S1E19 Torture

THE BLURB: If this story has a heart of darkness, this is it. How did American policy find its way to legitimizing torture? In this episode, we'll take you down that terrible road. America became a torturer because certain people - including then Vice President Dick Cheney - wanted us to be that thing. We'll also describe how the Bush Administration's wordplay, dancing around the word "torture", made torture inevitable. SHOW NOTES For more great podcasts like Dead Drop, please visit https://costardandtouchstone.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 0:33Speaker 01

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• 1:06Speaker 02

  This podcast, it's a Coster and Touchstone production.

• 1:10John Kiriakou?

  When I got to Pakistan in late January 2002, and we started to interrogate people, our marching orders were pretty straightforward where the handling of prisoners was concerned. We understood that regardless of anything else, we were operating within a context of rules established by the Geneva Conventions and the US Uniform Code of Military Justice. This meant that we were not allowed to hit anyone. We weren't allowed to threaten them, and we certainly weren't allowed to torture them. But 9/11 changed everything. The rules of war were written by warring governments to keep each other's worst impulses at bay. Unfortunately for America, the combatant facing us this time wasn't part of any recognized or uniformed army at war.

• 1:55John Kiriakou?

  These were true believers in a radical cause who considered death as a religious martyr a career move. It got them paradise and respect. This made dealing with them extraordinarily challenging, both in terms of getting useful information from them and in just dealing with them. There were constant temptations to get overly physical with their belligerence, and some of us did come close on various occasions. But as far as I knew, out in the battlefield at least, we followed the law. Back in Washington DC, however, various players in the George W. Bush administration were beginning to think differently about the battlefield, about the law, and about torture.

• 2:37John Kiriakou?

  Their deeply cynical thinking and cavalier attitude toward words and their meanings, as captured in a series of communications called "The Torture Memos," was pure Alice in Wonderland, right through the looking glass, and I don't mean that in a good way. "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master, that is all." Hi, I'm John Kurriaki. Welcome to Dead Drawn, What Makes a Spy Tick. This is another episode in the series, What Makes This Spy Tick.

• 3:19John Kiriakou?

  Before we get back to Wonderland, some thank yous for your continuing kindness and enthusiasm. It thrills us that our podcast thrills you, and so we'll keep making them as long as you're still enjoying them. To that end, thank you for your likes, ratings, reviews, and shares. It's turned our little podcast into a real player, not something that we ever expected, but something that we're delighted to be, so again, thank you. According to a narrative put together by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and declassified in April 2009 by then Attorney General Eric Holder, the CIA believed in

• 3:57John Kiriakou?

  2002, believed from the moment that we had captured him, that Abu Zubaydah withheld, "imminent threat information," during his initial interrogation. The agency made it its mission to get at that imminent threat information, regardless of whether or not it actually existed. The problem is, once you begin chasing shadows, you can't ever trust that everything isn't ultimately a shadow. Facing an unconventional foe, conventions like the Geneva can suddenly feel quaint and disconnected from the present. That's how the agency's lawyers felt in the middle of May 2002

• 4:41John Kiriakou?

  as they met with their counterparts at the National Security Council, the NSC, and the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, the OLC, to discuss a new approach to interrogations and the potential legal obstacles to its implementation. Among the legal obstacles was our being a signatory to the UNCAT, the Convention Against Torture.

• 5:06John Kiriakou?

  In Article 1.1, the CAT prohibits, "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession." Title 18, Section 2340A of the U.S. Code prohibits, "torture committed by public officials." Section 2340 Sub 1 defines torture as, "an act committed by a person acting under the color of law, specifically intended to inflict severe physical pain or mental pain or suffering

• 5:49John Kiriakou?

  upon another person within his custody of physical control." That seemed pretty clear to me. The first torture memo dated August 1, 2002, was signed by J.S. Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and the head of the OLC, and infamously drafted in large part by OLC lawyer John Yoo. In the memo, Yoo and Bybee basically argue that ducks don't quack, apples are oranges, and words like severe pain, suffering, and specific intent mean whatever the government says they mean. The memo also laid out ten techniques that progressed up a ladder of intensity. The first, lowest rung, was called the attention grasp.

