the specifics of harsh interrogations.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
[music]

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
Many of the proposed techniques were based
on the military’s secret \"SERE\" training

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
\"Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape\"

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
for Americans at risk of
capture by torture regimes.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
The simulated captivity is supposed to expose
students to a, well, it’s a stock phrase

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
that we all, every instructor
memorizes, \"A totalitarian evil nation

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
with a complete disregard for human
rights and the Geneva Convention.\"

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
Malcolm Nance is a 20-year veteran of
the military intelligence community.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
And if you can endure a \"totalitarian evil nation with a
complete disregard for human rights and the Geneva Convention,\"

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
you can pretty much endure everything.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
My particular class was ambushed.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
We heard a lot of shooting outside the truck, some
strange fellows with accents and strange uniforms

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
with stars on their caps pulled us out of the back of the
truck, started slapping us around. And the next thing I knew,

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
we were in a prison camp. Like Richard
Armitage, SERE trainees are slapped,

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
hooded, their sleep disrupted. Under
the constant watch of physicians

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
and psychologists, they are stripped,
exposed to temperature extremes,

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
sexually humiliated.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
And some officers at the Navy’s SERE school
were subjected to what has been known since

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
the Spanish Inquisition
as the \"water torture.\"

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
During World War II and
Vietnam, it was prosecuted by

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
the U.S. as a war crime.
I was put on an incline.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
My legs were like that and my
back went down. A wet towel

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
was put over my nose and mouth.
Uh… It was completely soaked.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
But I could still breathe. And then a question would be asked and
I would not answer it. Water would slowly be poured in this,

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
and the next time I took a breath, I’d be drawing
in water. You start to panic. And as you panic,

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
you start gasping, and as you gasp,

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
your gag reflex is overridden by water. And then you
start to choke, and then you start to drown more.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
Because that water doesn’t stop until the interrogator
wants to ask you a question. And then for that second,

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
the water will continue, and you’ll get a second
to puke and spit up everything that you have, and

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
then you’ll have an opportunity to determine whether
you’re willing to continue with the process.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
I did realize the people doing
this were actually on my side.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
But the sensation to me was one of total helplessness. And I… I’ve had a lot
of sensations in my life, but helplessness was not generally one of them.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
Uh… But the sensation was enormously
unpleasant and… and frightening.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
In 2002, at a secret jail in Thailand,

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
contractors whose expertise was in

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
the Army’s SERE torture resistance
training, not interrogation,

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
led the CIA’S mental
demolition of Abu Zubaydah.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
He was confined in a cage called a
\"dog box\" so small he could not stand.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
The Red Hot Chili Peppers
were blasted at full volume

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
for hours on end. If our
purpose was, as interrogators,

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
to do what the KGB was doing
much of during the show trials

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
and that is to force somebody to
comply and to create propaganda,

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
then they’re great. They’d be perfect.
But that’s not what we’re after.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
We’re after intelligence
information which is true.

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
Abu Zubaydah was stripped naked, held in
frigid cells, doused with cold water.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
Video cameras recorded him 24 hours a day.

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
Did the CIA not understand the difference
between SERE resistance training

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
and interrogation for intelligence
purposes? And if they didn’t,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
I can’t, I… I find that shocking.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
The agency was on tenuous
legal ground, as well,

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
and so insisted on high-level
authorization for each new step,

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
including one of the harshest
SERE techniques, Waterboarding.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
It was the newly-coined term for

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
the centuries-old water torture.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
There’s no simulation here. It’s controlled
drowning. Water is entering your system.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
It can overload your ability to gag it out.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
[sil.]

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
There is no question in my mind - there’s no question in any reasonable
human being, there shouldn’t be, that this is torture. I’m ashamed

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
that we’re even having this discussion.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
[sil.]

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
Though the Administration would later admit that Abu
Zubaydah was one of three prisoners who were waterboarded,

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
hundreds of hours of videotape of his
interrogation had been destroyed.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
And that meant any evidence
of the water torture,

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
a felony under US law had
been destroyed as well.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
[sil.]

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
On August 4th, 2001,

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
a 26-year-old Saudi named
Mohamed al-Qahtani

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
flew from London to Orlando,
Florida with $2,800 in his pocket

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
but no return ticket. A
suspicious immigration officer

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
refused him entry. Mohamed al-Qahtani

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
had been detained at a U.S.
border station in Florida.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
Colonel Britt Mallow headed a special Pentagon task
force of the military’s criminal investigators.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
When he was first captured,
information was developed

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
that indicated that he was, in fact, the same
person that had been turned away at the border.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
And that meant Mohamed al-Qahtani might
be the \"20th hijacker\" recruited for

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
the team that would overpower
passengers on United 93.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
[sil.]

