Page:US Senate Report on CIA Detention Interrogation Program.pdf/63

UNCLASSIFIED use of the waterboard. The OLC finalized its classified written legal opinion on August 1, 2002. The earlier CIA request to conduct a mock burial was not formally considered by the OLC. The approved interrogation techniques, along with other CIA interrogation techniques that were subsequently identified and used by the CIA, are referred to as the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques," or more commonly by the CIA as "EITs."

(TS////NF) In the course of seeking approval to use the techniques, CIA Headquarters advised the Department of Justice and the national security advisor that "countless more Americans may die unless we can persuade AZ to tell us what he knows." CIA Headquarters further represented that the DETENTION SITE GREEN interrogation team believed "Abu Zubaydah continues to withhold critical threat information," and "that in order to persuade him to provide" that information, "the use of more aggressive techniques is required." The cable to DETENTION SITE GREEN from CIA Headquarters documenting the information CIA Headquarters had provided to the Department of Justice warned that "[t]he legal conclusions are predicated upon the determinations by the interrogation team that Abu Zubaydah continues to withhold critical threat information." According to cables, however, the CIA interrogators at the detention site had not determined that "the use of more aggressive techniques was required" to "persuade" Abu Zubaydah to provide threat information. Rather, the interrogation team believed the objective of the coercive interrogation techniques was to confirm Abu Zubaydah did not have additional information on threats to the United States, writing:


 * "Our assumption is the objective of this operation is to achieve a high degree of confidence that [Abu Zubaydah] is not holding back actionable information concerning threats to the United States beyond that which [Abu Zubaydah] has already provided."

(TS////NF) As is described in this summary, and in more detail in the full Committee Study, the interrogation team later deemed the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques a success, not because it resulted in critical threat information, but because it provided further evidence that Abu Zubaydah had not been withholding the aforementioned information from the interrogators.

UNCLASSIFIED
 * 8. The CIA Obtains Legal and Policy Approval for Its Enhanced Interrogation Techniques; The CIA Does Not Brief the President Page 37 of 499