The document discusses the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA against detainees following 9/11, which were later determined to constitute torture. It describes how the Bush administration sought to justify these techniques by claiming they had "benign intent" and were not torture. However, these techniques inflicted severe pain and suffering and resulted in false intelligence. The document examines the legal gray area created by designating detainees as "unlawful enemy combatants" and holding them in Guantanamo Bay. It concludes that the U.S. fell into committing atrocious and unspeakable acts through the use of torture.

1. The Contentious Margin: INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 1
THE CONTENTIOUS MARGIN:
INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE
NICHOLAS A. POOLE
CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
A PROJECT SUBMITTED IN
PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE:
FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
14 AUGUST 2015

2. INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 2
Abstract
Public Opinion holds no disparity on its position of torture and cruelty in regards to acceptable
human behavior. There are systemically no justifiable reasons to excessively harm another
human being for an extensive period of time. Interrogation, a cornerstone of legal practice, is
invaluable to truth seeking efforts on the platforms in which it is properly exercised. Self-
Preservation, an elite attribute in thorough decision-making, is powerful enough to break the will
of the human psyche and enforce abandonment of all other causes except for that of survival.
There is a fine line between interrogation and torture. However, by establishing tortuous methods
as “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”, the authorities of the United States Government has
given that line a contentious margin. This vast gray area in which we stand regarding the
investigative practices of those with ill-defined status in this new arena of warfare will be the
study of this report.
Keywords: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Torture, Detainee
The Contentious Margin
Setting the Stage. In September of 2001, just 5 days after 9/11 attacks, Vice President
Dick Cheney is quoted on Meet the Press setting the stage for what was to come of intelligence
gathering strategies for years to come:
“We also have to work through, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to
spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here
will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are
available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world

3. INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 3
these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal,
basically, to achieve our objective.” (Chwastiak, 495)
The Detentions. “A significant number of persons were detained by U.S. personnel in
various places on the suspicion of having committed terrorist acts or being members or
supporters of terrorist organizations. These persons were quickly labeled ‘unlawful enemy
combatants.’ Their number is unknown, and their fates were diverse: very few of them were tried
and convicted in U.S. federal courts” These imprisonments were based purely on an assessment
of hostility, not by criminal offense. The determination was made on the subject’s likelihood of
committing terrorist acts upon release (Wilke, 638).
The Detainees. The detainees do not meet the requirements to be considered an “enemy
alien” due to the fact that they are not nationals of countries that the United States is at declared
war against. Furthermore, there is dispute in whether or not the detainees have committed acts or
made steps to commit acts of open warfare against the United States. Because they have not been
officially indicted with any offence, a judiciary has not been rendered capable of litigating the
authenticity of their assertions of innocence or guilt. (Wilke, 646)
Legal Limbo. Guantanamo detainees were intentionally usurped of any access to the
U.S. judicial system due to their newly legislated status as “unlawful enemy combatants” and the
strategic location of their imprisonment. The United States, legally speaking, has jurisdiction but
“no full sovereignty” in Cuba. Therefore, are far beyond the reach of the U.S. Federal Courts.
This was the original intent for the placement of the detention facility. It is legal gray area
because it is a geographical gray area in regards to the physical boundaries of the United States
Constitution and the Due Process System. (Wilke, 645)

4. INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 4
Benign Intent. There was significant interest within the Bush administration to
ideologically fashion Enhanced Interrogation Techniques as being completely differentiated from
torture. To do so, the techniques had to have been fabricated with “benign intent”. The intent
must be “discomfort”. A model approach would be to establish that a facial slap was not intended
to inflict pain but “to induce shock, surprise and/or humiliation”, the wall stand was to “induce
muscle fatigue”, stress positions were designed to “produce the physical discomfort associated
with muscle fatigue, and sleep deprivation was used to reduce the individual’s ability to think on
his feet’ (Chwastiak, 498)
The Discrepancy of Pain. One of the difficulties in torture rhetoric is the empathy gap
between subjects and those providing evidence that any such torture occurs. “People who are
experiencing even a mild version of the specific pain produced by an interrogation tactic are
more likely to classify that tactic as torture or more unethical than are those who are not
experiencing pain. This discrepancy could result from an overestimation of the pain of torture by
people in pain, an underestimation of the pain of torture by those not in pain, or both.”
(Nordgren) It is also important to note that the legality of torture is determined by those not
subjected to tortuous practices and, thus, such practices are not considered as severe as they
would be otherwise. (Nordgren)
The Senate Intelligence Committee report confirmed that practices performed on
detainees by the CIA during the Bush Administration were considered torture. It was also
confirmed that Congress was misinformed and deceived. The report also concluded that the
practices “did not yield much vital information.” Highlighting the urgency of the situation and
the programs legal validation, Former Vice President Dick Cheney called the report “a load of

5. INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 5
crap”. Cheney suggests the report, which was written by mostly Democratic officials, was purely
political and biased considering the committee chose not to interview CIA operatives. (Ullman)
Crossing the Line. Ali Soufan was a skilled interrogator hired by the FBI in 1997. He is
an outspoken critic of Enhanced Interrogation Tactics. One of Soufan’s first assignments was to
write a report on Osama Bin Laden who he quickly identified as a significant threat to the United
States. Bin Laden escaped into Pakistan, and the FBI began their search. A firefight in a remote
village in Pakistan lead to the capture of Abu Zabaydah, the highest ranking Al-Qaeda figure to
have been captured at the time. Because he was injured in the firefight, a doctor was sent from
Washington D.C. to oversee his medical state. Soufan and his associate provided medical care for
Zabaydah, changing is bandages and cleaning his wounds. This built the rapport necessary for
Zabaydah to disclose information about the Al-Qaeda leadership. Zabaydah finally named Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the 9/11 attack. The United States Government
promptly contracted a retired Air Force Psychologist, whose identity still remains protected, to
perform extreme interrogation methods. He enforced nudity, loud rock music, sleep deprivation
and low temperatures, etc. to make headway. The U.S. Justice Department approved harsher
techniques including slapping, shoving, stress positions, and confinement boxes with insects.
Three men were subjected to waterboarding: Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abdal
Rahim Al Nashiri. Soufan remained critical of these techniques claiming that, if they were
effective, they would have already have produced the desired effects at the rate at which they
were being performed. Soufan also recalled of an incident where a detainee gave false
information regarding the partnership of Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime in a scheme to
use Weapons of Mass Destruction. Soufan claims that the detainee “gave them what they wanted
to hear.” He gave false information because he wanted the torture to stop. This misinformation

6. INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 6
was given to Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense at the time, who, then, went to the United
Nations. Subsequent steps were taken to invade Iraq. Soufan believes heavy that Enhanced
interrogation breeds false intelligence. It is no secret that the Iraq War was initiated by false
information. Intelligence on many levels was severely off. The United States had lost so much in
Iraq and Al-Qaeda gained even more from recruitment and funding. Discouraged by what he had
seen, Soufan left the FBI in 2005. In 2009, he publicly condemned the Bush Administration for
authorizing the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques at a Senate Committee Hearing. Today
Soufan runs his own Risk management group advising governments and corporations around the
world. (Smith)
Psychologist’s involvement. “Ethical and professional boundaries” were in question
after the alleged participation of psychiatrists in “detainee interrogations”. In 2005, the American
Psychological Association determined that “no psychiatrist should participate directly in
interrogation of prisoners” (Halpern, 1). The retired Air Force psychologist with protected
identify has been revealed to be James Elmer Mitchell. According to the 2014 Democratic-led
Senate Intelligence Committee report, Mitchel’s private company, Mitchell Jensen and
Associates, was contracted $81 Million dollars for its work.
Since then, the American Psychological Association has moved to strip the license of a
psychologist James Mitchell. Northwestern University law professor Joseph Margulies believes
that “a psychologist who helps inflict such cruel and shocking abuse on a defenseless human
being would appear to have violated basic standards of conduct of the profession." According to
a letter sent to a Texas licensing board, “If any psychologist who was a member of the APA were
found to have committed the acts alleged against [James] Mitchell, he or she would be expelled
from the APA membership.” James Mitchell is not a member of the APA. (Welsh-Huggins)

7. INTERROGATION TURNED TORTURE 7
The Ticking Time Bomb Scenario. Dr. Griffin Trotter argues that the use of Enhanced
Interrogation Techniques would be justified if Nuclear or Biological warfare was threatening one
half of the world’s population and a detainee possessed information concerning it. He states,” the
refusal to use torture would be morally reprehensible”. (Wilke, 2) The scenario in which Dr.
Trotter suggests is not plausible validation for torturing detainees.
Conclusion. The methods by which intelligence was gained was nothing short of torture.
By “legislating” the target population as “unlawful combatants”, the U.S. Government allowed
itself plenty room to operate in a legal and moral gray area. By, giving “benign” examples of
harmful practices, many were misled regarding the actual occurrences at Guantanamo Bay and
other Black Sites where detainees were held. The loopholes and strategies put into action to
justify unspeakable acts against humanity caused the authorities of the United States to fall into
atrocious and unspeakable acts.

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References
Chwastiak, M. (2015). Torture as normal work: The Bush Administration, the Central
Intelligence Agency and 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques'
Halpern, A., Halpern, J., & Doherty, S. (2008). "Enhanced" Interrogation Of Detainees: Do
Psychologists And Psychiatrists Participate? Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine.
Nordgren, L., Mcdonnell, M., & Loewenstein, G. (2011). What Constitutes Torture?:
Psychological Impediments to an Objective Evaluation of Enhanced Interrogation Tactics.
Smith, Martin (2011) The Interrogator [Documentary] PBS.
Ullman, D. (2015, February 14). Enhanced Interrogation Techniques--Cruel and Unusual
Punishment By Any Standard. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
Welsh-Huggins, A. (2011, May 25). APA Wants James Mitchell, Psychologist Who Helped CIA
Torture ... Retrieved August 13, 2015.
Wilke, C. (n.d.). War v. Justice: Terrorism Cases, Enemy Combatants, and Political Justice in
U.S. Courts.