• 6:34John Kiriakou?

  This one's been a standby in local police stations and movies forever. The interrogator suddenly grabs the prisoner by the lapels or the collar with both hands, and pulls him in close enough for the prisoner to smell his breath. It's controlled, and it's quick, and it's surprising, but it's harmless, and it's legal. Most of us could live with it, if that was as far as the enhanced techniques went, but they didn't. Next came walling. Think of walling as a logical extension of the attention grasp. If I'm the interrogator, I'd take my prisoner and slam him hard against the wall, built for the express purpose of slamming prisoners against it. So, the wall would be made of plywood, for example, not out of concrete block.

• 7:18John Kiriakou?

  The sound is what's important. You really want them to hear the thud, not just feel it in their bones. Let's do think that lawyers, Bybee and you, are heartless bastards. Bybee wrote that during walling, a prisoner's "head and neck must be supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a collar to help prevent whiplash."

• 7:40John Kiriakou?

  Next rungs up the ladder are the facial hold and the insult slap. The insult slap, while physical, is meant to induce shock, surprise, even humiliation, not to inflict any kind of long-lasting physical pain. It's essentially just a smack across the face. Cramped confinement does what it says it does. The detainee is kept in a dark, cramped container for up to eighteen hours at a time, depending on the size of the container. Wall standing is a stress-fatigue tactic that stands detainees four, maybe five feet from a wall, with their feet spread to shoulder width and arms extended so that the fingers rest on the wall, supporting the detainee's entire weight.

• 8:26John Kiriakou?

  It's all about exploiting muscle fatigue. Sleep deprivation has been around for a long time, and it's incredibly effective. We know, thanks to the American Psychological Association, for example, that detainees subject to sleep deprivation begin to lose their minds around day seven with no sleep. They begin to die of organ failure around day nine. But the CIA was authorized to keep detainees awake for as long as 12 days. Rung number nine involved exploiting a prisoner's fear. Abuzabata had a terrible case of entomophobia. That's a fear of insects. So Zane's interrogators stuck him

• 9:11John Kiriakou?

  in a cramped confinement box akin to a coffin, and they poured a box of insects on top of him. While the insects were, in fact, harmless, to the best of my recollection, they were cockroaches. Zane's interrogators told him that they were poisonous and that they stung. He almost lost his mind. The topmost rung, rung number 10, was waterboarding, meant to be the harshest of all the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques. We all know by now what waterboarding is. It's brutal, and it's terrifying and violent. But in that first torture memo, lawyer Bybee took a kinder, gentler view of its brutality, terror, and violence. In that first torture memo, Bybee pointed out that if done correctly,

• 9:56John Kiriakou?

  the individual being waterboarded doesn't breathe any water into his lungs. They aren't actually drowning. They just perceive that they're drowning. Pull away the cloth covering the nose and mouth, the one preventing them from breathing, by the way, and the whole sensation of drowning just goes away. See? No harm, no foul, no torture. The first documented waterboarding was in the 14th century. It was known alternatively as water torture, the water cure, or tormenta de toca, a phrase that refers to the thin piece of cloth that's placed over the victim's mouth. Then, as now, the goal in torturing someone was to inflict significant focused pain, but without causing death.

• 10:39John Kiriakou?

  That's why waterboarding always appealed to torturers. It checked off all the pain and terror boxes, but not the death box. During the Spanish Inquisition, a kind of golden age for waterboarding, they measured the severity of its infliction by the number of water jars used. Sometimes, writes Henry Charles Lea in his book, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, they might use as many as six to eight jars of water on a victim. But here's the curious thing. During the Inquisition, the water torture was considered a normal part of normal legal practice, not unlike the way we view, let's say, a cross-examination today. Also curious, during the Inquisition, doctors took part in the waterboarding.

• 11:24John Kiriakou?

