CIA general counsel Scott Muller writes to Jane Harman (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, but fails to respond fully to questions about the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques. [Central Intelligence Agency, 2/28/2003 
] Following a briefing earlier in the month about the legality of the techniques (see February 2003), Harman had written to Muller and CIA Director George Tenet asking whether using the techniques was good policy for the US: “I would like to know whether the most senior levels of the White House have determined that these practices are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have the enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President?” She also urges the CIA not to destroy videotapes of detainee interrogations because they are “the best proof that the written record is accurate,” and their destruction “would reflect badly on the Agency.” [US Congress, 2/10/2003 ] In his reply, Muller completely fails to mention the tapes or say whether Bush has been consulted. He also says it would be inappropriate for him to comment on policy issues, merely that “it would be fair to assume that policy as well as legal matters have been addressed within the Executive Branch.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 2/28/2003 ]
March 2003: CIA Falsely Claims Kidnapped Imam Is in Bosnia
The CIA tells anti-terrorist authorities in Italy that it has reliable information that Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar), a radical Islamist cleric who was under joint Italian-CIA surveillance in Milan until recently, is in Bosnia. This is a deliberate lie; the CIA knows Nasr is in Egypt, as it recently kidnapped him and took him there, handing him over to Egyptian authorities (see Noon February 17, 2003). According to the Washington Post, the purpose of the lie is “to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric….” The Italians believe the CIA’s story for more than a year, but subsequently discover the CIA was involved in his kidnapping. [Washington Post, 12/6/2005]
After February 29 or March 1, 2003: Interrogators Threaten to Kill KSM’s Children
At some point after alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) is captured (see February 29 or March 1, 2003), interrogators threaten to kill his children if he does not co-operate with them. An “experienced agency interrogator” will tell the CIA inspector general that “interrogators said to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed that if anything else happens in the United States, ‘We’re going to kill your children.’” [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 43 ] Two of his children are alleged to have been captured in late 2002 (see After September 11, 2002). According to author Ron Suskind, this is after CIA headquarters authorizes the interrogators to “do whatever’s necessary” to get information. However, according to a CIA manager with knowledge of the incident, “He [KSM] basically said, so, fine, they’ll join Allah in a better place.” [Suskind, 2006, pp. 230]
Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003: Alleged 9/11 Mastermind KSM Tortured in Secret CIA Prison
Following his arrest in Pakistan (see February 29 or March 1, 2003), al-Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) finds himself in CIA custody. After two days of detention in Pakistan, where, he will allege, he is punched and stomped upon by a CIA agent, he is sent to Afghanistan. After being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006, he will discuss his experiences and treatment with officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC—see October 6 – December 14, 2006). Mohammed will say of his transfer: “My eyes were covered with a cloth tied around my head and with a cloth bag pulled over it. A suppository was inserted into my rectum. I was not told what the suppository was for.” [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009]
Naked – He is reportedly placed in a cell naked for several days and repeatedly questioned by females as a humiliation. He is attached to a dog leash and repeatedly yanked into the walls of his cell. He is suspended from the ceiling, chained naked in a painful crouch for long periods, doused with cold water, and kept in suffocating heat. [New Yorker, 8/6/2007; MSNBC, 9/13/2007] On arriving in Afghanistan, he is put in a small cell, where, he will recall, he is “kept in a standing position with my hands cuffed and chained to a bar above my head.” After about an hour, “I was taken to another room where I was made to stand on tiptoes for about two hours during questioning.”
Interrogators – He will add: “Approximately 13 persons were in the room. These included the head interrogator (a man) and two female interrogators, plus about 10 muscle guys wearing masks. I think they were all Americans. From time to time one of the muscle guys would punch me in the chest and stomach.” This is the usual interrogation session that Mohammed will experience over the next few weeks.
Cold Water – They are interrupted periodically by his removal to a separate room. There, he will recall, he is doused with “cold water from buckets… for about 40 minutes. Not constantly as it took time to refill the buckets. After which I would be taken back to the interrogation room.”
No Toilet Access – During one interrogation, “I was offered water to drink; when I refused I was again taken to another room where I was made to lie [on] the floor with three persons holding me down. A tube was inserted into my anus and water poured inside. Afterwards I wanted to go to the toilet as I had a feeling as if I had diarrhea. No toilet access was provided until four hours later when I was given a bucket to use.” When he is returned to his cell, as he will recall, “I was always kept in the standing position with my hands cuffed and chained to a bar above my head.” [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009] However, he is resistant to these methods, so it is decided he will be transferred to a secret CIA prison in Poland (see March 7 – Mid-April, 2003), where he will be extensively waterboarded and tortured in other ways.
