"How tough should we get in the fight against terror?" "Don't move!" " BABY CRYING" " Oh, that is unbearable." "America's secret programme of enhanced interrogation, condemned as torture." "This is a dark, dark chapter, and it's a chapter we must learn from." "But did the extreme measures used after 9/11 yield life-saving intelligence?" "Heels back on the wall!" "Look at me." "Look at me!" "Look at me!" "For the first time ever, a CIA water boarding victim describes his ordeal." "TRANSLATION:" "Water would go up the nose and into the lungs." "And one of the men in charge admits the programme involved torture." "Was this torture by beginners?" "Well, we had to do something." "Tonight, we hear how Britain shared in intelligence straight from the torture room." "Get down." "I'm going to ask you a question." "Do you understand me?" "What price should we pay to stop the next terror attack?" "And should inflicting pain and fear during interrogations play a part?" "Good morning." "I'm Malcolm." "This is the safety briefing we're going to go over." "US Navy instructor Malcolm Nance used to train soldiers how to resist torture." "He's an expert in a technique with its roots in the Dark Ages - water boarding." "First things first." "This is going to be the first time anyone will have ever seen what a real process looks like." "There are two other boards in the world that have been used." "It was his military training programme which was copied by the CIA and used to break terror suspects." "For Panorama, he agreed to recreate some of the techniques." "This is a dangerous process we're going to go through here today." "It is very dangerous." "It became known as the Enhanced Interrogation Programme and was set up by the CIA as a cornerstone of President Bush's war on terror." "It took place in at least 11 secret locations across the world, called black sites." "The most notorious was codenamed Cobalt." "It's understood at one time to have been located here at this disused brick factory in Afghanistan." "There are few first-hand accounts of what went on inside, but we found a former CIA interrogator who we understand worked there." "You know that the sun will rise once a day, but not if you're in the hands of the CIA." "We will control whether you sleep or not and when you sleep or not and whether the sun comes up or not and where in the universe you are." "CALL TO PRAYER SOUNDS" "Mohammad Shari'ya was a prisoner in Cobalt." "Snatched out of Pakistan in 2003, he was accused of being a member of Al-Qaeda." "It's something he has always denied." "For five months, he was chained to a wall." "TRANSLATION:" "My legs were chained to a ring." "The chain was only long enough to move from the bed to the toilet." "Mohammed drew us the floor plan of the facility." "He was held in cell one." "Down the hall was cell nine, the torture room." "He says the room was equipped with a tilting water board and two blackout boxes." "He was put in the small one." "TRANSLATION:" "You cannot imagine how small, how tight the box was to stuff in a human being." "They placed a metal padlock on the outside." "There were holes on both sides." "They would poke things through them, such as sticks." "I agreed to undergo some of the techniques the CIA used." "Under the supervision of Malcolm Nance, we had a blackout box built to the exact specifications." "One detainee was in the box for 29 hours over three weeks." "'I wanted to see how long I could last.'" "Up here." "Up here." "Stop there." "Get in the box." "Put your stupid head down." "Down." "Crouch." "Crouch." "Oh." "Don't move." "Agh." "Lock this one." "Oh." "OK." "This is going to be mind over matter." "It's just a box." "I'm going to tell myself this is just a box." "And how bad can a box be?" "and..." "let's see how long I can stand this." "'After only two minutes it was becoming suffocatingly hot 'and claustrophobic.'" "Oh." "I'm just kind of putting all my body weight on my hands at this point because my foot hurts too much." "'Then came deafening sounds, designed to mess with my mind.'" "Can I get my right knee down?" "Get my head up." "Oh." "BABY CRYING" "This hurts." "What is that noise?" "Oh." "That is unbearable." "'It's noises that are selected to play upon your psychological state.'" "Human beings, whether you are a parent, a mother, a father, or not, respond instinctively to the sound of an infant in distress." "Your pulse goes up, you become stressed." "It will make you crazy." "LOUD THUD" "'I'd now been in the box for over ten minutes.'" "You know, you'd think that you could just stay in this cos it's just a box but it's just an absolute nightmare." "Can't move, it hurts, there's a baby screaming, my leg is killing me." "'Two minutes later and I'd reached my limit.'" "OK, it's so stuffy in here I can hardly breathe." "All stop." "All stop." "Let me out of here." "All stop." "0-3 all stop, all stop, all stop." "I have to get out." "This is..." "I can't breathe." "It's hot." "Let