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
As the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
approached, demands from Washington

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
for \"actionable intelligence\"
from Mohamed al-Qahtani

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
in custody at Guantanamo escalated.
In September,

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
the Pentagon announced that Major General
Geoffrey Miller, a career Army artillery officer

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
would run both the detention
and intelligence operations at

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
the prison camp. \"When I showed up at
Guantanamo,\" he later acknowledged,

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
\"I had never before
witnessed\" an interrogation.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
If you look at some of the people that
were put in charge of Guantanamo,

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
they had very little experience with intelligence. They
had very little experience with detention operations.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
They had very little experience
with interrogations.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
And yet these were the ones that were making the decisions
and were put under the pressure to make those decisions

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
without a lot of good information.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
On September 25th, that pressure intensified
when lawyers from the War Council,

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
David Addington, and the Pentagon’s
Jim Haynes arrived from Washington,

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
along with the CIA’s top lawyer,
all of them well aware of

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
Mohamed al-Qahtani. The
secret August \"torture memo\"

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
providing legal cover for
harsh interrogations was,

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
figuratively at least, in their pockets.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
In addition to its narrow definition
of illegal physical torture,

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
the memo also argued that: For purely mental
pain or suffering to amount to torture…

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
it must result in significant psychological
harm of significant duration…

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
lasting for months or even years.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
A week after the lawyers’ visit,

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
a senior CIA official instructed
Guantanamo officers on various

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
SERE-derived tactics. According
to minutes of the briefing,

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
he told them complying with laws against
torture \"is basically subject to perception.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
If the detainee dies,
you’re doing it wrong.\"

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
[sil.]

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
Nine days later, the outgoing commander
of Guantanamo’s interrogation corps,

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
who would later testify that his \"marching orders\"
came from the President of the United States,

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
officially requested authority
to use harsh methods\"

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
such as those used in US
interrogation resistance training

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
or by other US government agencies.\"

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
He listed some of the same SERE tactics

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
the CIA had turned into a
blueprint for torture,

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
including the \"use of a wet towel and dripping
water to induce the misperception of suffocation\"

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
and \"scenarios designed to
convince the detainee that death

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
or severely painful consequences are
imminent for him and/or his family.\"

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:18.000
[sil.]

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
On December 2nd, 2002, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld signed off on an \"Action Memo\"

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
prepared by his General
Counsel, Jim Haynes,

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
approving fifteen of the proposed
interrogation techniques. Many of them defied

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
the military’s own definitions
of cruel and inhumane treatment.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
Muhammad Al-Qahtani could be kept
in isolation, stripped nude,

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
kept awake and interrogated
for 20 hours at a time.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
Phobias such as fear of
dogs could be exploited,

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
as could painful stress
positions, keeping him standing

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
for up to four hours. The Secretary,

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
who works at a standup desk,
added a handwritten note.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
\"I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why
is standing limited to 4 hours?\"

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
[sil.]

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
It just showed an incredible naivete,
and I think this is more the case,

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
an incredible hubris. No one sat down,

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
not John Yoo, not David Addington, not
Dick Cheney, not Donald Rumsfeld,

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
and said, \"What’s the cumulative effect
of allowing all these things to be done?\"

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
What if you were to do 12
of these things repeatedly

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
over 45-day period in the dark
with no exposure to the light,

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
no sleep, hypothermic temperature
conditions, hanging by your wrist from

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
the wall sometimes. That’s not torture?

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:05.000
I don’t think anyone ever sat down and thought
about that. If they did, they condoned it.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
Mohamed al-Qahtani, Detainee number 063, had
already been in solitary confinement for months.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
According to FBI agents who saw him,

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
he was evidencing behavior consistent
with extreme psychological trauma,

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
talking to non-existent people,
reporting hearing voices…\"

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
Now, his interrogations would intensify.

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
An hourly log leaked from Guantanamo
narrates the harsh details.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
He is forced to wear a woman’s bra.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
A thong is draped over his head,
sexually taunting and humiliating

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
a Muslim man. A leash is
tied around his neck.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
[sil.]

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
1115 hours, \"Began teaching
the detainee lessons such as

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
stay, come, and bark to
elevate his social status

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
up to that of a dog. Detainee
became very agitated.\"

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
1300 hours:

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
\"Dog tricks continued and detainee
stated he should be treated like a man.\"

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
Nine hours later,

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
while women are in the interrogation
booth, he is stripped naked.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
2200 hours:\"After approximately
five minutes of nudity

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
the detainee ceased to resist. He stated that he
did not like the females viewing his naked body.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
[sil.]

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
The majority of, many of
these military interrogators

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
were very young. They were 18, 19, 20,

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
kids who were uh… kids, who… who
essentially were serving their country.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
Mike Gelles feared what he called
\"force drift\" at the off-shore prison

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
that abusive tactics approved
for Mohammed al-Qahtani’s

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
interrogation would spread. Here we had all
these alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay,

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
and we weren’t getting the
intelligence that leadership thought

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
we should be getting. So it was
time now to begin to think about,

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
how were we gonna expedite this
process, ticking time bomb,

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
all this shapes the context.
My top agent strongly,

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
strongly believed that we could not
be a part in any way to anything

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
that might be seen as illegal or improper.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
I sent out, by email,
instructions to our agents.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
\"If you see something that you think is wrong,
we want you to report it to us immediately.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
But we want you to disengage.\"
While Colonel Mallow was ordering

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
his investigators to stand
down, General Geoffrey Miller,

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
just five weeks after taking charge, put
forward a Standard Operating Procedure

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
for his interrogators, based on SERE.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
This order has never before
been shown in its entirety.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
These tactics and techniques
are used at SERE school to

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
\"break\" SERE detainees. The same tactics
and techniques can be used to break real

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
detainees during interrogation.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
General Miller wasn’t

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
an expert in detention operations,
in intelligence operations,

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
and especially not in interrogation. So he relied
on the experts that he surrounded himself with.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
They were mostly from the CIA’s
equivalent in the Pentagon,

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
They were telling him these aggressive
ways of getting at it were the best.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
We offered an alternative. And
General Miller basically said,

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
\"If you’re not gonna help us in this, if you’re not gonna
participate in this, if you don’t want to be on our team,

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
you’re out of here.\" I
wondered how informed

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
those who were making these decisions truly were.
I always wondered about a lot of the agendas

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
uh… that were being worked,
how political was this?