  According to Ed Peters, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, a doctor's presence was required during interrogations. American soldiers encountered waterboarding during the Korean War. In fact, that experience in Korea led to a program in the US Air Force called SEER, which stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. We subject Air Force pilots to the waterboarding experience to prepare them for its possible use should they ever be captured by the enemy. The difference between waterboarding as a training exercise and waterboarding as an enhanced interrogation technique is massive. The intention when we waterboard a detainee

• 12:06John Kiriakou?

  is to convince him that his feeling of imminent demise is very, very real. It's physical and mental anguish without a finite end. The whole point is to induce a sense of hopelessness that can only be cut short by their full and unwavering cooperation. Bybi and Yu actually called it learned helplessness. But make no mistake, it's torture.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  The Mighty Dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.

• 13:42John Kiriakou?

  If you're enjoying Dead Drop, and of course, we hope you are, then while you're waiting for new episodes, I'd like to suggest another great granular story podcast from the Costard and Touchstone family. Just the Photographer with David Swanson does for photojournalism what Dead Drop does for spies. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Swanson tells you stories his amazing news photos just can't. What it felt like being in all those dangerous places like war zones and natural disasters, doing his job, taking pictures. Having been to a few war zones myself, I can tell you this. Just the Photographer will put you right there, on the ground, right next to David. Inside his head, in fact.

• 14:26John Kiriakou?

  It's a hell of a podcast, and you can find it wherever you find your favorite podcasts, or at costardandtouchstone.com. There's a link in this episode's show notes. In fact, you'll find lots of great story podcasts at Costard and Touchstone, like The Donor, a DNA horror story, The Hall Closet, Sage Wellness Within, and the How Not to Make a Movie podcast. Who knows? Your next favorite podcast might be just a click away. Now, back to Dead Drop.

• 14:56John Kiriakou?

  In the torture memos written by you and Bybi, and in another memo from May 2005, signed by OLC lawyer Stephen Bradbury, the agency argued that none of the enhanced interrogation techniques, whether used separately or in combination with one another, amounted to torture. Instead of a legal argument, though, they used cynical wordplay. Throughout the memos and their antiseptic descriptions of what was being proposed for recalcitrant detainees, great weight was given to the fact that, like during the Spanish Inquisition, medical and psychological personnel would be on hand to monitor how exactly the interrogation was being enhanced.

• 15:37John Kiriakou?

  The memo insisted that actual doctors and psychiatrists would safeguard the process. The assumption being, I guess, that somewhere beyond their Hippocratic oaths, these medical professionals would spot the precise moment when mere physical or mental pain morphed into full-blown torture that violated the law. Of course, they couldn't. In the halls of the CIA, we began referring to all of them collectively as "Dr. Mengele." But even then, even past that point where it could be torture and could be violating the law, so long as the enhanced interrogator did not specifically intend torturous harm,

• 16:18John Kiriakou?

  then the interrogator might not be guilty of it, because, well, wordplay. By the time lawyer Bradbury signed the last torture memo, on May 30, 2005, the hierarchy of enhanced interrogation techniques had grown to 14, with waterboarding still the last best option. Then, having argued that none of the enhanced interrogation techniques amounted to torture, so long as the interrogator was careful and well-intended, the lawyers all began to focus on what I think was the ultimate loophole: that's jurisdiction. Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Abdurrahim Nasr, the third detainee whom

• 16:59John Kiriakou?

  we waterboarded, were all captured outside the United States in foreign countries. Article 16 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture places no obligation on a signatory state like the United States "for acts committed outside territory under its jurisdiction." So, presto: no jurisdiction and no obligation under the cat. Vice President Dick Cheney took up waterboarding as a kind of personal mission. He said publicly that it was all right with him, even as the Bush administration officially insisted that America did not torture people.

• 17:41John Kiriakou?

