Report: Two CIA Black Site Prisons in Lithuania

By Matthew Cole

The Lithuanian government has concluded that the CIA operated a secret "black site" in Lithuania for high-level Al Qaeda detainees, and that a second secret CIA facility was established in the heart of the capital city of Vilnius. The government began an investigation after an exclusive ABC News report that the CIA operated a secret black site prison for terror suspects in the Baltic country in 2004 and 2005.

In a report released Tuesday, the National Security Committee of the Lithuanian parliament recommended that intelligence officials be criminally investigated for their role in establishing the prisons. In addition to the prison outside Vilnius that was located and revealed by ABC News, the report says that Lithuanian intelligence made a guesthouse in downtown Vilnius available for CIA use as early as 2002, though they could not prove that it had been used.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius criticized the U.S. government for establishing the prisons, saying it had manipulated Lithuanian officials with "essentially Soviet methods" into breaking the law. However, he suggested that the second prison, which could only hold one prisoner in a single cell, had never been used.

Arvydas Anusauskas, head of the parliamentary investigating committee, said he did not have enough evidence to prove that the guesthouse had been used, but could not rule out the possibility.

In November, an exclusive ABC News report revealed that the CIA had built one of its secret "black site" prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time.

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004.

Lithuania agreed to allow the CIA prison after President George W. Bush visited the country in 2002 and pledged support for Lithuania's efforts to join NATO. Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists.

"The new members of NATO were so grateful for the U.S. role in getting them into that organization that they would do anything the U.S. asked for during that period," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "They were eager to please and eager to be cooperative on security and on intelligence matters."

Until March 2004, the site was a riding academy and café owned by a local family. The facility is in the town of Antaviliai, in the forest 20 kilometers northeast of the city center of Vilnius, near an exclusive suburb where many government officials live.

Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists

By Brian Ross, Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole, Luis Martinez and Kirit Radia  

On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said "an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned."

The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration's campaign against al Qaeda.

In his speech about added troops for Afghanistan earlier this month, President Obama made a brief reference to Yemen, saying, "Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold -- whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere -- they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships."

Until tonight, American officials had hedged about any U.S. role in the strikes against Yemen and news reports from Yemen attributed the attacks to the Yemen Air Force.

President Obama placed a call after the strikes to "congratulate" the President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Salih, on his efforts against al Qaeda, according to White House officials.

A Yemeni official at the country's embassy in Washington insisted to ABC News Friday that the Thursday attacks were "planned and executed" by the Yemen government and police.

Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians.

American officials said the missile strikes were intended to disrupt a growing threat from the al Qaeda branch in Yemen, which claims to coordinate terror attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The al Qaeda presence in Yemen has been steadily growing in the last two years. "Al Qaeda generally has been pushed into these ungoverned areas, whether it is the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area [or Yemen]," said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the U.N.'s Taliban al-Qaeda Sancitions Monitoring Committee. "I think many of the key people have moved to Yemen."

The U.S. embassy was attacked by suspected al Qaeda gunmen last year.

And the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Qaaim al-Raymi, has frequently appeared on internet videos, offering an alternative to the training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"If they can go to Yemen just as easily or easier and get training there and come out again," said Barrett, "all your efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan are a waste of time."

Qaaim al-Raymi was considered a prime target of the attack Thursday but was reported to have escaped the attack. However, U.S. officials believe one of his top deputies may have been killed.

After ABC News Report of Secret CIA Prison, Head Spy Resigns

By Matthew Cole and Mark Schone

The head of Lithuanian intelligence resigned Monday in the wake of ABC News' exclusive report that the CIA operated a secret prison for al-Qaeda detainees in 2004 and 2005.

Povilas Malakauskas, head of Lithuania's State Security department, left without prior public notice after two years in the position. Lithuanian media quoted Arydas Anusauskas, head of a parliamentary committee investigating the prison, as saying that the intelligence chief stepped down "in part" because of the government's effort to investigate the details surrounding the CIA facility.

