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CIA's black sites, illuminated

The facilities were never meant to be 'ordinary prisons,' recently released documents reveal in meticulous detail.

August 31, 2009|Greg Miller


They emerged into an existence that was hidden for most of the last eight years, but now is possible to glimpse through dozens of declassified files released by the Obama administration last week.

Scattered throughout, in the CIA's clinical style, are descriptions of the prisoners' surroundings, the extraordinary security measures with which they were handled, the often brutal search for answers they were thought to possess, and what passed for everyday life.

Some days seemed endless, illuminated around the clock by a pair of 17-watt fluorescent bulbs. White noise from the walkways filtered through the cell walls usually "in the range of 56-58" decibels, about as loud as people generally talk.

There were touches of CIA hospitality. Prisoners were given books, movies and checkerboards to pass the time. They could hit the gym for exercise, and let their hair grow as long as they liked.

But there were also long stretches designed to break prisoners' will.



The only glimpse?


"These papers may provide the only picture that history gets of what life was like in these facilities," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch.



After being shaved, stripped and photographed nude, detainees were examined by CIA medical and psychological personnel. Then came a preliminary interrogation that would determine the prisoners' fate.

Only those considered extremely cooperative would avoid a trio of techniques designed to produce a "baseline, dependent" state: the deprivation of clothes, solid food and sleep.



Meticulous detail

The rules for administering such methods were spelled out precisely. Detainees could be kept in a large box for 18 hours a day, but small boxes for only two hours at a time. They could be hosed with water for 15 minutes, but the air temperature had to exceed 65 degrees if they weren't to be given a towel.

The detainee "finds himself in the complete control of Americans," the memo said. "The procedures he is subjected to are precise, quiet and almost clinical."

Earlier this year, the Obama administration released a series of Justice Department memos laying out legal rationales for the array of coercive interrogation methods the CIA employed.

The documents -- including an internal report by the CIA inspector general and correspondence between the agency and the Justice Department -- show that the agency also sought Justice Department review of the basic conditions in which prisoners were kept.

The agency had to use extraordinary security measures inside the prison walls, the records indicate, because keeping the facilities' purpose secret meant the CIA could not surround them with guards and barriers that would attract attention from the public.

The black sites "were not designed as ordinary prisons, much less as high-security detention centers for extremely dangerous, and often highly sophisticated, international terrorists," one Justice Department memo said. "They are a serious risk to escape and to the safety of CIA personnel."

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