CIA Used Gun, Drill in Interrogation

According to the Chief, Medical Services, OMS [the CIA's Office of Medical Services] was neither consulted nor involved in the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of EITs [”enhanced interrogation techniques,” nor provided with the OTS report cited in the OLC opinion. In retrospect, based on the OLC extracts of the OTS report, OMS contends that the reported sophistication of the preliminary EIT review was probably exaggerated, at least as it related to the waterboard, and that the power of this EIT was appreciably overstated in the report. Furthermore, OMS contends that the expertise of the SERE psychologist/interrogators on the waterboard was probably misrepresented at the time, as the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant. Consequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe.

This is hardly the only time during the Bush administration where the CIA cut out of the loop elements from within its own ranks that might not ratify a decision desired by the Bush administration. During the lead-up to the war with Iraq — indeed, during this same time period of early-mid 2002 — the CIA’s chief analyst, Jami Miscik, cut out of CIA analysis on the alleged relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda the agency’s own Mideast analysts, who were dubious of any substantive connection.

It is unclear if Yoo or Bybee would have changed their analysis had they been treated to a full account of OMS’s perspective. But it’s crystal clear from the report that fateful decisions were made without the benefit of complete information.