Two American psychologists who played a major role in creating the Central Intelligence Agency’s post-9/11 secret detention and interrogation program have been sued in a federal lawsuit filed today. The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two men who had been held in CIA custody in Afghanistan because of their suspected ties to Islamist terrorist organizations; Suleiman Abdullah Salim from Tanzania and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud from Libya, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, an Afghan who died while in CIA detention.
After the September 11 attacks sent shock-waves through an unprepared US intelligence community, the CIA – worried about preventing future attacks – started one of its most controversial operations ever. It set up secret prisons around the world (named “black sites”) – from Kosovo and Poland to Afghanistan and Iraq – where it forcibly “disappeared” terror suspects. After legal experts for the Bush administration penned memos narrowing down the definition of torture, the agency employed a harsh, coercive set of interrogation methods.
The CIA contracted James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen to design the interrogation program. Jessen and Mitchell had been instructors of a special U.S. Air Force training program that prepared soldiers to resist torture if they were captured by the enemy. They developed the CIA interrogation plans based on 1960s research on how to create a status of “learned helplessness” in dogs. The techniques included sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to cold temperatures and painful “stress positions.”
Gul Rahman died on November 20, 2002, in a CIA detention site called “Salt Pit” in Afghanistan, after being left in a cold cell half-naked.
Suleiman Abdullah Salim was captured in a joint operation by CIA and Kenyan forces in Somalia and flown to Afghanistan. In the “Salt Pit” facility, he was subjected to what the CIA euphemistically describes as “aggressive” questioning. One time, he was stripped naked and forced to lie on the floor while guards poured ice-cold water on him, only taking breaks kick and slap him.
The humiliating and painful procedure lasted up to half an hour. Afterwards, the complaint alleges, he was left in the cold, “violently shivering” for another ten to fifteen minutes. He was also subjected to water torture with a cloth over his face, giving him the feeling that he was going to drown. On another occasion, the lawsuit alleges, the interrogators stuffed Salim into a 3 square foot wooden box. Salim, naked and shackled, had to crouch in it. The distress caused by the torture made him panic and vomit.
The lawsuit comes after the Senate Intelligence Committee released a summary of the final report of its five-year investigation into the CIA interrogation and detention program last December. The report concluded that the torture tactics used by the CIA were ineffective and counterproductive, often leading to faulty intelligence. One of the program’s architects, psychologist James Mitchell, has denounced the report as a “partisan pile of crap.” President Obama had banned harsh interrogation methods immediately after taking office and repeated his opinion that the CIA techniques were “wrong” after the Senate report release last winter, but he did not press for holding the officials involved accountable in any way.
Obama has explained he wants to move on, rather than re-fight old arguments. He has a point. But if he is committed to ensuring that the Bush-era disgraces never happen again, he needs to end impunity for the officials who actively participated in these human rights violations. Additionally, he should tackle the lack of transparency. In the past, the government has often fought back against such lawsuits by classifying relevant documents as state secrets. If he is willing to fully clean up the mess Bush left, he will have to change this. This lawsuit will be an interesting one to observe. Can American courts deliver justice for the torture victims? And will the President live up to his promise? I hope so.