  I wonder if the departed vice president would have regarded waterboarding as torture if Al Qaeda or Taliban terrorists had applied it to our brave men and women in uniform? Or if some combination of waterboarding and sleep deprivation was used against a relative or a close friend of his? Does the identity of the victim change whether or not it's torture? That's the problem. Once we make it okay to do it to others, it becomes okay to do it to us. This is what we made okay to do to us. It's what specifically we did to Abu Zubaydah, to Zain. It's based on reporting by the Rendition Project, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,

• 18:22John Kiriakou?

  and on Zain's own testimony to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Zain's cell was painted white. There was neither natural lighting nor windows. Four halogen lights shined into the cell. There was an air conditioner which was always kept on, keeping the cell uncomfortably cold. Zain was most often kept completely naked. A white curtain separated the interrogation room from the cell. Zain was allowed to have a chair, one of two that were rotated based on his level of cooperation, because apparently one chair was even less comfortable than the other chair. Security officers wore all-black uniforms, including black boots, gloves, balaklavas, and goggles.

• 19:06John Kiriakou?

  Zain couldn't identify the officers or see them as individuals with whom he might establish a relationship or a dialogue. Noise was pumped into Zain's cell constantly, either loud rock music or noise generated by a machine. For the first six to eight weeks, Zain was shackled and let free only to use the toilet, which actually wasn't a toilet, it was a bucket. His food was reduced to just water and cans of Ensure. Every time he'd start to doze off, they would spray water in his face. After three weeks, Zane was given rice, once a day, and allowed to lie on the floor, although still naked, and still shackled, and without a mattress.

• 19:49John Kiriakou?

  Two months after his detention, he was finally given clothes. Then he was given a mattress and a blanket. Then he was finally given toilet paper. But whenever his interrogators felt he was not cooperating, he would start to lose those privileges. From June 18, 2002, until August 4, 2002, 47 days, the CIA isolated Zane. The FBI team left Site Green and did not return. They knew what was going to happen there. The CIA, knowing full well what they were about to do, sent a cable back to headquarters dated July 15, 2002, wherein they noted that, quote, "In light of the planned psychological pressure techniques to be implemented, we need to get reasonable assurances that Abu

• 20:34John Kiriakou?

  Zubayda will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life," unquote. On August 1, 2002, J. Bybee sent a classified legal opinion called "Interrogation of Al Qaeda Operative" to John Rizzo, the chief legal officer, general counsel at the CIA. The very next day, we began to torture Zane on a near 24-hour-per-day basis, using the full range of approved enhanced interrogation techniques. This is from the CIA's own records. Quote, "After Abu Zubayda had been in complete isolation for 47 days, the most aggressive

• 21:17John Kiriakou?

  interrogation phase began at approximately 11:50 a.m. on August 4, 2002. Security personnel entered the cell, shackled and hooded Abu Zubayda, and removed his towel. Abu Zubayda was then naked. Without asking any questions, the interrogators placed a rolled towel around his neck as a collar, and used the collar to slam Abu Zubayda against a concrete wall." The interrogators then removed the hood, performed an attention grab, and had Abuzubeda watch while a large confinement box was brought into the cell and laid on the floor. Abuzubeda was unhooded, and the large confinement box was carried into the interrogation room and placed on the floor so as to appear as a coffin.

• 22:04John Kiriakou?

  Zain's interrogators demanded detailed and verifiable information on terrorist operations planned against the United States, including the names, phone numbers, email addresses, weapons caches, and safe houses of anyone and everyone involved. Each time Zain denied having additional information, his interrogators would perform a facial slap or a face grab. At approximately 6:20 PM, Zain was waterboarded for the first time. Over a two-and-a-half-hour period, Zain coughed, vomited, and spasmed repeatedly while they continued to waterboard him. A medical officer wrote this: "The sessions accelerated rapidly, progressing quickly to the waterboard,

• 22:49John Kiriakou?

  after large-box, walling, and small-box periods. Abuzubeda seems very resistant to the waterboard. Longest time with a cloth over his face so far has been 17 seconds. This is sure to increase shortly." "NO!" in capital letters, "NO" useful information so far. "He did vomit a couple of times during the waterboard with some rice and beans. It's been 10 hours since he ate, so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed and shore for a while now. I'm heading back for another waterboard session." During nearly three weeks of constant torture, Zain spent more than 11 days in the coffin-sized box and 29 hours in the smaller confinement box akin to a dog cage.

