UNCLASSIFIED-APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 08 DEC 2014

1 August 2014

Note to Readers of The Centra/Intelligence Agency's Response to the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence's Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program

In June 2013, CIA provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) a response to its draft

Study of the Centra/Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. The Committee asked
for CIA's comments to inform the planned revision of its draft Study, and our written response served as
the basis for a robust dialogue between the Agency and the SSCI. As a consequence of a decision to
declassify certain aspects of the program and in compliance with a request under the Freedom of
Information Act, CIA's full written 2013 response now is being released.
The Agency's response was submitted in four parts:
• CIA Director Brennan's cover memo
• A summary of CIA's comments with recommended corrective actions (Tab A)
• Comments on each of the draft Study's 20 conclusions (Tab B)
• Comments on each of the draft Study's 20 examples of CIA representations of the value of
intelligence acquired from detainees (Tab C)
Some of the comments in this document were amended during our oral dialogue with Committee Staff
or have been overtaken by subsequent changes to the draft Study. Notwithstanding the Committee's
revisions, we believe that the main points in our response remain relevant to the final version of the

Study.
Below are corrections to errors in our response that surfaced since it was submitted.

Tab A, p. 10, tic 3; and Tab B, p. 44, para 4: We should not have included in our count of 29 Inspector
General investigations of misconduct those cases involving detainees in Iraq or actions that occurred
during renditions or transfers of detainees because those cases fall outside the scope of the
Committee's Study. The two specific examples described in Tab B, p. 44, para 4 were among this subset
of cases that are outside the Study's scope. Our records indicate the number of investigations that are
within the scope of the Study is 13.
Tab B, p. 11, para 2, tic 2: Ambassadors were made aware of detention sites when they were
operational but we cannot verify from our records that the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State
were made aware of every site from the onset of operations at each site.
Tab B, p. 19, para 1: Our response correctly noted that the effort by the Counterterrorism Center (CTC)
to definitively establish the number of detainees held over the course of the program remained
incomplete by the time a CTC officer briefed Director Hayden on that effort. However, we incorrectly
characterized the status of CTC's count at that time. CTC's count was at least 112 (not "as high as 112"),
even without the inclusion of detainees who were no longer in CIA's custody prior to consolidation of
the program in December 2002. Including those earlier detainees would have added to CTC's count.

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Tab B, p. 37, para 1, tic 2, sentence 2: Interrogation training began in November 2002, not November
2003.
Tab B, pp. 57-58 (also referenced on page 47, first partial para): In addressing the Study's allegation of
inadequate accountability for 16 alleged cases in which enhanced techniques were used without prior
Headquarters approval, the explanation we provided for the miscount was inaccurate or incomplete in
some respects. Based on further research, we offer the following refined and amended explanations for
the 16 cases:
•
•

•

•

In four cases, no techniques categorized at the time as "enhanced" were used.
In five cases, enhanced techniques were used without Headquarters approval before the
January 2003 guidance requiring such approval. All of these techniques had been assessed by
the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel to be lawful.
In four cases, the need for accountability was mitigated because an interrogation plan had been
approved and the specific techniques used beyond those listed in the plan did not exceed its
overall scope and were subsequently approved by Headquarters.
In three cases, unapproved techniques were used and the officers involved were referred to the
Inspector General.

This breakdown confirms our overall contention that the draft Study overstated both the number of
detainees on whom enhanced techniques were used without prior authorization and the extent to
which accountability fell short when such authorization was not obtained.
Tab C, p. 5, last para: We acknowledge that there was at least one instance after 2007 of a CIA officer
validating an earlier document that referenced the "dirty bomb" aspect of Padilla's plotting.
Tab C, p. 9, first full tic, last sentence: "Students' interest" should have been written "student's interest"
because we know of only one student in the group who had an interest in aviation.
Tab C, p. 15, balded summary, last sentence: We should not have said the fragmentary information was
"unavailable to CIA." FBI information on a second shoe bomber does appear in a January 2002 briefing
item prepared for CIA's daily counterterrorism update. We do not know how the item's author learned
this information and it does not appear to have been entered into record traffic that would have been
readily available to analysts. Instead, the record shows clearly that information from Khalid Shaykh
Muhammad (KSM) was central to CIA's effort to identify the second shoe bomber.
Tab C, p. 17, third tic: Rather than "the individual managing the plot," we should have written "the
individual who was in a position to advance the plot." This terrorist had raised Canary Wharf as a
potential target and was tasked by KSM to conduct surveillance of Heathrow Airport's security, but the
plot was shelved after KSM's arrest.
Tab C, p. 19, balded summary, first sentence: Instead of "KSM provided information on an ai-Qa'ida
operative named Zubair. ..," we should have written that "KSM provided information that led us to
understand the significance of a Jemaah lslamiya operative named Zubair." We acknowledge that in
various representations, including President Bush's 2006 speech, CIA introduced a sequencing error
regarding Majid Khan's arrest/debriefings, and KSM's arrest/debriefings. We repeated that error here
and on page 26 of Tab C (see next erratum). However, despite that error, our description of the impact
of the information acquired from KSM in the Hambali case remains accurate. It was the combination of
information from both terrorists that caused us to focus on Zubair as an inroad to Hambali.

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Tab C, p. 26, italicized tic (also referenced in Tab B, p. 22, first tic, last sentence; and Tab C, p. 2, para 5,
first tic, last sentence): In our review of this case, we correctly acknowledged that CIA allowed a
mistaken claim that KSM played a role in Majid Khan's capture to appear in the Inspector General's 2004
Special Review, and we correctly wrote that this claim was a one-time error. However, our effort to
provide an example of a more accurate "typical representation" of the relationship between KSM's
information and Khan ran afoul of the sequencing error noted in the previous erratum. Although
information from KSM was used to elicit further details from Khan, by then Khan already had provided
the information that, together with what we learned from KSM, enabled us to advance our search for
Hambali.
Tab C, p. 32, last sentence: We incorrectly stated that KSM's information preceded Majid Khan's
information. We stand by our overall conclusion regarding the value of KSM's information.
Tab C, p. 34, last tic: We should have written "our" instead of "the early" because this error was not
confined to some of CIA's early representations.

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