In only his second formal meeting with reporters since his confirmation, Mr. Mukasey said Friday that he was continuing to review the "current program" of interrogation methods used against terrorism suspects, as well as the legal opinions prepared in the Justice Department that authorized harsh techniques.
The brief includes a nine-page declaration by Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who says the government is "now engaged in a robust program" of interrogation of the detainees.
He describes Guantánamo as "a model facility — safe, secure, and humane" and writes that the C.I.A.'s program of "enhanced interrogation techniques" was "safe, legal, and effective".
The report — actually, a 499-page executive summary of a much longer (and still classified) study — concludes that not only did the spy agency's program of "enhanced interrogation techniques" fail to turn up any vital, life-saving intelligence, but its extent and effectiveness were repeatedly misrepresented to the White House and Congress, under whose authority it was pursued.
No sooner had the order been issued than the C.I.A. revived its program of coercive interrogations, which had been dormant since the Supreme Court's ruling that all detainees must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
During the time Mr. Padilla was held in the brig, according to his filings in the case, he "suffered gross physical and psychological abuse at the hands of federal officials as part off a systematic program of abusive interrogation intended to break down Mr. Padilla's humanity and his will to live".
After years of painstaking work at a cost of an estimated $40 million, the Senate Intelligence Committee's Democratic staff is finally ready to release what they view as the most authoritative, in-depth and comprehensive study about the CIA's former program of enhanced interrogations.
As one of the first close associates of Osama bin Laden to be caught after the 9/11 attacks, Abu Zubaydah became a test case on which the C.I.A. built and then adjusted its program of aggressive interrogations and overseas secret jails in the years that followed.
Despite irrefutable evidence in the Senate Intelligence Committee report that the CIA engaged in grotesque acts of torture in the years after 9/11, a group of former CIA directors and officials have taken to the airwaves to claim these actions were justified as a legally authorized program of "enhanced interrogations".
