Date

Nov 11, 2002

Description

This document authorized Gina Haspel, as chief of base at a CIA black site in Thailand, to torture the suspected terrorist al-Nashiri, who was in the process of rendition to that site. Although Haspel's name (or cover name) along with the cable date and time, cable number, and more are all redacted by CIA, other published sources fill in many of the gaps. "Senior government officials" quoted by ProPublica and The New York Times established that Haspel arrived at the black site as chief of base in "late October 2002."[3] Open source flight records published by The Rendition Project show rendition flights for Nashiri from Dubai (where he had been arrested in October) to Afghanistan (the site known as COBALT, or the "Salt Pit") on November 10-11, 2002, and then on to Thailand (the site known as GREEN) in the November 13-16 time period.[4] The declassified CIA Inspector General report on torture established that al-Nashiri arrived at the Thailand black site on November 15, 2002, and "immediately upon his arrival" began being tortured.[5] The declassified deposition given by Jose Rodriguez (who was Haspel's boss at the time as head of CIA's Counterterrorism Center) in the Salim v. Mitchell case brought by the ACLU described CIA contract psychologist James Mitchell as the "HVTI psychologist" whose name is redacted here, who accompanied Nashiri on his rendition flight and performed the first assessment of him, as described in this document. [6] Key to the torture order was the "HQS [headquarters] assessment that... Nashiri... has access to perishable threat information that he will not willingly share...." Ultimately, after two months of torture, first in Thailand and then in Poland (the site known as BLUE), CIA interrogators concluded this was not the case. This document provides support to the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report conclusion that the useful intelligence from the CIA detainees came before any torture took place, from regular interrogation: Here the cable admits "we have so far uncovered Nashiri's plots to sink ships in the straits of Hormuz" - which Nashiri had admitted while in Dubai. This order helps explain how Mitchell kept selling his torture services to a credulous CIA - despite the Dubai evidence, Mitchell self-servingly tells headquarters that Nashiri is a "sophisticated resister" who would require Mitchell's torture techniques to give up useful information, and further was "no more at risk for severe or prolonged mental harm" from torture than "any other captive."

Document published in following posting(s):

Gina Haspel CIA Torture Cables Declassified

Aug 10, 2018