me out." "Stand up!" "Step up." "Step up." "Take this one." "'Panic began to set in 'and I know what they mean now when they say everyone has' a breaking point, a point at which you will basically say anything just to make it stop." "'I had lasted just 12 minutes." "'I was fine, but any longer was unthinkable.'" "The CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Programme was born in the aftermath of this century's defining moment." "World Trade Center, 10-60, send every available ambulance, everything you've got to the World Trade Center now." "The most lethal terror attack in history had been committed right in the heart of America." "Division one, 10-4, that's confirmed." "We have fire on several floors, the upper floors of the World Trade Center." "If America's deadliest enemy could take 3,000 lives here, what next?" "Fearing another attack, Washington wanted a new interrogation model... ..to break the fanatics." "And this is happening at Stead Air Force Base near Reno, Nevada, where airmen are trained to resist Communist brainwashing." "The CIA turned to a secretive 60-year-old military programme." "The hole is one of the torture devices installed at the survival school to give students a taste of Communist persuasion methods." "Sere" " Survival, evasion, resistance, escape - teaches soldiers to withstand torture methods taken from the conflicts in Vietnam, Korea and Nazi Germany." "The cramped sweatbox." "Later taught by Malcolm Nance, these are the methods adopted by the CIA." "At that point, an "all stop" command will be given three times." "He abhors torture and is horrified the CIA used these training techniques on those it suspected of terrorism." "Everybody understand that?" "These close confinement boxes were used by the SS when interrogating, and they would stuff these British and American agents into them and drive them mad." "This man, Lt Col James Mitchell, a retired Sere psychologist, was contracted by the CIA to develop its new interrogation programme." "He personally interrogated key detainees." "You never like to watch a human being suffer, that's not..." "James Mitchell refused to speak to Panorama." "It was very difficult to do but we had to do our duty." "We were trying to save American lives." "In 2009, the politics changed." "President Obama shut down the CIA's programme and a Senate committee began to investigate." "With unprecedented access to six million CIA documents, its verdict was damning when it was published last September." "This programme was really poorly done." "Poorly managed, poorly carried out." "And when the staff really looked at the facts of the cases, examined the cables, the e-mails, they found that there was no actionable intelligence gained, that most of it came from another direction." "James Mitchell is furious at the findings." "Well, Feinstein's trying to rewrite history." "In my view, what she's done is she's gone back into six million pages' worth of information, cherry-picked it, put together some kind of prosecutorial brief and then released it, without ever us having a chance to defend ourselves" "or try to explain anything." "The CIA has hit back at the critics, providing new detail that argues enhanced interrogation led to targets it regarded as terrorists." "So, who's right?" "America's first big catch was Abu Zubaydah." "His case featured heavily in the Senate investigation." "He was thought to be linked to Al-Qaeda and to have information about another imminent attack." "First, the FBI questioned him, then the CIA took over." "The first violent procedure they used was called walling." "Stand straight." "Stand straight." "It's designed to shock and overpower the prisoner." "Stand straight!" "CIA rules specified a flexible wall had to be used." "The idea was to maximise the fear but escape any charges of torture." "Look at me." "Look at me." "Look at me!" "It hurts, it's shocking." "Stand straight!" "Don't move!" "A brutal lesson in who's boss." "Even sampling this makes you feel beaten and angry." "The CIA often ignored its own rules." "At first, Abu Zubaydah was slammed into concrete." "He was subjected to almost all of the CIA's experimental techniques." "Day after day, Abu Zubaydah was strapped down and water boarded." "In a state of controlled drowning, he became hysterical, convulsed, and once became unresponsive." "There were plans to cremate him if he died." "The CIA's interrogation techniques had been legally sanctioned by the White House." "But, as word leaked out, it caused increasing public concern." "In 2006, President Bush was finally forced to admit that the programme existed." "He was unapologetic." "Zubaydah was defiant and evasive." "He declared his hatred of America." "I can say that questioning the detainees in this programme has given us information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks." "Because it was legally approved, the CIA has always maintained that what it did was not torture." "'But Buzzy