Report: CIA Held Mock Executions

CIA interrogators staged "mock executions" while questioning terror suspects, according to a long-suppressed report by the CIA's inspector general. The report is to be released next week, but sources told Newsweek it contains shocking revelations about "enhanced" interrogations with terror suspects. The suspected bomber of the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a pistol to the head by his interrogators, the report says. (A federal law bans threatening prisoners with "imminent death.") A mock execution was staged in a room next to another detainee in order to scare him into giving information. A gunshot was fired next door so the detainee would think another prisoner had been killed. Bush administration officials confirmed that Nashiri was one of three detainees who underwent waterboarding, though video of his interrogations were ordered destroyed. "Mock executions" were not listed in the document of acceptable "enhanced" interrogation techniques penned by Bush lawyers. Top Bush CIA officials, including directors Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden, argued for the report's secrecy when it came out in 2004 on the grounds that it would damage America's reputation.