Anusauskas told LNK TV that much of the government's investigation could have been avoided if the intel chief had told the truth about his department's involvement in the CIA program. Anusauskas told ABC News that the resignation was first discussed in September, when Malakauskas refused to provide information to investigators.

On Nov. 18, ABC News revealed the location of the secret prison, where harsh interrogation techniques were allegedly used on accused al-Qaeda terrorists, in a converted horseback riding facility 20 kilometers northeast of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at an attached café, the CIA installed a hidden concrete structure where it could hold up to eight "high value detainees" at a time, a current Lithuanian government official and a former CIA official told ABC News.

For many of the residents of this former Soviet state, it is reminiscent of the KGB's secret prisons. "As a Lithuanian," a local woman told ABC News, "I am not very proud of this."

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said John Sifton, a New York attorney whose firm One World Research investigates human rights abuses. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

After ABC News revealed the location of the prison, a top Lithuanian official said that the report was damaging to his country's reputation.

"Obviously, this is not helping Lithuania's image," Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas told the Baltic News Service. "Therefore it is vital that we conduct an investigation and clear any doubts." Usackas also warned Lithuanians not to believe "rumors or wild tales."

Within weeks, however, the Lithuanian government investigation had confirmed that the CIA operated a secret black site prison in the country.

According to Lithuania's LNK TV, sources told investigators that State Security was involved in coordinating the construction of the prison, and also provided the code name of the operation to transport terror detainees to the prison.

A "Building Within A Building"

It is not known which suspected al-Qaeda figures were in Lithuania, but 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was moved out of the CIA's secret prison in Poland just before the Lithuanian facility was opened. According to sources who say they saw the facility, the riding academy originally consisted of an indoor riding area with a red metallic roof, a stable and a cafe. The CIA built a thick concrete wall inside the riding area. Behind the wall, it built what one Lithuanian source called a "building within a building."

On a series of thick concrete pads, it installed what a source called "prefabricated pods" to house prisoners, each separated from the other by five or six feet. Each pod included a shower, a bed and a toilet. Separate cells were constructed for interrogations. The CIA converted much of the rest of the building into garage space. Intelligence officers working at the prison were housed next door in the converted stable.

A woman who lives near the complex, and who refused to give her name for fear of retribution reports that when she often saw cars with black-tinted windows drive up to the buildings. When a garage door opened, all the lights in the complex would go off until the car had entered the building and the door had closed.

Electrical power for both structures was provided by a 2003 Caterpillar autonomous generator. All the electrical outlets in the renovated structure were 110 volts, meaning they were designed for American appliances. European outlets and appliances typically use 220 volts.

Locals report that English-speaking guards worked at the complex, and often swam in a nearby lake. The guards were rotated every 90 days.

Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004. ABC News first reported that Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists.

The CIA purchased the riding academy property in March 2004, the same month Lithuania marked its formal admission to NATO. Poland joined NATO in 1999, and Romania joined in 2004.

The CIA opened the prison in Sept. 2004, and closed it in Nov. 2005, former CIA officials told ABC News.

The CIA declined to talk about the prison. "The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been."

Mercenaries? CIA Says Expanded Role for Contractors Legitimate

By Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito and Brian Ross

The CIA and the military special forces have quietly expanded the role of private contractors, including Blackwater, to include their involvement in raids and secret paramilitary operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, four current and former U.S. military and intelligence officers tell ABC News.

American law specifically prohibits the use of private soldiers or mercenaries in combat, according to Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

"The United States Congress has never approved the use of private contractors for combat operations," Turley told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

CIA officials acknowledge that two private contractors were killed in Afghanistan in 2003 when they and other members of a CIA paramilitary team were in a firefight with Taliban fighters on a remote road.