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
In Washington,

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
a blunt lesson in the politics of
harsh interrogations was unfolding.

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
On December 17th, 2002, the head of the
Naval Criminal Investigative Service

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
took the troubling reports
he had received to

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
the Navy’s top civilian lawyer.
He came to me and

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
uh… without prior warning
or announcement said

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
that his people down in
Guantanamo had reported to him

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
that detainees were being abused.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
One of Alberto Mora’s great uncles had been imprisoned in a Nazi
concentration camp, another was tortured before he was hanged.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
He felt that the abuse was serious,

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
umm… that it most probably violated American
law and certainly violated American values,

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
umm… that his men were upset

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
at being associated with this,
and did I wanna know more.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
It was everything that
he didn’t believe in.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
And he sat there, still, listening, didn’t
ask a question for minutes. We all finished.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
And that’s then when I remember
him saying, \"This is not right.\"

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
Mora was shown the action
memo Rumsfeld had approved,

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
and portions of al-Qahtani’s
interrogation log.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
For 48 of 54 consecutive days,

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
the prisoner would be questioned from

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
4 AM until midnight.

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
0400 hours, \"Detainee was told to stand

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
and loud music was played
to keep detainee awake.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
Was told he can go to sleep
when he tells the truth.\"

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
Doctors kept his body functioning well
enough for the interrogation to continue.

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
2000 hours,

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
Corpsman checks vitals and finds the
detainee’s pulse is unusually slow.

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
2050 hours, \"Heartbeat is
regular but very slow,

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
35 beats per minute.

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
Medically close to death, Mohammed al-Qahtani
was rushed to the hospital where he was revived

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.999
and then, less than two
days later, released.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.999
1800 hours, Detainee is hooded, shackled

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
and restrained in a litter
for transport to Camp X-Ray.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.999
1830 hours, \"Detainee arrives at Camp X-Ray

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.999
and is returned to interrogation booth.\"

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.999
I was horrified. I was stupefied. I…

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.999
I was astonished that this
could have taken place,

00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:59.999
that Secretary Rumsfeld himself would have
been asked, much less gotten involved,

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.999
in these kinds of matters. He took his
concerns to the author of the \"Action Memo,\"

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.999
Rumsfeld’s top lawyer, Jim Haynes.

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.999
I told him, \"Jim, this could be torture.\" And
he instantaneously responded, \"No it’s not.\"

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:19.999
And I said, \"Think through a little bit more
carefully as to each of these techniques. Umm… Uh…

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:24.999
Light and auditory stimulus
deprivation, what does that mean?

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:29.999
Umm… You put them in a completely dark room for an hour,
a day, a week, a month, until the person goes blind?

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:34.999
Until madness sets in? Phobia techniques.
What is that?

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.999
The rats, the bats, the snake, a coffin.

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:44.999
When and how?\" And when
I left, I was convinced

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:49.999
that he would be picking up the phone,
calling the Secretary, and saying,

00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:54.999
\"Boss, I made a mistake, we
need to reel back something

00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.999
that we need to think through a little more
carefully. \" \" Join us in the countdown..

00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:04.999
5, 4, 3, 2, 1\"

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:09.999
[music]

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:14.999
Mora left Washington for the holidays,
certain his intervention would succeed.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:19.999
He did not yet fully grasp

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:24.999
that the abuses at Guantanamo were not
the result of a lawyer’s mistake,

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:29.999
but of policy set at the highest levels.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:34.999
[sil.]

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:39.999
In the Gambia in West
Africa, farfrom Washington

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:44.999
and the battlefield in Afghanistan, the
great-grandson of a former prime minister

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:49.999
of Jordan had been arrested when he
arrived from London on a business trip.

00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:54.999
Bisher al-Rawi was held by
Gambian authorities for a month

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:59.999
until December 8th, 2002.

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:04.999
Two Gambian agents, they sort of
stand me up, and we start walking.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.999
And boom, two big guys grab
me and start dragging me.

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:14.999
The \"two big guys\" were Americans.

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:19.999
Bisher Al-Rawi had been swept up in a
covert CIA program to nab suspects

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.999
and move them to countries where
they would be interrogated outside

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.999
the law. Like hundreds of men abducted
in so-called \"extraordinary renditions,\"

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:34.999
Bisher al-Rawi was \"good
to go\" in just 20 minutes.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:39.999
[sil.]

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:44.999
Trussed like an animal and
surrounded by American agents,

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:49.999
he was loaded onto a Gulfstream jet bound
for one of the CIA’s secret \"black sites.\"\"

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:54.999
Throughout the entire flight,

00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:59.999
I was on the verge of screaming.
I was terrified.\"

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:04.999
Near Kabul in Afghanistan,

00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:09.999
in the dead of winter, Bisher Al-Rawi

00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:14.999
was thrown into an
unheated underground cell.