March 3, 2003: Bush’s Efforts in Fighting Terrorism Since 9/11 Are Called an ‘Abysmal Failure’
An article in the New Republic claims that “President Bush has repeatedly stifled efforts to strengthen domestic safeguards against further terrorist attacks. As a consequence, homeland security remains perilously deficient.” The article cites numerous examples to support this contention, and comments: “Bush’s record on homeland security ought to be considered a scandal. Yet, not only is it not a scandal, it’s not even a story, having largely failed to register with the public, the media, or even the political elite.” It points out numerous examples where the administration has opposed the spending of more money to protect against an attack and argues: “The White House appears to grasp that Bush’s standing on national security issues, especially after September 11, is so unassailable that he does not need to shore it up. Instead, the administration seems to view his wartime popularity as a massive bank of political capital from which they can withdraw and spend on other, unrelated causes. In the short run, this strategy is a political boon for Bush and his party. But, in the long run, it divides and weakens the nation against its external threats.” [New Republic, 3/3/2003] Here are some of the examples of evidence supporting this article’s arguments pointed out in this and subsequent articles: 
Airports are said to be unacceptably vulnerable to terrorism. [Associated Press, 6/8/2004] Terrorist watch lists remain unconsolidated. [United Press International, 4/30/2003] Basic background checks on air security personnel remain undone. [Time, 7/8/2003] The Treasury Department has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track al-Qaeda’s finances. [Associated Press, 4/30/2004] The White House has spurned a request for 80 more investigators to track and disrupt the global financial networks of US-designated terrorist groups. [New York Times, 4/4/2004] Cases involving “international terrorism” have been fizzling out in US courts. [Los Angeles Times, 12/9/2003] Experts have concluded that the Iraq War has diverted resources from the war on terrorism and made the US less secure. [MSNBC, 7/29/2003; Salon, 7/31/2003] Investigations have shown that most chemical plants across the US remain dangerously vulnerable to a guerilla-style attack. Some plants have virtually no security at all, often not even locked gates. Explosions at some of these plants could kill more than a million people. Yet the Bush administration has so far successfully opposed strengthening security regulations, apparently at the behest of chemical industry lobbyists. [New Republic, 3/3/2003; New Jersey Star-Ledger, 1/28/2005] There has been a huge increase in government spending to train and respond to terrorist attacks, but Time magazine reports that the geographical spread of “funding appears to be almost inversely proportional to risk.” [Time, 3/21/2004] Several high-profile studies have concluded that despite its frequent “bear any burden” rhetoric, the Bush administration has grossly underfunded domestic security. [New Republic, 3/3/2003; New York Times, 7/25/2003] Community-based “first responders” lack basic equipment, including protective clothing and radios. [New Republic, 3/3/2003; New York Times, 7/25/2003] Spending on computer upgrades, airport security, more customs agents, port security, border controls, chemical plant security, bioweapon vaccinations, and much more, is far below needed levels and often below Promised levels. [New Republic, 3/3/2003]
March 7 – Mid-April, 2003: Alleged 9/11 Mastermind Tortured in Poland
9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, after being detained and abused for three days in US custody in Afghanistan (see February 29 or March 1, 2003 and Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003), is transferred to another CIA-run facility in Poland. [New Yorker, 8/6/2007; New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009] The facility is later identified as Stare Kiejkuty, a secret prison near the Szymany military airbase. Mohammed is flown in on a Gulfstream N379P jet known to prison officials as “the torture taxi.” The plane is probably piloted by “Jerry M,” a 56-year-old pilot for Aero Contractors, a company that transfers prisoners around the world for US intelligence agencies. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 4/27/2009] He is dressed in a tracksuit, blindfolded, hooded, has sound-blocking headphones placed over his ears, and is flown “sitting, leaning back, with my hands and ankles shackled in a high chair,” as he will later tell officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC—see October 6 – December 14, 2006). He later says he manages to sleep a few hours, for the first time in days. Upon arrival, Mohammed is stripped naked and placed in a small cell “with cameras where I was later informed by an interrogator that I was monitored 24 hours a day by a doctor, psychologist, and interrogator.” The walls are wooden and the cell measures some 10 by 13 feet. [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009; Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 4/27/2009]
‘I Would Be Brought to the Verge of Death and Back Again’ – As he will later recall, it was in this detention camp that “the most intense interrogation occurred, led by three experienced CIA interrogators, all over 65 years old and all strong and well trained.” The interrogators tell him that they have received the “green light from Washington” to give him “a hard time” (see Late September 2001 and September 25, 2002). As he will later recall: “They never used the word ‘torture’ and never referred to ‘physical pressure,’ only to ‘a hard time.’ I was never threatened with death, in fact I was told that they would not allow me to die, but that I would be brought to the ‘verge of death and back again.‘… I was kept for one month in the cell in a standing position with my hands cuffed and shackled above my head and my feet cuffed and shackled to a point in the floor.” When he falls asleep, “all my weight [is] applied to the handcuffs around my wrist resulting in open and bleeding wounds.” The ICRC will later confirm that Mohammed bears scars consistent with his allegations on both wrists and both ankles. “Both my feet became very swollen after one month of almost continual standing.”
