Certain aspects of the documents are redacted – including the names of CIA officials – but the four memos written by Bush lawyers as a guideline for interrogators offer an unprecedented look inside the methods used as the perpetrators of 9/11 and their cohorts were hunted down.
Water-boarding, which is banned by international human rights law, was one of the 'torture' methods used.
The Justice Department memo dated May 10, 2005, admitted that "we find that the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death". "It creates in the subject the uncontrollable physiological sensation that the subject is drowning."
However, it said, "in the absence of prolonged mental harm, no severe mental pain or suffering would have been inflicted, and the use of these procedures would not constitute torture within the meaning of the statute".
Other methods included placing an insect in a "confinement box", was used as a tactic against Abu Zubaydah, the first top al-Qaeda member to be seized. Interrogators planned to tell Zubaydah they were putting a stinging inset in the box but it would actually be harmless "such as a caterpillar".
In "walling", the interrogator was allowed to pull a detainee towards him then slam him against a "flexible false wall" in a technique designed to create a loud sound and shock the prisoner. A detainee may be walled once to make a point or 20 to 30 times when interrogation required "a more significant response to a question".
telegraph.co.uk, also Guardian.co.uk
CIA agents who used harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects during the Bush era will not be prosecuted, US President Barack Obama has said. BBC