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:19.999
Unknown numbers of men, some who ended up in
Guantanamo, others who have since disappeared

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.999
were held in what they themselves called

00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:29.999
the \"prison of darkness.\"

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:34.999
They hung me up. I was allowed a few
hours of sleep on the second day,

00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:39.999
then hung up again…this time for two days.
My wrists and hands

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:44.999
had gone numb. After a while
I felt pretty much dead.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:49.999
I didn’t feel I existed at all.

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:54.999
The occasional beam from
a guard’s flashlight

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.999
was all that pierced the
dark and frigid cells.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:04.999
You do not know what you’re losing, you know, not
being able to see. You have to use your senses,

01:00:05.000 --> 01:00:09.999
all of them. It was a very,
very difficult place to handle.

01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:14.999
It was, one prisoner said, \"as
if you were inside a tomb.\"

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:19.999
Except for the sound.

01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:24.999
[sil.]

01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:29.999
Speakers in every cell blasted
non-stop, around the clock,

01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:34.999
for days that turned into weeks.

01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:39.999
[sil.]

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:44.999
We’re talking about never essentially being
allowed to ever fall asleep soundly.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:49.999
George Brent Mickum was Bisher
al-Rawi’s pro bono American attorney.

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:54.999
So that,

01:00:55.000 --> 01:00:59.999
you know, you get to the point where you will say
anything to try and be allowed to get some sleep.

01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:04.999
And what everyone has told me, they
have no idea what they may have said.

01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:09.999
I mean, there you’re just not lucid.
They could ask, you know,

01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:14.999
\"Did you assassinate George Bush?\"
And they would say, \"Yeah.\"

01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:19.999
[sil.]

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:24.999
When he arrived in the light
and heat of Guantanamo,

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:29.999
Mohammed al-Rawi assured other
prisoners that the worst was over.

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:34.999
That hope, that human hope,
natural hope that gosh,

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:39.999
you know, maybe it’s gonna get better.
Unfortunately, unfortunately,

01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:44.999
every time you think it’s gonna
get better, it was getting worse.

01:01:45.000 --> 01:01:49.999
In early January, 2003,

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.999
in a move guaranteed to
be reported straight to

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:59.999
the Vice President’s office, and so
at considerable risk to his career,

01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:04.999
Alberto Mora drafted a memo calling the
tactics still being used at Guantanamo,

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:09.999
\"At a minimum, cruel and
unusual treatment and,

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:14.999
at worst, torture.\" On January 15th,

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:19.999
he told Jim Haynes that if the
interrogations were not halted,

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.999
he would sign the memo, exposing
the Administration’s policy.

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:29.999
Jim pushed the memorandum uh…
back at me in its envelope

01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:34.999
and uh… said, umm…\"

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:39.999
I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish
with this,\" which was an astonishing comment.

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:44.999
And then he said, \"Well, I’m
happy to inform you that

01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.999
the Secretary is considering
rescinding his authorities.\"

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:54.999
So I said, \"Considering?\" And
then he said, \"I know, I know.

01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:59.999
Let me get back to you.\" To defuse the
growing rebellion inside the Pentagon,

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:04.999
Rumsfeld did suspend approval
of the harshest tactics.

01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:09.999
And he asked the military’s top lawyers
to weigh in on interrogations –

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:14.999
a year after the first prisoners
had arrived at Guantanamo.

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:19.999
We only had one conversation with Mr.
Rumsfeld. He came in and gave us a pep talk.

01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:24.999
And basically said this is so important, and what
you’re doing will… will affect the United States

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:29.999
for years to come. And it was a,
I thought it a little strange

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:34.999
that we were getting a pep talk on something
like this. Maybe it was an attempt to get us to

01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:39.999
do what they wanted to do politically.

01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:44.999
In fact, Jim Haynes had
already turned to the

01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:49.999
War Council’s reliable scribe, John Yoo.

01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:54.999
And Yoo wrote an 81-page legal
opinion expanding the still

01:03:55.000 --> 01:03:59.999
secret \"torture\" memo. He
now added, for example,

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:04.999
that the President had the authority to approve
tactics that could include drugging a prisoner,

01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:09.999
as long as the drugs did not,
\"create a profound disruption…

01:04:10.000 --> 01:04:14.999
substantially interfering with his cognitive abilities
or fundamentally altering his personality.\"

01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:19.999
And, that to violate US law

01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:24.999
against maiming: \" cutting,
biting, slitting…\"

01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:29.999
Must be specific \"to the body part
the statute specifies …the nose,

01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:34.999
ear, lip, tongue, eye or limb.\"

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:39.999
[sil.]

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.999
Alberto Mora asked John Yoo
to meet him in the Pentagon.

01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:49.999
As he was talking, I was becoming
more concerned and more alarmed,

01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:54.999
and ultimately I asked him the question,
\"Well, John, does this mean the President has

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:59.999
the authority to order
torture?\" And he said, \"Yes.\"

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:04.999
John Yoo’s memo pushed even further, opining
that anyone prosecuted for following

01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:09.999
the President’s orders would be legally
protected. There isn’t a court internationally

01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:14.999
or in the United States that would
support that theory if you’ve committed

01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:19.999
an act of torture or war crime, but because
you believe you are operating under

01:05:20.000 --> 01:05:24.999
the uh… the… the umbrella
of… of a presidential

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:29.999
uh… war powers, the commander in
chief war powers, you’re immune.

