Many FBI Agents Did Not Take Part in Harsh Terrorist Interrogations, Report Says

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of FBI agents have refused to participate in harsh U.S. military and CIA interrogations of terrorist suspects because they thought the techniques were unduly coercive, ineffective and potentially illegal, a three-year Justice Department investigation has found.

The agents' concerns were brought to the attention of senior Bush administration officials as early as August of 2002, when FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered agents to remove themselves from interrogations they considered to be excessively harsh or beyond the pale of FBI guidelines.

The concerns were overruled, however, by Pentagon and White House officials who determined that harsh interrogation techniques have been necessary, in some cases, to acquire information useful in defending the country and its allies against the threat of terrorist attacks.

In a 438-page report of the investigation's findings, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine describes an ongoing battle that pitted FBI and Justice Department officials against their Pentagon and White House counterparts over the treatment of suspects picked up in what the administration calls its global war on terror.

FBI and Justice Department officials were continually frustrated by the use of harsh interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel and CIA officers in Iraq, Afghanistan, the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba., and various secret locations worldwide, the report concluded.

As early as 2002, FBI agents described what one called the "borderline torture" of a terrorist suspect being interrogated by CIA agents at a secret location. It wasn't until two years later, though, after abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became public, that the FBI directed agents to report suspected prisoner abuse by CIA or military personnel, the investigation found.

Between 2001 and the end of 2004 - the period covered by the Justice Department investigation - nearly 1,000 FBI agents participated in interrogations of suspected terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo.

Overwhelmingly, the FBI agents refused to participate in interrogations that went beyond agency strictures that prohibit "brutality, physical violence, duress or intimidation," the report states.

"We found that the vast majority of FBI agents in the military zones understood that existing FBI policies prohibiting coercive interrogation tactics continued to apply in the military zone and that they should not engage in conduct overseas that would not be permitted under FBI policy in the United States," the report states.

Of the 450 FBI agents who served at Guantanamo, a majority reported that "they never saw or heard about" the use there of any of three dozen harsh techniques such as waterboarding, using military dogs to frighten detainees or mistreating the Koran.

More than 200 FBI agents, however, said they had observed or heard about the use of sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, the playing of loud rock music, shackling a prisoner's hands close to their feet or the use of bright flashing strobe lights "to keep detainees awake or otherwise wear down their resistance."

A few FBI agents reported what the Justice Department report called "harsh or unusual interrogation techniques," such as "using a growling military dog to intimidate a detainee during an interrogation; twisting a detainee's thumbs back; using a female interrogator to touch or provoke a detainee in a sexual manner; wrapping a detainee's head in duct tape; and exposing a detainee to pornography."

Atlanta native David Nahmias, who served as counsel to the assistant U.S. Attorney General, coordinating investigations of terrorist activities, told Justice Department investigators that he alerted the White House National Security Council legal staff of FBI concerns in late 2003.

Nahmias is now the U.S. Attorney for northern Georgia, overseeing a staff of some 75 federal prosecutors.

Among the concerns Nahmias raised were that a female military interrogator had allegedly rubbed her bare breasts in a detainee's face and that another interrogator had rubbed what he said was "pig oil" on his body before questioning a detainee, playing on intense Islamic aversions to immodesty and pork.

Nahmias also told the inspector general that he raised concerns about the Defense Department's interrogations approach with the Pentagon's Office of the General Counsel and with the head of the Pentagon's group that dealt with the question of whether detainees were enemy combatants, the Justice Department report states.

"Nahmias told us that he never heard reports of actual physical mistreatment, but that he and the FBI were concerned that the techniques the military was using were stupid, demeaning and ineffective," the report states.

On Capitol Hill, legislators investigating the administration's treatment of terrorist suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, said Tuesday's report gave new impetus to their inquiry.

"While I take comfort in knowing that, for the most part, FBI field agents followed the agency's policies regarding interrogations, I find it very disturbing that many senior FBI and DOJ officials failed to take strong action after identifying interrogation abuses," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a statement.

Conyers has scheduled a June 26 hearing on the matter to hear testimony from Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, and former Justice Department legal counsel John Yoo.