Interrogations – He is interrogated in a different room, in sessions lasting anywhere from four to eight hours, and with a wide variety of participants. Sometimes women take part in the interrogations. A doctor is usually present. “If I was perceived not to be cooperating I would be put against a wall and punched and slapped in the body, head, and face. A thick flexible plastic collar would also be placed around my neck so that it could then be held at the two ends by a guard who would use it to slam me repeatedly against the wall. The beatings were combined with the use of cold water, which was poured over me using a hose-pipe. The beatings and use of cold water occurred on a daily basis during the first month.”
‘Alternative Procedures’ – The CIA interrogators use what they will later call “alternative procedures” on Mohammed, including waterboarding (see After March 7, 2003) and other techniques. He is sprayed with cold water from a hose-pipe in his cell and the “worst day” is when he is beaten for about half an hour by one of the interrogators. “My head was banged against the wall so hard that it started to bleed. Cold water was poured over my head. This was then repeated with other interrogators.” He is then waterboarded until a doctor intervenes. He gets an hours’s sleep and is then “put back in my cell standing with my hands shackled above my head.” He sleeps for a “few minutes” on the floor of cell after the torture sessions, but does not sleep well, “due to shackles on my ankles and wrists.” The toilet consists of a bucket in the cell, which he can use on request, but “I was not allowed to clean myself after toilet during the first month.” In the first month he is only fed on two occasions, “as a reward for perceived cooperation.” He gets Ensure [a liquid nutritional supplement] to drink every four hours. If he refuses it, “then my mouth was forced open by the guard and it was poured down my throat by force.” He loses 18 kg in the first month, after which he gets some clothes. In addition, “Artificial light was on 24 hours a day, but I never saw sunlight.” [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009]
Deliberately False Information – As he will later tell ICRC officials, he often lies to his interrogators: “During the harshest period of my interrogation, I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop.… I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent… wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the US.” [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009] It will later be reported that up to 90 percent of Mohammed’s confessions may be unreliable. Furthermore, he will recant many of his statements (see August 6, 2007).
After March 7, 2003: CIA Officer Takes Sightseeing Trip to See KSM Waterboarded
CIA manager Alfreda Frances Bikowsky takes an unauthorized trip to see alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) being waterboarded in Poland (see After March 7, 2003). Based on information from “two well-informed agency sources,” author Jane Mayer will write that Bikowsky is “so excited” by KSM’s capture that she flies “at government expense to the black site where Mohammed was held so that she could personally watch him being waterboarded.” However, according to Mayer, she is not an interrogator and has “no legitimate reason to be present during Mohammed’s interrogation.” A former colleague will say she went because, “She thought it would be cool to be in the room.” Her presence during KSM’s torture seems “to anger and strengthen his resolve, helping him to hold out longer against the harsh tactics used against him.” Bikowsky will later be reprimanded for this, and, in Mayer’s words, “superiors at the CIA scold […] her for treating the painful interrogation as a show.” A former colleague will say: “She got in some trouble. They told her, ‘It’s not supposed to be entertainment.’” [Mayer, 2008, pp. 273] Bikowsky may be interviewed by the CIA inspector general’s probe into torture (see July 16, 2003) and will later be considered for the position of deputy station chief in Baghdad (see (March 23, 2007)).