Krongard, 'one of the most senior men responsible for the programme, 'made an unprecedented admission during our interview.'" "Do you acknowledge this is torture by any common-sense definition of the word?" "Well, let's put it this way, it is meant to make him as uncomfortable as possible, so I assume, without getting into semantics, that's torture." "I'm comfortable with saying that." "We were told by legal authorities that we could torture people." "Now, you can say that's wrong." "But was it necessary to torture?" "There are two very different accounts." "The Senate report says Abu Zubaydah gave a monumental piece of intelligence to the FBI before the CIA even began its enhanced interrogation." "It's my understanding that most of the intelligence was gained by an FBI interrogator, actually." "That the techniques, once administered, and particularly once administered 24/7 for 17 straight days in the month of August, did not reveal actionable intelligence." "Leading Al-Qaeda expert Ali Soufan was one of the FBI's interrogators." "He's a fierce critic of the CIA's methods." "Without any pain or drama, Abu Zubaydah told him who had organised the 9/11 attacks." "Abu Zubaydah was looking for a deal." "Abu Zubaydah, he cooperated literally at the second question." "We got even the information about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as a mastermind of 9/11 before the CIA people came to the site." "We were getting some good information." "This is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed." "The FBI had found out just how dangerous he was but he was still on the loose." "The CIA says its interrogation techniques helped lead to his capture." "You start putting pictures up on the wall and drawing lines and how they all relate." "Intelligence is not linear." "The information we got from Abu Zubaydah, we never would have gotten anywhere without it." "The CIA says that Abu Zubaydah gave them a critical detail that started a chain of events that led to the capture of this man," "Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a 9/11 plotter." "Under enhanced interrogation, the CIA says bin al-Shibh helped lead them to America's most wanted terrorist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM." "Would we have ever gotten KSM without him?" "In my opinion, clearly not in the timeframe that we did get him." "A number of very, very serious planned plots did not occur by virtue of our having captured KSM." "Both the FBI and the Senate Committee dispute this chain of events." "There are many other factors which led to" "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's capture." "Either way, a year and a half after 9/11, the man who had organised the worst attack on American soil in history had finally been caught in Pakistan." "Less than two hours after his capture," "CIA interrogators requested permission to enter" "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into the programme." "In store for him, too, was the water." "This is not controlled drowning, it is drowning, in the end." "The water boarding procedure has never been demonstrated accurately in public before." "We can't broadcast all the details." "Done wrong, the person can die on the device." "Chris Sampson, part of Malcolm Nance's team, agreed to put himself through it, under strictly controlled conditions, with medical backup." "He'd never been water boarded before." "I wasn't prepared to undergo the ordeal." "Chris was completely immobilised on the board." "Yes." "Strapped to the water board, you will confess to anything." "Yes, you're drowning!" "After 18 seconds, the procedure was stopped." "Breathe!" "Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe." "When you can breathe, sit up." "Sit on bench." "Take off blindfold." "Breathe." "And a big, deep breath for me." "After he'd been checked over by paramedics, I spoke to Chris." "Is your heart still pounding?" "Maybe a bit, yeah." "I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take long to break, truly break." "How much worse would it be if... ..you know, there were really hostile people doing this to you?" "A lot worse." "Yeah, a lot worse." " It's just, get of the board, get off, make them stop." " Yeah." " You want to do it?" " I do not want to do it, no." "The CIA says it only water boarded three people." "But Mohammad, who spent over a year in the black site in Afghanistan, says it was done to him, too." "He described an experimental board that tilted, which increases the risk of death." "TRANSLATION:" "The board would rotate 360 degrees." "Water was poured onto the prisoner's face after a bag had been placed on his head." "Water would go up the nose and into the lungs." "It felt like suffocating." "I was on the verge of death." "We put Mohammad's account to the CIA." "They did not respond." "The CIA has, however, admitted to significant lapses in its initial interrogation activities, including instances where unauthorised techniques