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:34.999
The commander-in-chief doesn’t have the
power to make that which is illegal

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.999
under the law of war, uh… legal.

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:44.999
But Jim Haynes ordered a report
based on John Yoo’s assertions.

01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:49.999
Jim Haynes invited me to
speak to him privately as

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.999
to my thoughts. I said, \"If I were
you, I’d put this in a desk drawer.

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:59.999
I’d never… never let it see the light
of day again. Just let it go away.\"

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:04.999
I was told, that, you know, we’re
not gonna go forward on it,

01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:09.999
everything’s on hold, you’ve
been listened to, and… and…

01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:14.999
and many of those techniques that
were at the extreme end are… are…

01:06:15.000 --> 01:06:19.999
are now out the window. We thought we
had won. The word from Guantanamo was

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:24.999
that the abuse of prisoners had stopped.

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:29.999
In fact, they had lost. And
they had been deceived.

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:34.999
The top military lawyers would not
find out for more than a year

01:06:35.000 --> 01:06:39.999
that in April, 2003, Rumsfeld had
secretly given the go-ahead to use

01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:44.999
24 harsh interrogation
techniques at Guantanamo.

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:49.999
General Miller was briefed.

01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:54.999
Interrogators at the prison camp
had their own \"golden shield\"

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.999
immunity from prosecution, in advance.

01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:04.999
[sil.]

01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:09.999
I looked down the hall.

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:14.999
And I heard this head-banger music blaring
out. And I could see what appeared to be,

01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:19.999
like strobe light coming
out of the doorway.

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:24.999
Colonel Stuart Couch, a military prosecutor who
had gone through SERE training as a Marine,

01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:29.999
visited the prison camp to hear
evidence on a case he’d been assigned.

01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:34.999
And so I walked down the
hallway and the door was open.

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:39.999
And I saw a detainee sitting on the floor.

01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:44.999
He was shackled. And the room was blacked
out with exception of the strobe light.

01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:49.999
And he was just, he was
rocking back and forth.

01:07:50.000 --> 01:07:54.999
It looked, for all the world,
like an experience that

01:07:55.000 --> 01:07:59.999
I had gone through in SERE School.
You know, the strobe lights,

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.999
the heavy metal music. I mean, that was
right out of the SERE school playbook.

01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:09.999
There was an Air Force attorney that was
accompanying me, giving me the tour.

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.999
And I just said, \"Did you see that?\" And he
goes, \"Well, yeah.\" And I said, \"You know,

01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:19.999
I got a problem with that.\"
And he goes,\" Well, yeah,

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:24.999
it, that’s approved.\"

01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:29.999
Colonel Couch was not the only one troubled by
the tactics Secretary Rumsfeld had approved.

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:34.999
FBI agents at the prison camp
were keeping what they called

01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:39.999
a \"war crimes\" file, noting
what they witnessed.

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:44.999
I entered interview rooms to
find a detainee chained hand

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:49.999
and foot in a fetal position
to the floor, with no chair,

01:08:50.000 --> 01:08:54.999
food, or water. Most times they had
urinated or defecated on themselves,

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:59.999
and had been left there
for 18, 24 hours or more.

01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:04.999
On another occasion… the temperature in

01:09:05.000 --> 01:09:09.999
the unventilated room was
probably well over 100 degrees.

01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:14.999
The detainee was almost unconscious on the
floor, with a pile of hair next to him.

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:19.999
He had apparently been literally pulling
his own hair out throughout the night.

01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:24.999
A detainee… said a female interrogator,

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.999
after not getting cooperation from
him, called four guards into the room.

01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:34.999
While the guards held him, she…
embraced the detainee from behind

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:39.999
and put her hand on his genitals… and she
wiped what he thought was menstrual blood

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.999
from her body on his face and head.

01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:49.999
We were basically shackled to
the floor sitting like this,

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.999
shackled to the floor, and you’d
be sitting there freezing.

01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:59.999
It seemed like it was an
experiment just to see

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:04.999
to what extent they could take a human.

01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:09.999
[music]

01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:14.999
We have re-created our
enemy’s methodologies

01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.999
in Guantanamo. It will hurt
us for decades to come.

01:10:20.000 --> 01:10:24.999
Decades. Our people will all
be subjected to these tactics,

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:29.999
because we have authorized them for the
world now. How it got to Guantanamo

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.999
is a crime and somebody needs
to figure out who did it,

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:39.999
how they did it, who authorized
them to do it, and shut it down.

01:10:40.000 --> 01:10:44.999
Because our servicemen
will suffer for years.

01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:49.999
[sil.]

01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:54.999
\"My fellow citizens, at this hour
American and coalition forces are in

01:10:55.000 --> 01:10:59.999
the early stages of military
operations to disarm Iraq,

01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:04.999
to free its people and to defend
the world from grave danger.\"

01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:13.000
[sil.]

01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:19.999
Three months after President George W.
Bush declared

01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:24.999
the end of major combat operations in Iraq,

01:11:25.000 --> 01:11:29.999
a potent guerrilla resistance rose
across broad swaths of the country.

01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.999
Demands for real-time, battlefield

01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:39.999
intelligence grew urgent.

01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:44.999
The \"gloves are coming off,\"
interrogators were told in August, 2003.

