Michael Borys
Staff Writer
Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Zubaydah released images of the CIA’s tortute program that President Bush approved of. Zubaydah was taken to a C.IA. black site in Thailand. Zubaydah sketched images of the various torture tactics that the CIA used in their secret prisons. These actions by the CIA were as a result of the terrorist attacks performed by Al Qaeda in 2001. Mr. Zubaydah was the first prisoner to ever be interrogated in the CIA’s new torure program.
Two C.I.A. psychologists were to create a program that would use violence, sleep deprivation, and isolation on more than 100 different men in different secret bases. Some are even described as dungeons.
Obama outlawed this program more than a decade ago. They then went on to partly declassify a senate study that found the C.I.A. lied about both its effectiveness and its brutality. The program was initially set up for Mr. Zubaydah, who was mistakenly believed to be a top Al Qaeda lieutenant. Analysis showed that while Zubaydah was a jihadist, he had no knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and he wasn’t a member of Al Queda either.
Zubaydah was captured in a gun battle in Faisalabad, Pakistan in March of 2002. He had a gunshot wound in his leg, and the U.S. sent him to the overseas prison network. He is the first known person to be waterboarded by the U.S. Which occurred 83 times. Zubaydah said “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.” Zubaydah expereinced many different torture tactics such as waterboarding, stress positions, short shackling, walling, large confinement box, small confinement box, and sleep deprivation.
Zubaydah has never been charged with a crime, and military prosecutors have no intent to do so either.