After March 7, 2003: Alleged 9/11 Mastermind KSM Repeatedly Waterboarded in Poland
After being transferred from Afghanistan to Poland (see March 7 – Mid-April, 2003), alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) is repeatedly waterboarded by the CIA, a technique simulating drowning that international law classifies as torture. He is only one of about four high-ranking detainees waterboarded, according to media reports (see May 2002-2003). [New Yorker, 8/6/2007; MSNBC, 9/13/2007; New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009] He will recall: “I would be strapped to a special bed, which could be rotated into a vertical position. A cloth would be placed over my face. Cold water from a bottle that had been kept in a fridge was then poured onto the cloth by one of the guards so that I could not breathe.… The cloth was then removed and the bed was put into a vertical position. The whole process was then repeated during about one hour. Injuries to my ankles and wrists also occurred during the waterboarding as I struggled in the panic of not being able to breathe. Female interrogators were also present… and a doctor was always present, standing out of sight behind the head of [the] bed, but I saw him when he came to fix a clip to my finger which was connected to a machine. I think it was to measure my pulse and oxygen content in my blood. So they could take me to [the] breaking point.” [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009] Accounts about the use of waterboarding on KSM differ. He says he is waterboarded five times. [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009] However, contradictory reports will later appear: NBC News will claim that, according to multiple unnamed officials, KSM underwent at least two sessions of waterboarding and other extreme measures before talking. One former senior intelligence official will say, “KSM required, shall we say, re-dipping.” [MSNBC, 9/13/2007] In 2005, former and current intelligence officers and supervisors will tell ABC News that KSM “won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.” [ABC News, 11/18/2005] In 2007, a former CIA official familiar with KSM’s case will tell ABC News a sligntly different version of events: “KSM lasted the longest under waterboarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again.” A senior CIA official will claim that KSM later admitted he only confessed because of the waterboarding. [ABC News, 9/14/2007] In November 2005, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch will say of waterboarding, “The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.” [ABC News, 11/18/2005] The New York Times will claim that “KSM was subjected to intense and repeated torture techniques that, at the time, were specifically designated as illegal under US law.” Some claim that KSM gives useful information. “However, many of the officials interviewed say KSM provided a raft of false and exaggerated statements that did not bear close scrutiny—the usual result, experts say, of torture.” CIA officials stopped the “extreme interrogation” sessions after about two weeks, worrying that they might have exceeded their legal bounds. Apparently pressure to stop comes from Jack Goldsmith, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who is troubled about updates from KSM’s interrogations and raises legal questions. He is angrily opposed by the White House, particularly David Addington, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. [New York Times, 10/4/2007] The New Yorker will report that officials who have seen a classified Red Cross report say that KSM claims he was waterboarded five times. Further, he says he was waterboarded even after he started cooperating. But two former CIA officers will insist that he was waterboarded only once. One of them says that KSM “didn’t resist. He sang right away. He cracked real quick. A lot of them want to talk. Their egos are unimaginable. KSM was just a little doughboy.” [New Yorker, 8/6/2007] A different ABC News account will claim that KSM was al-Qaeda’s toughest prisoner. CIA officers who subject themselves to waterboarding last only about 14 seconds, but KSM was able to last over two minutes. [ABC News, 11/18/2005] In 2009, evidence will surface that indicates KSM was waterboarded up to 183 times (see April 16, 2009 and April 18, 2009).
Shortly Before March 14, 2003: CIA Allegedly Prevents Bush from Mentioning Atta in Prague Claim in Speech
In 2007, Newsweek will claim that still-classified portions of a CIA cable reveal that some White House officials wanted to mention an alleged meeting between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague in a speech President Bush was scheduled to give on March 14, 2003. But after learning of the proposed speech, the CIA station in Prague sent back a cable explaining why the CIA believed the meeting never took place. Accounts differ, but one source familiar with the cable will claim that the cable was “strident” and expressed dismay the White House would try to fit the dubious claim into Bush’s speech only days before the US begins a planned invasion of Iraq. There is no proof that Bush ever saw the cable and he ultimately does not mention the claim in his speech. A senior intelligence official at the time will later claim that the White House proposed on multiple occasions to mention the claim in speeches by Bush and Vice President Cheney. While Bush never mentioned it, Cheney did on several occasions before the Iraq war began. For instance, in December 2001, Cheney claimed, “It’s been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service…” (see December 9, 2001). [Newsweek, 9/13/2006]
March 15, 2003: Alleged Al-Qaeda Leader Captured in Pakistan, Disappears into US Custody
A Moroccan named Yassir al-Jazeeri is captured in Lahore, Pakistan, by Pakistani police and the FBI. Al-Jazeeri is not on any wanted list and there is virtually no known public information about him before his arrest, but a Pakistani official will call him one of the seven top leaders of al-Qaeda. He is said to be linked to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in some way, who was arrested in Pakistan not long before (see February 29 or March 1, 2003). He is soon transferred into US custody. Witnesses see him at a CIA operated portion of the Bagram prison in Afghanistan in late 2003 through early 2004. One fellow detainee will later claim that al-Jazeeri told him he had been tortured and permanently injured, and forced to listen to loud music for four months straight. In 2007, Human Rights Watch will list him as a likely “ghost detainee” still being held by the US (see June 7, 2007). [Human Rights Watch, 6/7/2007]
