Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
Donald Henry Rumsfeld was an American politician,government official and businessman who served as secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford,and again from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He was both the youngest and the oldest secretary of defense. Additionally,Rumsfeld was a four-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1963–1969),director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–1970),counselor to the president (1969–1973),the U.S. Representative to NATO (1973–1974),and the White House Chief of Staff (1974–1975). Between his terms as secretary of defense,he served as the CEO and chairman of several companies.
Lawrence Ari Fleischer is an American media consultant and political aide who served as the 23rd White House Press Secretary,for President George W. Bush,from January 2001 to July 2003.
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive,causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding,the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages,causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally,water is poured intermittently to prevent death;however,if the water is poured uninterruptedly it will lead to death by asphyxia. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain,damage to lungs,brain damage from oxygen deprivation,other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints,and lasting psychological damage. Adverse physical effects can last for months,and psychological effects for years. The term "water board torture" appeared in press reports as early as 1976.
Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
John Choon Yoo is a South Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California,Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions concerning executive power,warrantless wiretapping,and the Geneva Conventions while serving in the George W. Bush administration,during which he was the author of the controversial "Torture Memos" in the War on Terror.
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States,in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism,refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context,the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers,called black sites,operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists,investigations,and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there,and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong,and had nothing to hide.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB),also called GTMO on the coast of Guantánamo Bay,Cuba. It was established in January 2002 by U.S. President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects and "illegal enemy combatants" during the Global War on Terrorism following the attacks of September 11,2001. As of August 2024,at least 780 persons from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation,of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere,9 died in custody,and 30 remain;only 16 detainees have ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offenses.
Richard Bruce Cheney is an American retired politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. Often cited as the most powerful vice president in American history,Cheney previously served as White House Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford,the U.S. representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 1979 to 1989,and as the 17th United States secretary of defense in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He is the oldest living former U.S. vice president,following the death of Walter Mondale in 2021.
John Owen Brennan is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama,with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,and Assistant to the President. Previously,he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition.
William James "Jim" Haynes II is an American lawyer and was General Counsel of the Department of Defense during much of 43rd President George W. Bush's administration and his war on terror. Haynes resigned as general counsel effective March 2008.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram,Guantanamo Bay,Abu Ghraib,and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating,binding in contorted stress positions,hooding,subjection to deafening noise,sleep disruption,sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination,deprivation of food,drink,and medical care for wounds,as well as waterboarding,walling,sexual humiliation,rape,sexual assault,subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold,and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures,to which he himself was subjected,were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration","rectal fluid resuscitation",and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees,there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children,and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Matthew N. Latimer is an American attorney,businessman,and former political speechwriter. Latimer is a founding partner of Javelin,a literary and creative agency located in Alexandria,Virginia that offers representation,digital,and public relations services. He also served in a variety of appointments during George W. Bush Administration.
John Chris Kiriakou is an American author,journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio.
Steven Gill Bradbury is an American lawyer and government official who served as the General Counsel of the United States Department of Transportation. He previously served as Acting Assistant Attorney General (AAG) from 2005 to 2007 and Principal Deputy AAG from 2004 to 2009,heading the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the U.S. Department of Justice during President George W. Bush's second term.
How to Break a Terrorist:The US Interrogators Who Used Brains,Not Brutality,to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a 2008 book written by an American airman who played a key role in tracking down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Ali H. Soufan is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 New Yorker article described Soufan as coming closer than anyone to preventing the September 11 attacks and implied that he would have succeeded had the CIA been willing to share information with him. He resigned from the FBI in 2005 after publicly chastising the CIA for not sharing intelligence with him which could have prevented the attacks.
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee,head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency,the United States Department of Defense,and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation,binding in stress positions,and waterboarding—and stated that such acts,widely regarded as torture,might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
John Anthony Rizzo was an American attorney who worked as a lawyer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the deputy counsel or acting general counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the War on Terror,during which the CIA held dozens of detainees in black site prisons around the globe.
Following the September 11 attacks of 2001 and subsequent War on Terror,the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established a "Detention and Interrogation Program" that included a network of clandestine extrajudicial detention centers,officially known as "black sites",to detain,interrogate,and often torture suspected enemy combatants,usually with the acquiescence,if not direct collaboration,of the host government.
