"The goal of interrogation is to create a state of learned helplessness and dependence conducive to the collection of intelligence in a predictable, reliable, and sustainable manner."
The report said a typical "session one" would start as "the HVD is brought into the interrogation room, and under the direction of the interrogators, stripped of his clothes, and placed into shackles."
After a round of questioning -- that would include some slaps and slamming the prisoner against a wall -- sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation (which along with nudity are regarded as "conditioning techniques") are begun.
The report said: "The interrogators, assisted by security officers ... will place the HVD in the center of the interrogation room in the vertical shackling position and diaper the HVD to begin sleep deprivation. The HVD will be provided with Ensure Plus ... to begin dietary manipulation. The HVD remains nude." [Underlines in original.]
In the next session, "coercive techniques" are brought into play. The nude prisoner is doused with cold water, repeatedly slammed against a wall and forced into stress positions before being returned to the shackling position for more sleep deprivation and more dietary manipulation, with the recurring advice, "the HVD remains nude."
Summing up this second session, the CIA wrote, "the following techniques were used: sleep deprivation, nudity, dietary manipulation, walling, water dousing, attention grasp, insult slap, and abdominal slap. The three Conditioning Techniques were used to keep the HVD at a baseline, dependent state and to weaken his resolve and will to resist."
For session three, the CIA also noted that the prisoner "is nude" before more abusive techniques are added to the mix and then applied in combination. The report stated:
"Interrogators will often use one technique to support another. As an example, interrogators would tell an HVD in a stress position that he (HVD) is going back to the walling wall (for walling) if he fails to hold the stress position until told otherwise. ... This places additional stress on the HVD who typically will try to hold the stress position for as long as possible to avoid the walling wall."
According to the report, wall slamming, which involves putting a harness around a prisoner's neck and whipping him into a wall, "is one of the most effective interrogation techniques because it wears down the HVD physically, heightens uncertainty in the detainee about what the interrogator may do to him, and creates a sense of dread when the HVD knows he is about to be walled again. "
"An HVD may be walled one time (one impact with the wall) to make a point or twenty to thirty times consecutively when the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question. During an interrogation session that is designed to be intense, an HVD will be walled multiple times in the session."
After the end of the third session, the prisoner is put back "into the vertical shackling position to resume sleep deprivation. Dietary manipulation also continues, and the HVD remains nude," the report said.
Cramped Confinement
In later interrogations, the prisoner could also be locked in boxes for differing periods depending on the size of the box. Under guidance from the CIA's medical personnel, "the duration of cramped confinement limits confinement in the large box to no more than 8 hours at a time for no more than 18 hours a day, and confinement in the small box to 2 hours," the report said.
According to the report, "sleep deprivation may continue to the 70 to 120 hour range, or possibly beyond for the hardest resisters, but in no case exceed the 180-hour time limit."
Although "the entire interrogation process outlined above ... may last for thirty days," the report said, "if the interrogation team anticipates the potential need to use interrogation techniques beyond the 30-day approval period, it will submit a new interrogation plan to HQS for evaluation and approval."
The Bush administration insisted that its "enhanced interrogation techniques," which earlier also included the near-drowning of "waterboarding," were effective in eliciting valuable intelligence about al-Qaeda and its plans, but FBI and some military interrogators opposed the techniques as counterproductive.
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