In another case, in 2006, 12 Blackwater "tactical action operatives" were recruited for a secret raid into Pakistan by the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, according to a military intelligence planner. The target of the planned raid, code-named Vibrant Fury, was a suspected al Qaeda training camp, according to the planner, who said he did not know the outcome of the mission.

In Iraq, a high-ranking U.S. Army officer told ABC News, Blackwater personnel have been used in military operations that "are supposed to include U.S. soldiers but often end up with the Blackwater people on their own."

The New York Times reported Friday that such raids against Iraqi insurgents were conducted "almost nightly" between 2004 and 2006, and it quoted several Blackwater guards as saying "the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred."

"A Very Serious Offense to Our Constitution"

The Washington Post today quoted former government officials as saying Blackwater's actions included "active participation in raids overseen by CIA or special forces personnel."

American officials reject the term "mercenary," but others say the term applies if the role of private American contractors has been so significantly expanded beyond their previously known assignments in security and logistics.

"If contractors have been sent on true combat missions, missions where they are supposed to kill and engage the enemy, then they are by every definition of the term mercenaries," said Professor Turley.

"To have such a force without allowing Congress to approve it would be considered a very serious offense to our Constitution," said Turley.

A CIA spokesperson, George Little, acknowledged the use of contractors "in roles that complement and enhance the skills of our workforce, just as American law permits."

Little said "it's the way things actually work in the real world," and he stressed that CIA officials always retained "decision-making authority and bear responsibility for results."

"CIA does not use Blackwater to perform our core missions of collecting intelligence, performing analysis or conducting covert operations," said Little.

A U.S. government official told ABC News the private contractors "don't kick down doors" but only fulfill a "security role" on certain CIA missions.

The new CIA director under the Obama administration, Leon Panetta, has continued a "rigorous look" at the use of contractors and a "thorough review" of Blackwater's contracts.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the allegation that private contractors were used in combat situations by the American military was "bogus, nothing more than a wild and unsubstantiated allegation." He said there was no evidence that the military had ever contracted with Blackwater for such missions.

Morrell did not respond to specific questions about the top-secret Vibrant Fury operation in 2006 that allegedly recruited Blackwater operatives.

"If you have a team of private contractors who are going into Pakistan with the approval of the United States government to engage in combat, then you have very serious international and domestic problems," said Professor Turley.

Blackwater, now re-named Xe, has a "select" program within its operation that helped to staff some of the expanded and more difficult roles in the two war zones, according to U.S. military officials, former U.S. intelligence officers and a person with knowledge of Blackwater operations.

A 2007 on-line recruitment advertisement for the Blackwater USA select program described the openings as positions in a "Mobile Security Contract in support of a U.S. government agency."

Candidates were required to be able to maintain a Top Secret clearance and have "one year of experience in Iraq, Afghanistan or other High Threat Environment."

A U.S. Army officer who ran human intelligence collections activities in Afghanistan in 2003, Tony Shaffer, says he never worked directly with Blackwater personnel but frequently encountered them in secret operations run by the military and the CIA.

"I actually met with the CIA and Blackwater operatives who were working together, totally hand in glove, to conduct operational planning and support of their objectives, which are paramilitary operations along the border," said Shaffer, then a Major but now a Lieutenant Colonel who teaches at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.

"The idea was to bring to bear additional resources for specific special operations missions," he said. "The purpose for that, in my judgment, may have been to avoid some level of oversight."

In the case of Operation Vibrant Fury, military personnel say the decision to request Blackwater personnel came after a request for military "tier one" operatives was denied.

A spokesperson for Blackwater said the company was unaware of any operation with the code name Vibrant Fury.

The mission was to raid, destroy and kill al Qaeda members at a camp in Pakistan where guards for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri were believed to be training, according to the military planner.

A second person briefed on the operation confirmed Blackwater agreed to provide operatives for the military special forces.

The commanders of the elite special forces, then called Task Force 373, decided to solicit help from Blackwater, said the planner, after military superiors said the men could not be spared from Iraq.

