WASHINGTON — Prisoners could be kept awake for more than a week. They could be stripped of their clothes, fed nothing but liquid and thrown against a wall 30 consecutive times.
In one case, the CIA was told it could prey on a top Al Qaeda prisoner's fear of insects by stuffing him into a box with a bug. When all else failed, the CIA could turn to what a Justice Department memo described as "the most traumatic" interrogation technique of all -- waterboarding.
Baring what he called a "dark and painful chapter in our history," President Obama on Thursday released a collection of secret Justice Department documents that provided graphic guidance to the CIA on how far it could go to extract information from terrorism suspects.
The memos provide the most detailed account to date not only of the interrogation tools the CIA employed against Al Qaeda suspects in secret prisons around the world but the legal arguments the Bush administration constructed to justify their use.
At the same time, Obama assured CIA employees and other U.S. operatives that they would be protected from prosecution or other legal exposure for their roles in the nation's counter-terrorism efforts over the last eight years.
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama said in a message delivered to CIA employees, explaining his decision to release a collection of documents that agency veterans and some senior officials in his administration had fought to keep sealed.
The memos were crafted by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, a unit that was at the center of a series of debates during the Bush administration over the limits of executive power and counter-terrorism tactics.
One of the authors was then-Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay S. Bybee, who since has been confirmed as a judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The release of the memos was seen as a test of the Obama administration's commitment to its pledge of transparency, as well as its promise to roll back Bush administration counter-terrorism policies.
But the decision was met with criticism among conservatives and CIA veterans, who warned that the highly detailed documents would serve as a counter-interrogation training manual for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said the release of the memos would make the country less safe as enemies learned about techniques that might be approved again in the future.