were used." "Was this torture by beginners?" "Uh..." "That's what it sounds like." "We had to do something." "So it was learning as you go and trying to balance efficacy and morality." "And you're saying..." "Look, wait a minute, you're saying we were clueless, right?" "Well, the people whose job it is to tell us, they were clueless, too - the Justice Department." "Water boarding is designed to instil abject terror, but whilst Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being water boarded something extraordinary happened - he taunted his torturers." "Despite 183 pourings in a two-week period, he resisted." "James Mitchell personally conducted the procedure." "He would actually hold his hand up, because he'd figured out how long we could water board him, and count down the minutes until the end of the water board session and then go like this." "And when it became obvious to us that he could resist it, we stopped it because we didn't want to hurt him, you know." "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's interrogation became a montage of brutality." "He was subjected to a range of the CIA's techniques, including sleep deprivation." "Under pressure, he began to talk, often making up plots and laying false trails." "But in amongst the lies, the CIA says there were critical details." "A snippet about a money transfer that ultimately helped lead to the capture of the man suspected of being behind the Bali bombs..." "..an attack that killed over 200 people." "His name was Hambali, dubbed the Bin Laden of the East." "Former FBI agent Ali Soufan says the CIA has overstated the role of enhanced interrogation in leading to Hambali." "Ali's account, set out in his book, remains classified." "All redacted." "What I have here is the truth, because you don't redact lies." "And I can tell you the truth is here but unfortunately they redact it." "The CIA has said enhanced interrogation helped stop a number of plots and lead to terrorists, including some with British links." "The Senate report disputes these claims." "Either way, we've learned information direct from torture sessions was shared with British intelligence." "During the interrogation of KSM, were you sending information over kind of real-time?" "I can't think of two intelligence services working in a more harmonious or closer manner, and that, I think, had a lot to do with the relationship at the top." "Anything that we thought the Brits would be interested in and particularly represented a threat," "I guarantee you was - zoom - shipped out." "The close intelligence sharing relationship between Britain and America is no secret." "But how much did Britain know about the torture?" "Did British intelligence know that harsh interrogation methods were being used?" "It's hard for me to think that they didn't." "They're professional intelligence people." "I mean, obviously." "The Foreign Office told us..." "Over time, the CIA's torture methods permeated through the US military..." "..and the West's moral authority began to decline." "In the detainee camps of Iraq, the so-called Islamic State was born." "Now, it routinely parades hostages wearing US-style detainee uniforms." "Some say they've been water boarded as payback." "Do you think the torture programme, the American torture programme, helped fuel the growth of Isis?" "Absolutely." "Absolutely." "I mean, they put people in orange suits because we put people in orange suits." "It's an uncomfortable truth that the torture programme did yield a large web of detail, so was it worth it?" "Almost every intelligence professional we've spoken to believes there are far more effective ways to get information." "But there are some stalwarts." "Would you do it again?" "I would have loved for us to have been much better prepared on 9/11 from all this." "Absolutely." "Would I do it again?" "You bet." "Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are still in Guantanamo." "As for Mohammed Shari'ya, one day the CIA took him out of the black site." "He was never charged with a crime." "When he finally saw his family again, his two-year-old daughter didn't recognise him." "TRANSLATION:" "Even when my wife was trying to convince her by saying," ""This is your dad," she burst into tears and ran away from me." "It was very emotional." "It was very difficult." "I was extremely upset." "My precious, little daughter that I'd been missing for so long was afraid of me." "America's torture programme may have won intelligence battles but it's fuelled hatred in some parts of the world." "This is a dark, dark chapter and it's a chapter we must learn from and I think the world should learn from it as well." "This is not the America that we stand for, and it violates our values, it violates our system of justice, and we must never really let it happen again." "Today's conflict may last for generations." "But for now, at least, America has stepped back from the idea that torture is the way to fight terror."