The request to Blackwater was met on Oct. 31, 2006, according to the planner.

Investigation Confirms ABC News Report on Secret CIA Prison

By Matthew Cole and Mark Schone

A Lithuanian government investigation has confirmed an exclusive ABC News report that the CIA operated a secret black site prison in the country, according to a report on Lithuanian television.

According to Lithuania's LNK TV, sources have told investigators that state security was involved in coordinating the construction of the prison, and have also provided the code name of the operation to transport terror detainees to the prison.

Arydas Anusauskas, head of the parliamentary committee investigating the prison, told ABC News he would not comment on the investigation until it is completed. He has previously said the results of the probe will be made public Dec. 22.

On Nov. 18, ABC News revealed the location of a secret prison, where harsh interrogation techniques were allegedly used on accused al-Qaeda terrorists, in a converted horseback riding facility 20 kilometers northeast of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at an attached café, the CIA installed a hidden concrete structure where it could hold up to eight "high value detainees" at a time, a current Lithuanian government official and a former CIA official told ABC News.

For many of the residents of this former Soviet state, it is reminiscent of the KGB's secret prisons. "As a Lithuanian," a local woman told ABC News, "I am not very proud of this."

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said John Sifton, a New York attorney whose firm One World Research investigates human rights abuses. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

After ABC News revealed the location of the prison, a top Lithuanian official said that the report was damaging to his country's reputation.

"Obviously, this is not helping Lithuania's image," Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas told the Baltic News Service. "Therefore it is vital that we conduct an investigation and clear any doubts." Usackas also warned Lithuanians not to believe "rumors or wild tales."

A "Building Within A Building"

It is not known which suspected al-Qaeda figures were in Lithuania, but 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was moved out of the CIA's secret prison in Poland just before the Lithuanian facility was opened. According to sources who say they saw the facility, the riding academy originally consisted of an indoor riding area with a red metallic roof, a stable and a cafe. The CIA built a thick concrete wall inside the riding area. Behind the wall, it built what one Lithuanian source called a "building within a building."

On a series of thick concrete pads, it installed what a source called "prefabricated pods" to house prisoners, each separated from the other by five or six feet. Each pod included a shower, a bed and a toilet. Separate cells were constructed for interrogations. The CIA converted much of the rest of the building into garage space. Intelligence officers working at the prison were housed next door in the converted stable.

A local woman who lives near the complex, and who refused to give her name for fear of retribution reports that when she often saw cars with black-tinted windows drive up to the buildings. When a garage door opened, all the lights in the complex would go off until the car had entered the building and the door had closed.

Electrical power for both structures was provided by a 2003 Caterpillar autonomous generator. All the electrical outlets in the renovated structure were 110 volts, meaning they were designed for American appliances. European outlets and appliances typically use 220 volts.

Locals report that English-speaking guards worked at the complex, and often swam in a nearby lake. The guards were rotated every 90 days. Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004. ABC News first reported that Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists, but until now the precise site had not been confirmed. Read that report here. The CIA purchased the property in March 2004, the same month Lithuania marked its formal admission to NATO. Poland joined NATO in 1999, and Romania joined in 2004.

"The older members, the original 15 members of NATO, would never have said 'yes' to something like this," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "But the new members were easy to please."

The CIA opened the prison in Sept. 2004, and closed it in Nov. 2005, former CIA officials told ABC News.

The CIA declined to talk about the prison. "The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been."

Lithuania: ABC News Report 'Not Helping' Our Image

By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross

A top Lithuanian official said that a report by ABC News that it had discovered a secret CIA prison in a former riding academy near Vilnius was damaging to his country's reputation.

"Obviously, this is not helping Lithuania's image," Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas told the Baltic News Service Thursday. "Therefore it is vital that we conduct an investigation and clear any doubts." Usackas also warned Lithuanians not to believe "rumors or wild tales."