01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:49.999
Prisoners needed to be broken.

01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:54.999
One interrogator suggested,

01:11:55.000 --> 01:11:59.999
a baseline interrogation technique

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:04.999
that at a minimum allows for physical contact resembling that
used by SERE instructors. Sleep deprivation… fear of dogs

01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:09.999
and snakes appear to work nicely. I firmly
agree that the gloves need to come off.

01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:14.999
[sil.]

01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:19.999
In late August, on orders from
the Secretary of Defense,

01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:24.999
Major General Geoffrey Miller traveled to
Baghdad, and told the general in charge of U.S.

01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:29.999
prison operations he was
there to \"gitmoize\"

01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:34.999
the interrogations.

01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:39.999
Rumsfeld arrived, too, and toured the
American prison installed in what had been

01:12:40.000 --> 01:12:44.999
the heart of darkness during
Saddam Hussein’s regime,

01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:49.999
Abu Ghraib.

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:54.999
Eight days later, interrogation techniques that
mirror those Rumsfeld had authorized in Guantanamo

01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:59.999
were authorized for Iraq.

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:04.999
These are exclusive photographs

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:09.999
of a prisoner at Abu Ghraib
and hand-written instructions

01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:14.999
taped outside his cell. He
will be deprived of sleep,

01:13:15.000 --> 01:13:19.999
kept in stress positions, interrogated
in the middle of the night.

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:24.999
It is clear evidence of treatment

01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:29.999
that violates the Geneva Conventions,
even as the Administration claimed

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.999
Geneva was being honored in Iraq.

01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:43.000
[sil.]

01:13:50.000 --> 01:13:54.999
Behind the razor wire at
Guantanamo, detainee number 760,

01:13:55.000 --> 01:13:59.999
Mohamedou Slahi had become another focus
of intense attention in Washington.

01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:04.999
Mohamedou Slahi just jumped off the pages. This guy is
one of the most serious guys we’ve got in Guantanamo.

01:14:05.000 --> 01:14:09.999
Colonel Stuart Couch had been assigned

01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:14.999
to prosecute Mohamedou Slahi. I
did see information from other,

01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:19.999
from a high-value detainee
that indicated he knew

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:24.999
at least three of the hijackers that
were integral to the 9/11 attack.

01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:29.999
That’s what got my attention. That’s
what got the attention of just anybody

01:14:30.000 --> 01:14:34.999
that was familiar with
Mohamedou Slahi’s case.

01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:39.999
Throughout the summer and fall of 2003,
Mohamedou Slahi was the subject of a

01:14:40.000 --> 01:14:44.999
\"special interrogation plan\"
approved by Secretary Rumsfeld.

01:14:45.000 --> 01:14:49.999
His diary describes what happened.

01:14:50.000 --> 01:14:54.999
I was very hurting for my hands were
locked to the floor and I could not stand.

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:59.999
Mary was touching me with her sexual
parts all over and talking dirty.

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:04.999
I am not willing to talk in
details about that ugly happen.

01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:09.999
Intelligence information from
Mohamedou Slahi’s interrogation

01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:14.999
suddenly began to flood Stu Couch’s desk.

01:15:15.000 --> 01:15:19.999
I’ve been so long in segregation. …

01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:24.999
I had been counting the holes of the cage
I was in. They are about 4,100 holes.

01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:29.999
[sil.]

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:34.999
I’ve got in the back of my mind
what I had seen on that first trip.

01:15:35.000 --> 01:15:39.999
And I’m thinking, \"Okay, why is he
being this prolific? What’s going on?

01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:44.999
You know, is it physical coercion?\"

01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:49.999
Besides the physical coercion,
an interrogator posing as

01:15:50.000 --> 01:15:54.999
a Navy captain sent by the White House told
Mohamedou Slahi that his family was \"in danger\"

01:15:55.000 --> 01:15:59.999
if he didn’t cooperate, that
his mother had been imprisoned

01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:04.999
and implied she might be raped in custody.

01:16:05.000 --> 01:16:09.999
If you tell me that Mohamedou Slahi gave
up information because you told him,

01:16:10.000 --> 01:16:14.999
and showed him in a letter, that you’re
bringing his mother to Guantanamo and

01:16:15.000 --> 01:16:19.999
that she could be abused by… by men,
umm… is anything that he tells you

01:16:20.000 --> 01:16:24.999
from that point, you
know, is that credible?

01:16:25.000 --> 01:16:29.999
If you are ready to buy I am selling, ’

01:16:30.000 --> 01:16:34.999
I said. I tried my best to
make myself look as bad

01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:39.999
as I could and that exact way you
can make your interrogator happy.

01:16:40.000 --> 01:16:44.999
[sil.]

01:16:45.000 --> 01:16:49.999
Mohamedou Slahi’s interrogation, Colonel Couch
concluded, had been \"morally repugnant.\"

01:16:50.000 --> 01:16:54.999
He refused to prosecute.

01:16:55.000 --> 01:16:59.999
God means what he says. And
we were created in his image,

01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:04.999
and we owe each other a certain level of…
of dignity, a certain level of respect.

01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:09.999
And that’s just a line we can’t cross.

01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:14.999
We compromise our own ideals as a nation,

01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:19.999
then these guys have accomplished
much more than driving airplanes into

01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:24.999
the World Trade Center
and into the Pentagon.

