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Secret memo reassured CIA on interrogation

The US Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed “in good faith” that harsh techniques used to break prisoners’ will would not cause “prolonged mental harm.”

That heavily censored memo, released on Thursday, approved the CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques method by method, but warned that if the circumstances changed, interrogators could be running afoul of anti-torture laws.

The Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by then-assistant attorney-general Jay Bybee was issued the day he wrote a memo for then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales that defined torture as only those “extreme acts” that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.

The Bybee legal opinion defining torture was withdrawn more than two years later. The Bush administration maintains the interrogation techniques it currently uses are legal, but it is unclear which of those outlined in the second memo remain in the program.

Classified Bush administration memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques have been made public starting in 2004.

Thursday’s release adds to the growing record of the still secret program launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The new Bybee memo was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union along with two other previously unreleased documents dealing with the CIA’s interrogation program. The Bybee memo specifically approved proposed interrogation techniques that were devised for use against al-Qaeda suspects who were resistant to traditional questioning methods.

The standards used to judge how physically rough an interrogation could be are blacked out. But interrogations that stress a detainee psychologically or emotionally were not allowed to cause “prolonged mental harm.” That was defined as harm lasting months or even years after the interrogation.

The memo suggests psychiatrists or psychologists should be consulted prior to interrogations to assess the likely mental health effect on the prisoner.

In a second memo, dated Jan. 28, 2003, then-CIA director George Tenet authorized CIA officers to interrogate a terror suspect using an “enhanced technique” and ordered a record to be kept of it as the interrogation was happening. It was not clear whether such a record would be taken via notes, videotape or audiotape, but it was to include the “nature and duration of each such technique employed, the identities of those present” and other factors.

Tenet’s memo also authorized the use of both “enhanced techniques” and “standard techniques,” and said no other methods could be used “unless otherwise approved by headquarters.”
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