On Monday afternoon, the Justice Department released a report by the CIA inspector general on the CIA's interrogation procedures and use of "enhanced interrogation techniques." The May 2004 review provides many disturbing details about just what enhanced interrogation entails. Salon has culled two dozen pages from the 234-page report that describe, among other things, diapering, mock executions, threats to kill a detainee's children and the use of a power drill for interrogations, a technique once employed by Saddam Hussein. The report indicates that some agency personnel were worried that they would later have to answer for these interrogations in court.
In addition, the report includes a 2002 psychological evaluation of al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah, forwarded to John Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel and now renowned for providing much of the Bush administration's legal justification for torture. The evaluation says that Abu Zubaydah is mentally stable and a powerful figure within al-Qaida. Both assertions are diametrically opposed to the characterization of Abu Zubaydah in Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine," an authoritative account of the Bush administration's counterterrorism efforts.
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