Did White House O.K. Earliest Detainee Abuse?
It is clear that increasingly abusive interrogation techniques were used on Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee, in the months between his capture and the first Justice Department memo authorizing harsh interrogations. But the legal guidance that authorized those early interrogations remains shrouded in secrecy. Zubaydah was picked up on March 28, 2002. The Justice Department issued its first memo on torture four months later on Aug. 1. Zubaydah’s lawyer, Brent Mickum, believes documents and testimony in the public record establish “beyond question that Abu Zubaydah was subjected to torture before the issuance of the Aug. 1 memorandum.” ‘Harsher and Harsher Methods’ The public record includes testimony from Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator who was with Zubaydah during April and May of 2002. Soufan told Congress last wee? that “contractors had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.” Soufan testified that in the first two months of Zubaydah’s in