On Wednesday, ABC News revealed the location of one of the CIA's secret "black site" prisons, where harsh interrogation techniques were allegedly used on accused al-Qaeda terrorists, in a converted horseback riding facility 20 kilometers northeast of the Lithuanian capital. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at an attached café, the CIA installed a hidden concrete structure where it could hold up to eight "high value detainees" at a time, a current Lithuanian government official and a former CIA official told ABC News.

For many of the residents of this former Soviet state, it is reminiscent of the KGB's secret prisons. "As a Lithuanian," a local woman told ABC News, "I am not very proud of this."

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said John Sifton, a New York attorney whose firm One World Research investigates human rights abuses. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

It is not known which suspected al-Qaeda figures were in Lithuania, but 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was moved out of the CIA's secret prison in Poland just before the Lithuanian facility was opened.

According to sources who say they saw the facility, the riding academy originally consisted of an indoor riding area with a red metallic roof, a stable and a cafe. The CIA built a thick concrete wall inside the riding area. Behind the wall, it built what one Lithuanian source called a "building within a building."

Inside the Secret Prison

On a series of thick concrete pads, it installed what a source called "prefabricated pods" to house prisoners, each separated from the other by five or six feet. Each pod included a shower, a bed and a toilet. Separate cells were constructed for interrogations. The CIA converted much of the rest of the building into garage space. Intelligence officers working at the prison were housed next door in the converted stable.

A local woman who lives near the complex, and who refused to give her name for fear of retribution reports that when she often saw cars with black-tinted windows drive up to the buildings. When a garage door opened, all the lights in the complex would go off until the car had entered the building and the door had closed.

Electrical power for both structures was provided by a 2003 Caterpillar autonomous generator. All the electrical outlets in the renovated structure were 110 volts, meaning they were designed for American appliances. European outlets and appliances typically use 220 volts.

Locals report that English-speaking guards worked at the complex, and often swam in a nearby lake. The guards were rotated every 90 days.

Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004.

ABC News first reported that Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists, but until now the precise site had not been confirmed. Read that report here.

The CIA purchased the property in March 2004, the same month Lithuania marked its formal admission to NATO. Poland joined NATO in 1999, and Romania joined in 2004.

"The older members, the original 15 members of NATO, would never have said yes to something like this," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "But the new members were easy to please."

CIA Declines Comment

The CIA opened the prison in September 2004, and closed it in November 2005, former CIA officials told CIA News.

The CIA declined to talk about the prison. "The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been."

The building is now owned by Lithuanian intelligence, which refused to let ABC News past its gates.

CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy

By MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time.

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004.

Lithuania agreed to allow the CIA prison after President George W. Bush visited the country in 2002 and pledged support for Lithuania's efforts to join NATO.

"The new members of NATO were so grateful for the U.S. role in getting them into that organization that they would do anything the U.S. asked for during that period," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "They were eager to please and eager to be cooperative on security and on intelligence matters."

Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite declined ABC's request for an interview.

ABC News first reported that Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists, but until now the precise site had not been confirmed. Read that report here.

Until March 2004, the site was a riding academy and café owned by a local family. The facility is in the town of Antaviliai, in the forest 20 kilometers northeast of the city center of Vilnius, near an exclusive suburb where many government officials live.

A "Building Within A Building"

In March 2004, the family sold the property to Elite, LLC, a now-defunct company registered in Delaware and Panama and Washington, D.C. That same month, Lithuania marked its formal admission to NATO.

The CIA constructed the prison over the next several months, apparently flying in prefabricated elements from outside Lithuania. The prison opened in Sept. 2004.

According to sources who saw the facility, the riding academy originally consisted of an indoor riding area with a red metallic roof, a stable and a cafe. The CIA built a thick concrete wall inside the riding area. Behind the wall, it built what one Lithuanian source called a "building within a building."

