Washington D.C. May 12, 2004: CIA interrogation manuals
written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive techniques" such
as those used to mistreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq, according to the declassified documents posted today by the
National Security Archive. The Archive also posted a secret 1992 report written for then
Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney warning that U.S. Army
intelligence manuals that incorporated the earlier work of the CIA
for training Latin American military officers in interrogation and
counterintelligence techniques contained "offensive and
objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility, and could
result in significant embarrassment."
The two CIA manuals, "Human Resource
Exploitation Training Manual-1983" and "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation-July
1963," were originally obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act by the Baltimore Sun in 1997. The KUBARK
manual includes a detailed section on "The Coercive
Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources," with
concrete assessments on employing "Threats and Fear," "Pain," and
"Debility." The language of the 1983 "Exploitation" manual drew
heavily on the language of the earlier manual, as well as on Army
Intelligence field manuals from the mid 1960s generated by "Project
X"-a military effort to create training guides drawn from
counterinsurgency experience in Vietnam. Recommendations on prisoner
interrogation included the threat of violence and deprivation and
noted that no threat should be made unless the questioner "has
approval to carry out the threat." The interrogator "is able to
manipulate the subject's environment," the 1983 manual states, "to
create unpleasant or intolerable situations, to disrupt patterns of
time, space, and sensory perception."
After Congress began investigating reports of Central American
atrocities in the mid 1980s, particularly in Honduras, the CIA's
"Human Resource Exploitation" manual was hand edited to alter
passages that appeared to advocate coercion and stress techniques to
be used on prisoners. CIA officials attached a new prologue page
on the manual stating: "The use of force, mental torture, threats,
insults or exposure to inhumane treatment of any kind as an aid to
interrogation is prohibited by law, both international and domestic;
it is neither authorized nor condoned"-making it clear that
authorities were well aware these abusive practices were illegal and
immoral, even as they continued then and now.
Indeed,
similar material had already been incorporated into seven
Spanish-language training guides. More than a thousand copies of
these manuals were distributed for use in countries such as El
Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru, and at the School of the
Americas between 1987 and 1991. An inquiry was triggered in mid 1991
when the Southern Command evaluated the manuals for use in expanding
military support programs in Colombia.
In March 1992 Cheney received an investigative report on
"Improper Material in Spanish-Language
Intelligence Training Manuals." Classified SECRET, the
report noted that five of the seven manuals "contained language and
statements in violation of legal, regulatory or policy prohibitions"
and recommended they be recalled. The memo is stamped: "SECDEF HAS
SEEN."
The Archive also posted a declassified memorandum of conversation with a
Southern Command officer, Major Victor Tise, who was responsible for
assembling the Latin American manuals at School of the Americas for
counterintelligence training in 1982. Tise stated that the manuals
had been forwarded to DOD headquarters for clearance "and came back
approved but UNCHANGED." (Emphasis in original)
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Documents
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Document 1
CIA, KUBARK
Counterintelligence Interrogation, July 1963
Part 1 (pp. 1-60) -
Part II (pp.
61-112) - Part III (pp. 113-128)
This 127-page report, classified Secret, was drafted in July 1963
as a comprehensive guide for training interrogators in the art of
obtaining intelligence from "resistant sources." KUBARK--a CIA
codename for itself--describes the qualifications of a successful
interrogator, and reviews the theory of non-coercive and coercive
techniques for breaking a prisoner. Some recommendations are very
specific. The report recommends, for example, that in choosing an
interrogation site "the electric current should be known in advance,
so that transformers and other modifying devices will be on hand if
needed." Of specific relevance to the current scandal in Iraq is
section nine, "The Coercive Counterintelligence
Interrogation of Resistant Sources," (pp 82-104). Under
the subheading, "Threats and Fears," the CIA authors note that "the
threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more
effectively than coercion itself. The threat to inflict pain, for
example, can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate
sensation of pain." Under the subheading "Pain," the guidelines
discuss the theories behind various thresholds of pain, and
recommend that a subject's "resistance is likelier to be sapped by
pain which he seems to inflict upon himself" such rather than by
direct torture. The report suggests forcing the detainee to stand at
attention for long periods of time. A section on sensory
deprivations suggests imprisoning detainees in rooms without sensory
stimuli of any kind, "in a cell which has no light," for example.
"An environment still more subject to control, such as water-tank or
iron lung, is even more effective," the KUBARK manual
concludes.
Document
2
CIA, Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual -
1983
Part I (pp. 1-67) - Part
II (pp. 68-124)
This secret manual was compiled from sections of the KUBARK
guidelines, and from U.S. Military Intelligence field manuals
written in the mid 1960s as part of the Army's Foreign Intelligence
Assistance Program codenamed "Project X." The manual was used in
numerous Latin American countries as an instructional tool by CIA
and Green Beret trainers between 1983 and 1987 and became the
subject of executive session Senate Intelligence Committee hearings
in 1988 because of human rights abuses committed by CIA-trained
Honduran military units. The manual allocates considerable space to
the subject of "coercive questioning" and psychological and physical
techniques. The original text stated that "we will be discussing two
types of techniques, coercive and non-coercive. While we do not
stress the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware
of them." After Congress began investigating human rights violations
by U.S.-trained Honduran intelligence officers, that passage was
hand edited to read "while we deplore the use of coercive
techniques, we do want to make you aware of them so that you may
avoid them." Although the manual advised methods of coercion similar
to those used in the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. forces, it also
carried a prescient observation: "The routine use of torture lowers
the moral caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts
those that rely on it…."
Document 3
DOD, Improper Material in
Spanish-Language Intelligence Manuals, SECRET, 10 March
1992
This "report of investigation" was sent to then Secretary of
Defense Richard Cheney in March 1992, nine months after the Defense
Department began an internal investigation into how seven
counterintelligence and interrogation manuals used for years by the
Southern Command throughout Latin America had come to contain
"objectionable" and prohibited material. Army investigators traced
the origins of the instructions on use of beatings, false
imprisonment, executions and truth serums back to "Project X"-a
program run by the Army Foreign Intelligence unit in the 1960s. The
report to Cheney found that the "offensive and objectionable
material in the manuals" contradicted the Southern Command's
priority of teaching respect for human rights, and therefore
"undermines U.S. credibility, and could result in significant
embarrassment." Cheney concurred with the recommendations for
"corrective action" and recall and destruction of as many of the
offending manuals as possible.
Document 4
DOD, USSOUTHCOM CI
Training-Supplemental Information, CONFIDENTIAL, 31 July,
1991
This document records a phone conversation with Major Victor
Tise, who served in 1982 as a counterintelligence instructor at the
School of the Americas. Tise relates the history of the
"objectionable material" in the manuals and the training courses at
SOA. A decade of training between 1966 and 1976 was suspended after
a Congressional panel witnessed the teaching program. The Carter
administration then halted the counterintelligence training courses
"for fear training would contribute to Human Rights violations in
other countries," Tise said, but the program was restored by the
Reagan administration in 1982. He then obtained training materials
from the archives of the Army's "Project X" program which he
described as a "training package to provide counterinsurgency
techniques learned in Vietnam to Latin American countries." The
course materials he put together, including the manuals that became
the subject of the investigations, were sent to Defense Department
headquarters "for clearance" in 1982 and "came back approved but
UNCHANGED." Although Tise stated he removed parts he believed to be
objectionable, hundreds of unaltered manuals were used throughout
Latin America over the next nine
years.