01:17:25.000 --> 01:17:33.000
[sil.]

01:17:35.000 --> 01:17:39.999
When the abuse of prisoners
at Abu Ghraib was exposed

01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:44.999
in April, 2004, the administration tried

01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:49.999
to direct attention away from
the question of torture.

01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:54.999
Blame was pointed toward the young MPs.

01:17:55.000 --> 01:17:59.999
I… I… I share a… a deep disgust

01:18:00.000 --> 01:18:04.999
that those prisoners were treated the
way they were treated. Their… their…

01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:09.999
their treatment does not reflect
the nature of the American people.

01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:14.999
That’s not the way we do
things in America. And so I,

01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:19.999
uh… I didn’t like it one bit.

01:18:20.000 --> 01:18:24.999
But, there are the photographs.

01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:29.999
[sil.] Images that portray tactics

01:18:30.000 --> 01:18:34.999
earlier approved by the chain of command

01:18:35.000 --> 01:18:39.999
and covered by legal opinions
initiated in the White House.

01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:44.999
[sil.]

01:18:45.000 --> 01:18:49.999
In the aftermath of Abu Ghraib,
the military reasserted

01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:54.999
its ban on the harsh
methods prohibited by its

01:18:55.000 --> 01:18:59.999
Army Field Manual on Interrogation.
The secret Justice Department memos

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:04.999
that provided legal cover
by trying to define

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:09.999
torture out of existence
had been withdrawn.

01:19:10.000 --> 01:19:14.999
[sil.]

01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:19.999
[music]

01:19:20.000 --> 01:19:24.999
Then, In December, 2004, the newly-re-elected
President nominated Alberto Gonzales,

01:19:25.000 --> 01:19:29.999
one of the War Council’s five
lawyers, to be Attorney General of

01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:34.999
the United States.

01:19:35.000 --> 01:19:39.999
Can U.S. personnel legally engage
in torture under any circumstances?

01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:44.999
I suppose without, I don’t believe so, but…
but I… I… I’d want to get back to you on that

01:19:45.000 --> 01:19:49.999
and make sure that I don’t… I don’t provide a misleading
answer. But I think the answer… But mislead he did.

01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:54.999
Soon after Gonzales was sworn
in, the Justice Department

01:19:55.000 --> 01:19:59.999
secretly issued a new legal opinion
renewing the CIA’s \"golden shield\"

01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:04.999
to use the harsh tactics
the President called\"

01:20:05.000 --> 01:20:09.999
alternative interrogation techniques.\"

01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:14.999
[sil.]

01:20:15.000 --> 01:20:19.999
It had been more than three years

01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:24.999
since the first prisoners
arrived in Guantanamo.

01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:29.999
They’ve got a brand new facility down at Guantanamo. We spent a
lot of money to build it. They’re very well treated down there.

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:34.999
They’re living the tropics. They’re well fed.
They’ve got everything they could possibly want.

01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:39.999
Umm… There isn’t any other nation in the world that would
treat people who were determined to kill Americans

01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:44.999
the way we’re treating these people.
None of them been charged with a crime,

01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:49.999
none of them been convicted of a crime, for
the most part aren’t guilty of a crime,

01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:54.999
and yet they’re being held in these
maximum security prisons, which,

01:20:55.000 --> 01:20:59.999
if I made you do it for a week it would drive you
crazy. And we pretend like this is civilized,

01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:04.999
and it is utterly uncivilized.

01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:09.999
After two years of interrogations
with no end in sight,

01:21:10.000 --> 01:21:14.999
Bisher al-Rawi refused
to be questioned again.

01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:19.999
He was labeled \"non-compliant\"
and moved to Camp Five,

01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:24.999
where prisoners were confined alone
at least twenty-two hours a day.

01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:29.999
They were not in solitary confinement, the
Pentagon insisted, but simply held in

01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:34.999
\"single-occupancy cells.\" They
just leave you there in a cell,

01:21:35.000 --> 01:21:39.999
concrete cell, with nothing. And you’re
shivering, like you can take it for an hour

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:44.999
or two, maybe a day, you
sleep and you’re shivering.

01:21:45.000 --> 01:21:49.999
And the pictures don’t show you what the
authorities are actually doing there.

01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:54.999
Bisher al-Rawi was held in a cell
that was lit 24 hours a day.

01:21:55.000 --> 01:21:59.999
At times the air conditioning was turned off and
he was left to swelter in the tropical heat,

01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:04.999
at others, it was set
to blow frigid air and,

01:22:05.000 --> 01:22:09.999
as punishment, his jumpsuit was taken away.

01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:14.999
After a year in solitary,

01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:19.999
Bisher al Rawi began incessantly pacing
back and forth in the tiny cell,

01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:24.999
talking to himself, laughing maniacally.

01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:29.999
You push him, you deprive
him of his senses.

01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:34.999
You deprive him of his, of… of life.

01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:39.999
And then the point could
come when he will just flip.

01:22:40.000 --> 01:22:44.999
And then your mind will
just say, that is it.

01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:49.999
I’m finished. I’m done.

01:22:50.000 --> 01:22:54.999
His lawyers feared Bisher al-Rawi was slipping
into a madness that would be permanent.

01:22:55.000 --> 01:22:59.999
If that happened, it would
be the terrible proof that,

01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:04.999
even by the Administration’s narrow
definition, he had been mentally tortured.