On a series of thick concrete pads, it installed what a source called "prefabricated pods" to house prisoners, each separated from the other by five or six feet. Each pod included a shower, a bed and a toilet. Separate cells were constructed for interrogations. The CIA converted much of the rest of the building into garage space.

Intelligence officers working at the prison were housed next door in the converted stable, raising the roof to add space. Electrical power for both structures was provided by a 2003 Caterpillar autonomous generator. All the electrical outlets in the renovated structure were 110 volts, meaning they were designed for American appliances. European outlets and appliances typically use 220 volts.

The prison pods inside the barn were not visible to locals. They describe seeing large amounts of earth being excavated during the summer of 2004. Locals who saw the activity at the prison and approached to ask for work were turned away by English-speaking guards. The guards were replaced by new guards every 90 days.

Former CIA officials directly involved or briefed on the highly classified secret prison program tell ABC News that as many as eight suspects were held for more than a year in the Vilnius prison. Flight logs viewed by ABC News confirm that CIA planes made repeated flights into Lithuania during that period. In November 2005, after public disclosures about the program, the prison was closed, as was another "black site" in Romania.

Lithuanian Prison One of Many Around Europe, Officials Said

The CIA moved the so-called High Value Detainees (HVD) out of Europe to "war zone" facilities, according to one of the former CIA officials, meaning they were moved to the Middle East. Within nine months, President Bush announced the existence of the program and ordered the transfer of 14 of the detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Ramzi bin al Shihb and Abu Zubaydah, to Guantanamo.

In August 2009, after ABC News reported the existence of the secret prison outside Vilnius, Lithuanian president Grybauskaite called for an investigation. "If this is true," Grybauskaite said, "Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise it will never happen again."

At the time, a Lithuanian government official denied that his country had hosted a secret CIA facility. The CIA told ABC News that reporting the existence of the Lithuanian prison was "irresponsible" and declined to discuss the location of the prison.

On Tuesday, the CIA again declined to talk about the prison. "The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been."

Former CIA officials told ABC News that the prison in Lithuania was one of eight facilities the CIA set-up after 9/11 to detain and interrogate top al-Qaeda operatives captured around the world. Thailand, Romania, Poland, Morocco, and Afghanistan have also been identified as countries that housed secret prisons for the CIA. President Barack Obama ordered all the sites closed shortly after taking office in January.

The Lithuanian prison was the last "black" site opened in Europe, after the CIA's secret prison in Poland was closed down in late 2003 or early 2004.

"It obviously took a lot of effort to keep [the prison] secret," said John Sifton, whose firm One World Research investigates human rights abuses. "There's a reason this stuff gets kept secret."

"It's an embarrassment, and a crime."

Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda

By Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole and Brian Ross

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with an individual associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan's contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).

Hoekstra said he is "absolutely furious" that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan's attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.

"This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies—not the CIA—have the lead," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. " Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect."

Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.

In a blog posting early Monday titled "Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing," Awlaki calls Hasan a "hero" and a "man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people."

According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.

The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there.

The Telegraph of London reported that Awlaki had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers when he was in San Diego.

He denied any knowledge of the hijacking plot and was never charged with any crime. After an intensive investigation by the FBI , Awlaki moved to Yemen.

People who knew or worked with Hasan say he seemed to have gradually become more radical in his disapproval of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.

"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.

Army Chief of Staff

A fellow Army doctor who studied with Hasan, Val Finell, told ABC News, "He would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American second. And that came out in just about everything he did at the University."

Finell said he and other Army doctors complained to superiors about Hasan's statements.

"And we questioned how somebody could take an oath of office…be an officer in the military and swear allegiance to the constitution and to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic and have that type of conflict," Finell told ABC News.

The Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, raised concerns over the weekend that innocent Muslim soldiers could suffer as a result of the shooting at Fort Hood.

