The CIA's favorite form of torture

As proof, the KUBARK manual refers to a raft of CIA-sponsored Cold War research on sensory deprivation, including studies at McGill University in Montreal and the National Institute of Mental Health. Subjects in that research were placed in isolated water tanks or confined to silent rooms on soft mattresses, wearing blacked-out goggles and earmuffs. In one study, subjects experienced "visual imagery somewhat resembling hallucinations" within three hours. In another study, only 6 of 17 subjects could last 36 hours on a mattress in a quiet tank that prohibited movement. The stress is described in the KUBARK manual as "unbearable."

The dark world of CIA-sponsored sensory deprivation research is plumbed in depth in the book "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror," written by McCoy. "They've been doing this for 50 years," McCoy explained. His book discusses more CIA-sponsored research at McGill by Dr. Donald O. Hebb, who during the same era placed 22 college students in small, sound-proof cubicles, wearing translucent goggles, thick gloves and a U-shaped pillow around the head. Most subjects quit within two days and all experienced hallucinations and "deterioration in the capacity to think systematically."

The theory behind the CIA's fascination with sensory deprivation, McCoy said, is that subjects are so starved for stimulation that they will even crave interaction with their interrogator. "The idea is that they break down and then they cling to the interrogator, because you are hungry for stimulus," McCoy explained.

There is a debate about whether breaking down the subjects in this manner produces any good intelligence. Military intelligence experts raise serious doubts. Peter Bauer, a former senior interrogation resistance trainer for NATO, called sensory deprivation methods "coercive techniques that could produce false information, rather than actionable intelligence." Bauer, who was the most forward-deployed Army interrogator during Operation Desert Storm, said sensory deprivation can drive people to come up with lies "based on ending the harsh treatment. That is not an effective way to conduct intelligence collection operations."

But the White House has apparently adopted the CIA's logic, which suggests that sensory deprivation is not going to go away any time soon. When President Bush unveiled the CIA interrogation program Sept. 6, he called it "one of the most vital tools" against al-Qaida. "Part of it is that they really do believe these techniques work," explained Darius Rejali, a professor at Reed College and author of the upcoming book "Torture and Democracy," due out later this year. "It is a kind of hall-of-mirrors effect. All the information they are getting is all from coercive interrogation," he said. "Everything begins to reflect everything else. It all looks like it is making sense."

The White House has pledged to inform the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of all future CIA interrogation methods. The upcoming executive order is supposed to be a public document and will most likely rationalize the CIA program in cryptic legalese. Congressional staffers said they expect the CIA to issue separate and secret guidelines that explicitly lay out for agents what interrogation tools are at their disposal.

If the White House is preparing a bid to legally rationalize psychologically coercive interrogations, it must do so in a new legal environment that gives administration attorneys little room to maneuver. The Supreme Court has ruled that the basic tenets of the Geneva Conventions apply to all detainees. And the Military Commissions Act contains an abuse ban designed to rein in administration attorneys who have used the most imaginative interpretations of the law to proceed with coercive interrogations. It is that law that requires the White House to issue the executive order that will govern future CIA interrogations.

But human rights groups were confounded when Bush signed the Military Commissions Act into law on Oct. 17 and announced that it would allow what he has called "tough" CIA interrogations to continue. "This program has been one of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history," Bush added proudly.

If the White House chooses to go the sensory deprivation route, it is unclear what, if anything, Congress could do to put a stop to it. There are limited tools available to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the committee with direct oversight of the agency, to step in. As one committee aide explained, "We don't have a veto over it."

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