CIA Assassin
and torture Manuals
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Manuals
KUBARK
Counterintelligence Interrogation This
127-page report, classified Secret, was drafted in July 1963 as a
comprehensive guide for training interrogators in the art of
obtaining intelligence from "resistant sources." KUBARK--a CIA
codename for itself--describes the qualifications of a successful
interrogator, and reviews the theory of non-coercive and coercive
techniques for breaking a prisoner. Some recommendations are very
specific. The report recommends, for example, that in choosing an
interrogation site "the electric current should be known in advance,
so that transformers and other modifying devices will be on hand if
needed." Of specific relevance to the current scandal in Iraq is
section nine, "The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of
Resistant Sources," (pp 82-104). Under the subheading, "Threats and
Fears," the CIA authors note that "the threat of coercion usually
weakens or destroys resistance more effectively than coercion
itself. The threat to inflict pain, for example, can trigger fears
more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain." Under the
subheading "Pain," the guidelines discuss the theories behind
various thresholds of pain, and recommend that a subject's
"resistance is likelier to be sapped by pain which he seems to
inflict upon himself" such rather than by direct torture. The report
suggests forcing the detainee to stand at attention for long periods
of time. A section on sensory deprivations suggests imprisoning
detainees in rooms without sensory stimuli of any kind, "in a cell
which has no light," for example. "An environment still more subject
to control, such as water-tank or iron lung, is even more
effective," the KUBARK manual concludes.
Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual -- 1983 This secret manual was compiled from sections of the KUBARK guidelines, and from U.S. Military Intelligence field manuals written in the mid 1960s as part of the Army's Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program codenamed "Project X." The manual was used in numerous Latin American countries as an instructional tool by CIA and Green Beret trainers between 1983 and 1987 and became the subject of executive session Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in 1988 because of human rights abuses committed by CIA-trained Honduran military units. The manual allocates considerable space to the subject of "coercive questioning" and psychological and physical techniques. The original text stated that "we will be discussing two types of techniques, coercive and non-coercive. While we do not stress the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them." After Congress began investigating human rights violations by U.S.-trained Honduran intelligence officers, that passage was hand edited to read "while we deplore the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them so that you may avoid them." Although the manual advised methods of coercion similar to those used in the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. forces, it also carried a prescient observation: "The routine use of torture lowers the moral caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts those that rely on it…."
CIA Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare A tactical manual for the revolutionary. First published by the Central Intelligence Agency and distributed to the Contras in Central America
CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents by Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh
Media
CIA Publishes Its Own
"Assassin's Manual," Proving It Condones Killing Those Who Oppose
U.S. Policy