"I think the speculation (on Hasan's Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Hasan's Pistol May Be Linked To 'Guns Galore' Shop in Texas

By Matthew Cole

Federal agents, military investigators and Texas Rangers are investigating whether the gun used in the Fort Hood massacre was purchased at the "Guns Galore" shop in Killeen, Texas, according to the store co-manager.

"They called last night and asked about a specific name and gun purchase, but the name was not Hasan," said the manager who gave only his first name, Dave. He said he did not want to reveal the name for fear it would compromise the investigation.

Three investigators, including one wearing a Texas Rangers badge, were seen entering the store just before noon Friday. The manager said they were interviewing all of the store employees.

They declined to comment as they left Guns Galore in a car with Department of Defense markings.

The manager said he recognized a photo shown to him of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, identified by authorities as the suspect shooter at Fort Hood. But he said Hasan would have had to show identification if he had bought the gun in his name.

The co-manager said the agents were interested in a FN pistol that uses 5.7 caliber ammunition.

The Associated Press, citing federal law enforcement sources, said the suspect used only one semi-automatic weapon in the attack.

Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"

By Matthew Cole, Brian Ross and Avni Patel

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go."

Italian prosecutors said deSousa was a CIA officer who helped organized the kidnapping using her diplomat cover at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. Several former U.S. intelligence officials confirm to ABC News deSousa's role in the operation.

Without confirming her CIA role, deSousa said her status as a State Department diplomat should have protected her, but that the U.S. refused to invoke diplomatic immunity.

"Everything I did was approved back in Washington," she said. deSousa says she was on a ski trip on the actual day of the kidnapping.

The ruling by the Italian court was seen as landmark repudiation of the U.S. policy of rendition, involving the capture of suspected terrorists taken to secret locations for interrogation.

"It's clear that the kidnapping of Abu Omar was a great mistake," said Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro, who led the five-year long investigation. "It did serious damage in fighting terrorists because we don't need torture, we don't need renditions, we don't need secret prisons."

The former CIA station chief in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison. deSousa and twenty-two others received five-year sentences.

Jeffrey Castelli, the CIA station chief in Rome, who several former CIA officers describe as the alleged architect of the kidnapping, was acquitted by the Italian court. The court ruled that he and two others had diplomatic immunity because they worked out of the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

The CIA declined to comment, as it has since the case first became public.

A State Department spokesman said the Obama administration was "disappointed" by the verdict.

Also convicted was Air Force Colonel Joseph Romano, who allegedly helped facilitate the CIA kidnapping team's flight to Egypt from a U.S. air base in Italy.

The Department of Defense had unsuccessfully claimed the court had no jurisdiction over Romano under the NATO Status of Forces Agreement.

"We are clearly disappointed with the ruling and the lack of respect for the fact that we have asserted jurisdiction in this case," said Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell.

"The verdict today came as a complete surprise since Italy lacks jurisdiction over Col Romano," said Romano through an attorney upon his conviction and five year sentence in Italy today. "We believe the judge clearly misapplied the law by failing to recognize his nation's obligations under the NATO Treaty. The trial judge's irresponsible actions should be an embarrassment to Italy and we find the verdict illegitimate."

The kidnapping was discovered and linked to the CIA by Italian authorities due to "sloppy" tradecraft, according to U.S. officials. Much of the evidence used in the trial involved cellphone records of the CIA team assembled to take Abu Omar.

"They were using e-mail, they were calling home, the Italians were able to connect their credit cards with true names and true addresses," said former CIA officer Bob Baer.

"I did these same things under the Reagan administration," Baer told ABCNews.com "When we did a rendition, we did it in international waters. The Bush administration threw all caution to the wind."

The operation to capture Abu Omar was part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, according to U.S. intelligence officials involved in his transfer. The kidnapped cleric was held in Egypt for four years and says he was repeatedly tortured there by Egyptian interrogators.

He was never charged with a crime and ultimately set free. He remains in Alexandria, Egypt.

"He was the wrong guy," said Baer. "It was not worth putting the reputation of the United Sates on the line going after somebody like this."