• 23:35John Kiriakou?

  Throughout Zane cried, begged, pleaded, and whimpered. At times, he became hysterical and distressed to the level that he was unable to effectively communicate. During at least one waterboarding session, Zane "became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth." In the end, over the course of August 2002, the CIA waterboarded Zane at least 83 separate times. What's more, the CIA videotaped what it did to Zane, ultimately producing 92 tapes, including 12 which showed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now? No more. But one dollar a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive Home Data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.

• 25:29John Kiriakou?

  At the very same time, in August 2002, on August 1st to be precise, I went to work back at Langley as the executive assistant to Bob Grenier, the newly appointed Associate Deputy Director of Operations. That was for policy support. I was genuinely flattered that Bob wanted me for the job. The problem was neither Bob nor I was absolutely certain what the job would actually be as, aside from the words "policy support", there was no actual job description. In fact, the job was created specifically for him. On that very first day, Bob told me that I had to go upstairs to be read into several compartments. That is, an area of CIA business, or an agency decision, or policy, that is so secret

• 26:14John Kiriakou?

  that knowledge of it was limited to just a tiny subset of people. "What compartments?", I asked. Bob said, "I can't say. It's so sensitive that they won't even discuss it over the phone. They won't tell you anything until you go upstairs and sign the secrecy agreements." This was unusual, but not unprecedented. I had been read into a couple of compartments earlier in my career. Ironically, waterboarding had been a compartmented decision that only a bare few people knew about at first. I went upstairs to the office of the Director of Near East Operations, but my host still refused to tell me anything until I'd signed the secrecy documents.

• 26:55John Kiriakou?

  Six of them, altogether, page after page of secrecy agreements. The agency had been known to go overboard on that sort of thing. For all I knew, I had just agreed to never reveal the identity of the CIA cafeteria's new bottled water vendor. What did I know? After pursuing the documents, though, my host finally let me in on the secret. "Okay", he said, "here's the deal. We're gonna invade Iraq next February. It's a done deal. The decision's already been made." I was so dumbfounded, so flabbergasted, that I could only stammer out, "But we haven't captured Bin Laden yet." It doesn't matter, he said. Everything's in place. The decision's been made.

• 27:37John Kiriakou?

  This was nuts. Here was someone at the CIA, obviously plugged into the plans of the White House, telling us that the public debate in Congress about this, and there was an active public debate in Congress, was total bullshit. America was going to war in and with Iraq regardless of what the legislative branch of the federal government chose to do. I just sat there, wondering what in the world they were thinking over at the White House. And in fact, my counterpart in the Office of Near Eastern Operations said that battle lines had already been drawn. He said that the pro-war faction was made up of the Office of the Vice President, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National

• 28:18John Kiriakou?

  Security Council. The anti-war faction, ironically, was the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the State Department. Later that day, Bob was formally named the Iraq Mission Manager. On the one hand, as Bob put it, quote, "This is crazy. I'm not even sure how to proceed from here," unquote. On the other hand, Bob would become the agency's face to the rest of Washington on everything having to do with Iraq. Even better, Bob would have direct access to the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet. We might be detoured in Iraq, but at least we were going to be in the middle of the action. In the next episode of Dead Drop, you'll meet George Tenet, and you'll hear how the Iraq War changed things, including

• 29:02John Kiriakou?

  the ways that the White House would begin using intelligence. And meanwhile, our Abu Zabata problem began to settle in. If you're enjoying this podcast, and we sure hope that you are, please check out my other podcasts. I have Deep Program, every day, Monday through Friday, from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. on YouTube and Rumble, and Deep Focus, which drops twice a week on YouTube. Until next time, I'm John Kiriakou. Dead Drop is written by John Kiriakou and Alan Katz. Costart and Touchstone Productions produces the podcast, and John Kiriakou, Alan Katz, and Nick Mechanic are its executive producers.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  This podcast, it's a Coster and Touchstone production.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.