Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [314]
The subsequent politicized public debate about this subject has obscured a fact of great importance: None of the authorized interrogation methods—either those approved in December 2002 and used on one detainee until I rescinded them, or those that I later approved in April 2003—involved physical or mental pain. None were inhumane. None met any reasonable person’s definition of torture. From start to finish, my goal in interrogation matters was to balance the nation’s need for intelligence against considerations of military tradition and morale. Like all solutions that balance complex and weighty issues, Qahtani’s interrogation was imperfect and not without controversy, but as soon as concerns were raised, I addressed them immediately.
Some two and a half years later, I learned what had happened to Muhammed al-Qahtani during his interrogation.29 I was surprised and troubled. Some of what took place sounded to me as if the interrogation plan may have gone beyond the techniques I had approved. Apparently Qahtani was exposed to cold temperatures at some point, which I had rejected in my authorization. It appears he was stripped and humiliated. The combination and frequency of techniques interrogators had used with Qahtani called into question their appropriateness, at least in my mind. They may not have been in keeping with the intent of my January 2002 order that all detainees in the custody of the Defense Department were to be treated humanely.30
If Qahtani’s true identity had been known at the time of his capture, before he came into DoD custody, it is highly likely the CIA would have assumed responsibility for him, rather than DoD. The Defense Department’s detention operations often are confused with those undertaken by the CIA, but they were two separate sets of activities. At some point in the months After 9/11, the CIA established an interrogation program for high-level al-Qaida operatives captured around the world. Their highly classified program apparently began After Pakistani forces captured senior bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah in a March 2002 gun battle.31 Over the next year, the Agency successfully collected intelligence from Zubaydah and captured and interrogated other senior al-Qaida lieutenants, which eventually led to the capture of the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed.*
As a member of the National Security Council, I was made aware of the Agency’s interrogation program—but as I now understand it, it was not until well After it had been initiated, and well After the senior members of the congressional intelligence committees in Congress, including future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and others had been briefed.† Along with my colleagues on the NSC I learned that the CIA had developed a series of enhanced techniques to achieve Zubaydah’s cooperation. The CIA’s program employed some of the interrogation methods that I had rejected for use in the Defense Department. We were told the Justice Department had determined that the interrogation techniques the CIA was using—up to and including waterboarding—were legal.
Though the CIA utilized waterboarding and other techniques that I rejected in the Department of Defense, I saw no contradiction. Some techniques that might be appropriate for a very small number of high-value terrorists by a highly trained and professional group of CIA interrogators in a controlled environment were not appropriate for use by military personnel. It would have been unwise to blur the difference between two distinct institutions.