01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:09.999
[music]

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:14.999
This debate is occurring because
of the Supreme Court’s ruling

01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:19.999
that said that we must
conduct ourselves under

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:24.999
the Common Article 3 of
the Geneva Convention.

01:23:25.000 --> 01:23:29.999
And that Common Article 3 says that, you know,
there will be no outrages upon human dignity.

01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:34.999
It’s… it’s… it’s very vague.
What does that mean

01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:39.999
outrages upon human dignity?
That’s a statement

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:44.999
that is… is wide open to interpretation.

01:23:45.000 --> 01:23:49.999
In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled

01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:54.999
that Guantanamo’s detainees were
entitled to the protections of

01:23:55.000 --> 01:23:59.999
the Geneva Conventions. One Justice warned

01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:04.999
that \"violations of Common Article
3 are considered ‘war crimes.’\"

01:24:05.000 --> 01:24:09.999
Ladies and gentlemen, the President
of the United States and

01:24:10.000 --> 01:24:14.999
the Vice President of the United States. But
just weeks before the mid-term elections,

01:24:15.000 --> 01:24:19.999
stampeded by the threat of looking
weak on terrorism, Congress once again

01:24:20.000 --> 01:24:24.999
bowed to the Administration’s
\"policy of cruelty.\"

01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:29.999
It is a rare occasion when a
President can sign a bill

01:24:30.000 --> 01:24:34.999
he knows will save American lives. I
have that privilege this morning.

01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:39.999
The new law stripped the courts of

01:24:40.000 --> 01:24:44.999
the power to hear cases based on Geneva.

01:24:45.000 --> 01:24:49.999
And, in a provision that had been
pushed hard by the Vice President,

01:24:50.000 --> 01:24:54.999
it granted retroactive immunity to U.S.
officials who might have carried out

01:24:55.000 --> 01:24:59.999
or ordered torture.

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:04.999
[music]

01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:09.999
In March, 2004,

01:25:10.000 --> 01:25:14.999
after 832 days in U.S. custody,

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:19.999
Shafiq Rasul had been flown
home from Guantanamo.

01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:24.999
British authorities released
him without charge.

01:25:25.000 --> 01:25:29.999
In January 2005,

01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:34.999
Moazzam Begg was released. He had been
in U.S. custody, without being charged,

01:25:35.000 --> 01:25:39.999
for more than one thousand days.

01:25:40.000 --> 01:25:44.999
On March 30th, 2007, Bisher al-Rawi

01:25:45.000 --> 01:25:49.999
was once again trussed like an animal
and hustled aboard a plane. This time,

01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:54.999
he was headed home. He had been in U.S.
custody 4 years,

01:25:55.000 --> 01:25:59.999
4 months and 22 days.

01:26:00.000 --> 01:26:04.999
The things that are buried in your mind, they stick
with you for a long. You just can’t forget it.

01:26:05.000 --> 01:26:09.999
You can’t. It just stays with
you and it hurts you every day,

01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:14.999
every time you remember it.
At least 500 men

01:26:15.000 --> 01:26:19.999
have been freed from the off-shore
prison with no explanation

01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:24.999
for their years behind bars.

01:26:25.000 --> 01:26:29.999
More than 250 are still held there,

01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:34.999
most of them in solitary confinement.

01:26:35.000 --> 01:26:39.999
[music]

01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:44.999
Mohamedou Slahi is one who remains.

01:26:45.000 --> 01:26:49.999
In his seventh year at Guantanamo, no
charges have been filed against him.

01:26:50.000 --> 01:26:54.999
In 2006,

01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:59.999
Abu Zubaydah was transferred
from a CIA black site to

01:27:00.000 --> 01:27:04.999
the island prison. After almost
seven years in U.S. custody,

01:27:05.000 --> 01:27:09.999
no charges have been filed against him.

01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:14.999
In May, 2008, without explanation,

01:27:15.000 --> 01:27:19.999
the Pentagon dropped all charges
against Mohamed al-Qahtani.

01:27:20.000 --> 01:27:24.999
He is, according to his lawyer,

01:27:25.000 --> 01:27:29.999
\"paranoid, incoherent, cracked.\"

01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:34.999
[sil.]

01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:39.999
He remains in U.S. custody.

01:27:40.000 --> 01:27:44.999
On June 12th, 2008, the Supreme
Court once again rebuked

01:27:45.000 --> 01:27:49.999
the Administration, ruling that
Guantanamo’s prisoners have

01:27:50.000 --> 01:27:54.999
the constitutional right to
challenge their detention. None of

01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:59.999
the prisoners will be automatically
or quickly released.

01:28:00.000 --> 01:28:04.999
But the White House will now have
to publicly defend their treatment

01:28:05.000 --> 01:28:09.999
and its practices in U.S. federal courts.

01:28:10.000 --> 01:28:14.999
I have become an old man here.

01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:19.999
Death in this situation is
better than being alive

01:28:20.000 --> 01:28:24.999
and staying here without hope.

01:28:25.000 --> 01:28:30.000
[sil.]

01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:19.999
To order a DVD of this program
and to learn more about

01:29:20.000 --> 01:29:25.000
the inside story go to
www.torturingdemocracy.org.

01:29:30.000 --> 01:29:35.000
[sil.]