Washington D.C. May 12, 2004: CIA interrogation
manuals written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive
techniques" such as those used to mistreat detainees at the
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to the declassified
documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The
Archive also posted a secret 1992
report written for then Secretary of Defense
Richard Cheney warning that U.S. Army intelligence manuals
that incorporated the earlier work of the CIA for training
Latin American military officers in interrogation and
counterintelligence techniques contained "offensive and
objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility,
and could result in significant embarrassment."
The two CIA manuals, "Human
Resource Exploitation Training Manual-1983" and
"KUBARK Counterintelligence
Interrogation-July 1963," were originally
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the
Baltimore Sun in 1997. The KUBARK manual includes a
detailed section on "The Coercive Counterintelligence
Interrogation of Resistant Sources," with concrete
assessments on employing "Threats and Fear," "Pain," and
"Debility." The language of the 1983 "Exploitation" manual
drew heavily on the language of the earlier manual, as well
as on Army Intelligence field manuals from the mid 1960s
generated by "Project X"-a military effort to create
training guides drawn from counterinsurgency experience in
Vietnam. Recommendations on prisoner interrogation included
the threat of violence and deprivation and noted that no
threat should be made unless the questioner "has approval to
carry out the threat." The interrogator "is able to
manipulate the subject's environment," the 1983 manual
states, "to create unpleasant or intolerable situations, to
disrupt patterns of time, space, and sensory perception."
After Congress began investigating reports of Central
American atrocities in the mid 1980s, particularly in
Honduras, the CIA's "Human Resource Exploitation" manual was
hand edited to alter passages that appeared to advocate
coercion and stress techniques to be used on prisoners. CIA
officials attached a
new prologue page on the manual stating: "The
use of force, mental torture, threats, insults or exposure
to inhumane treatment of any kind as an aid to interrogation
is prohibited by law, both international and domestic; it is
neither authorized nor condoned"-making it clear that
authorities were well aware these abusive practices were
illegal and immoral, even as they continued then and now.
Indeed, similar material had already been incorporated into
seven Spanish-language training guides. More than a thousand
copies of these manuals were distributed for use in
countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru,
and at the School of the Americas between 1987 and 1991. An
inquiry was triggered in mid 1991 when the Southern Command
evaluated the manuals for use in expanding military support
programs in Colombia.
In March 1992 Cheney received an investigative report on
"Improper Material in
Spanish-Language Intelligence Training Manuals."
Classified SECRET, the report noted that five of the seven
manuals "contained language and statements in violation of
legal, regulatory or policy prohibitions" and recommended
they be recalled. The memo is stamped: "SECDEF HAS SEEN."
The Archive also posted a declassified
memorandum of conversation
with a Southern Command officer, Major Victor Tise, who was
responsible for assembling the Latin American manuals at
School of the Americas for counterintelligence training in
1982. Tise stated that the manuals had been forwarded to DOD
headquarters for clearance "and came back approved but
UNCHANGED." (Emphasis in original)
Read the Documents
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Document 1
CIA, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, July
1963
Part 1 (pp. 1-60) -
Part II (pp. 61-112) -
Part III (pp. 113-128)
This 127-page report, classified Secret, was drafted in
July 1963 as a comprehensive guide for training
interrogators in the art of obtaining intelligence from
"resistant sources." KUBARK--a CIA codename for
itself--describes the qualifications of a successful
interrogator, and reviews the theory of non-coercive and
coercive techniques for breaking a prisoner. Some
recommendations are very specific. The report recommends,
for example, that in choosing an interrogation site "the
electric current should be known in advance, so that
transformers and other modifying devices will be on hand if
needed." Of specific relevance to the current scandal in
Iraq is section nine,
"The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of
Resistant Sources," (pp 82-104). Under the
subheading, "Threats and Fears," the CIA authors note that
"the threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys
resistance more effectively than coercion itself. The threat
to inflict pain, for example, can trigger fears more
damaging than the immediate sensation of pain." Under the
subheading "Pain," the guidelines discuss the theories
behind various thresholds of pain, and recommend that a
subject's "resistance is likelier to be sapped by pain which
he seems to inflict upon himself" such rather than by direct
torture. The report suggests forcing the detainee to stand
at attention for long periods of time. A section on sensory
deprivations suggests imprisoning detainees in rooms without
sensory stimuli of any kind, "in a cell which has no light,"
for example. "An environment still more subject to control,
such as water-tank or iron lung, is even more effective,"
the KUBARK manual concludes.
Document 2
CIA, Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983
Part I (pp. 1-67) -
Part II (pp. 68-124)
This secret manual was compiled from sections of the
KUBARK guidelines, and from U.S. Military Intelligence field
manuals written in the mid 1960s as part of the Army's
Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program codenamed "Project
X." The manual was used in numerous Latin American countries
as an instructional tool by CIA and Green Beret trainers
between 1983 and 1987 and became the subject of executive
session Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in 1988
because of human rights abuses committed by CIA-trained
Honduran military units. The manual allocates considerable
space to the subject of "coercive questioning" and
psychological and physical techniques. The original text
stated that "we will be discussing two types of techniques,
coercive and non-coercive. While we do not stress the use of
coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them."
After Congress began investigating human rights violations
by U.S.-trained Honduran intelligence officers, that passage
was hand edited to read "while we deplore the use of
coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them so
that you may avoid them." Although the manual advised
methods of coercion similar to those used in the Abu Ghraib
prison by U.S. forces, it also carried a prescient
observation: "The routine use of torture lowers the moral
caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts those
that rely on it…."
Document 3
DOD, Improper Material in Spanish-Language Intelligence
Manuals, SECRET, 10 March 1992
This "report of investigation" was sent to then Secretary
of Defense Richard Cheney in March 1992, nine months after
the Defense Department began an internal investigation into
how seven counterintelligence and interrogation manuals used
for years by the Southern Command throughout Latin America
had come to contain "objectionable" and prohibited material.
Army investigators traced the origins of the instructions on
use of beatings, false imprisonment, executions and truth
serums back to "Project X"-a program run by the Army Foreign
Intelligence unit in the 1960s. The report to Cheney found
that the "offensive and objectionable material in the
manuals" contradicted the Southern Command's priority of
teaching respect for human rights, and therefore "undermines
U.S. credibility, and could result in significant
embarrassment." Cheney concurred with the recommendations
for "corrective action" and recall and destruction of as
many of the offending manuals as possible.
Document 4
DOD, USSOUTHCOM CI Training-Supplemental Information,
CONFIDENTIAL, 31 July, 1991
This document records a phone conversation with Major
Victor Tise, who served in 1982 as a counterintelligence
instructor at the School of the Americas. Tise relates the
history of the "objectionable material" in the manuals and
the training courses at SOA. A decade of training between
1966 and 1976 was suspended after a Congressional panel
witnessed the teaching program. The Carter administration
then halted the counterintelligence training courses "for
fear training would contribute to Human Rights violations in
other countries," Tise said, but the program was restored by
the Reagan administration in 1982. He then obtained training
materials from the archives of the Army's "Project X"
program which he described as a "training package to provide
counterinsurgency techniques learned in Vietnam to Latin
American countries." The course materials he put together,
including the manuals that became the subject of the
investigations, were sent to Defense Department headquarters
"for clearance" in 1982 and "came back approved but
UNCHANGED." Although Tise stated he removed parts he
believed to be objectionable, hundreds of unaltered manuals
were used throughout Latin America over the next nine years.