August 1, 2002-Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, [Jay S. Bybee] issues a memo [drafted by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo] secretly authorizing the C.I.A. to inflict pain and suffering on detainees during interrogations, up to the level caused by “organ failure.” This document now widely known as the Torture Memo, which Addington helped to draft, also advised that, under the doctrine of “necessity,” the President could supersede national and international laws prohibiting torture. (The document was leaked to the press in 2004, after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.) (O) (AA) [For more detailed and important info, see (DD), pg. xv] This “August 1, 2002 OLC legal opinion that has yet to be publicly released. [12/11/08]” (DD) Rescinded by Jack Goldsmith, the new Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in December 2003. (DD)

September 16, 2002- “During the week of September 16, 2002, a group of interrogators and behavioral scientists from GTMO travelled to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and attended training conducted by instructors from JPRA’s SERE school.” (DD)

September 25, 2002- “a delegation of senior Administration lawyers, including Mr. Haynes, Mr. Rizzo, and Mr. Addington, visited GTMO.” (DD)

October 2, 2002- “Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA’s CounterTerrorist Center, attended a meeting of GTMO staff. […] [His] advice to GTMO on applicable legal obligations was similar to the analysis of those obligations in OLC’s first Bybee memo. […] ‘“It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong.”’” (DD)

Early October 2002- two GTMO behavioral scientists who had attended the JPRA-led training at Fort Bragg drafted a memo proposing new interrogation techniques for use at GTMO. According to one of those two behavioral scientists, there was “increasing pressure to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” He added that if the interrogation policy memo did not contain coercive techniques, then it “wasn’t going to go very far.” (DD)

October 11, 2002- The “coercive interrogation policy at Guantánamo begins with a request by J.T.F.-170’s commander, Major General Michael Dunlavey, to make interrogations more aggressive.” (O) (DD)

October 11, 2002- Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver (the top legal adviser to J.T.F.-170, later promoted to the staff of the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, where she specializes in detainee issues.) reasons U.S. soldiers preparing to violate these laws [Uniform Code of Military Justice]in their interrogations might be able to obtain “permission, or immunity” from higher authorities “in advance.” (O) “though she expected that a broader legal review conducted at more senior levels would follow her own.” (DD)

October 12, 2003- “Sanchez issued a new policy …eliminating many of the previously authorized aggressive techniques. The new policy, however, contained ambiguities with respect to certain techniques, such as the use of dogs in interrogations, and led to confusion about which techniques were permitted.” (DD)

October 2002- Pentagon’s General Counsel William Haynes gives a speech at the conservative Federalist Society, disparaging critics who accused the Pentagon of mistreating detainees. [A year later, President Bush nominated him to the federal appeals court in Virginia.] (O)

October 25, 2002-“[The Commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)] General Hill forwarded the GTMO request from Major General Dunlavey [to make interrogations more aggressive] to General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. […] The Deputy Commander of the Department of Defense’s Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) at GTMO told the Committee: “CITF was troubled with the rationale that techniques used to harden resistance to interrogations would be the basis for the utilization of techniques to obtain information.” (DD)

Late October, 2002-Major General Geoffrey Miller assumes “command of Guantánamo Bay, and, on the assumption that prisoners like Qahtani had been trained by Al Qaeda to resist questioning, he pushed his superiors hard for more flexibility in interrogations.” (O)

Early November, 2002-“in a series of memos responding to the Joint Staff’s call for comments on GTMO’s [Dunlavey’s/10/11/02] request the military services [ALL 4] identified serious legal concerns about the techniques and called for additional analysis.” Mr. Haynes “did not recall” hearing about military concerns. [(DD) Details: xviii)]

November 2002-“Captain (now Rear Admiral) Jane Dalton, Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [Meyers] […] directed her staff to initiate a thorough legal and policy review of the techniques. That review, however, was cut short.” [She said by Meyers and Haynes-neither “recalled”, but neither challenged her.] (DD)

November 23, 2002-“The interrogation [of Mohammed al-Khatani] itself, which actually began on November 23, 2002, a week before the Secretary’s December 2, 2002 grant of blanket authority for the use of aggressive techniques, continued through December and into mid-January 2003.” (DD)