According to both U.S. and Italian intelligence officials, the trial ruined the relationship between the two countries' intelligence services, and has hurt continued counterterrorism efforts.

DeSousa who resigned from and brought a lawsuit against the U.S. government fears the damage to U.S.-Italian relations from the verdict will continue.

"It's getting more embarrassing every day," deSousa said.

Lithuanian President Announces Investigation into CIA Secret Prison

By Matthew Cole

The president of Lithuania called for an official investigation Tuesday into an ABC News.com exclusive report in August that the CIA housed a secret prison for al Qaeda suspects in Lithuania for more than a year beginning in 2004.

"If this is true," President Dalia Grybauskaite said, "Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise that it will never happen again."

At a press conference with the Council of Europe Human Rights Commission, Grybauskaite announced the investigation after it was clear a previous attempt by the Lithuanian Parliament was insufficient, according to a Council of Europe official.

In August, ABC News reported that the CIA built a secret prison in a residential section of Vilnius from September 2004 through November 2005. The CIA used the prison to detain and interrogate top level al Qaeda prisoners captured around the world after 9/11. Lithuania was the only unknown European country to house so called "black sites," after the identities of Poland and Romania were reported in late 2005 by the Washington Post and ABC News' Brian Ross.

The CIA built or housed al Qaeda detainees in several countries around the world before President Obama ordered them closed shortly after assuming office earlier this year. Among the countries were Thailand, Afghanistan, Morocco, in addition to the three eastern European nations, according to more than a dozen former and current intelligence officials.

The Lithuanian prison was the last "black" site opened in Europe, after the CIA's secret prison in Poland was closed down in late 2003. In September 2004, European and American flight records examined by ABC News reveal CIA-contracted flights directly from Afghanistan to Lithuania. On September 20th, 2004, a Boeing 707 with tail number N88ZL flew directly from Bagram Airbase to Vilnius. According to several former CIA officials, the flight carried an al Qaeda detainee, who was being moved from one CIA detention facility to another. Additionally, in July 2005, a CIA-chartered Gulfstream IV, tail number N63MU, flew direct from Kabul to Vilnius. Several former intelligence officials involved in the CIA's prison program confirmed the flight as a prisoner transfer to Lithuania. The Vilnius prison was closed, however, after news of other CIA prisons in Poland and Romania were reported in the press in November 2005.

Focusing On Ending Torture

Last August, in a written response to ABC.com's report the Lithuanian government denied their country had ever hosted a CIA prison, saying "The Lithuanian Government denies all rumors and interpretations about alleged secret prison that supposedly functioned on Lithuanian soil."

Lithuania is a signatory to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. Additionally, the Lithuanian legal system prohibits torture, assault, and extrajudicial detention.

"There are important legal issues at stake," said John Sifton, a human rights researcher. "As with Poland and Romania, CIA personnel involved in any secret detentions and interrogations in Lithuania were not only committing violations of U.S. federal law and international law, they were also breaking Lithuanian laws relating to lawless detention, assault, torture, and possibly war crimes. Lithuanian officials who worked with the CIA were breaking applicable Lithuanian laws as well."

As a result of the ABC News.com story about Lithuania, the Council of Europe reopened its investigation into Lithuanian involvement in the CIA program, according to a Council of Europe official.

"We cannot place Lithuania in a position, for whatever interests, where it may become a target for international terrorists," said Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. "Both Lithuania and the United States must provide answers to these questions."

U.S. Afghanistan Base 'Death Trap' From The Beginning

By Matthew Cole

The remote base in northern Afghanistan where eight U.S. soldiers were killed this weekend in a deadly battle was well-known inside the military as extremely vulnerable to attack since the day it opened in 2006, according to U.S. soldiers and government officials familiar with the area.

When a reporter visited the base a few months after it opened, soldiers stationed in Kamdesh complained the base's location low in a valley made most missions in the area difficult.

"We're primarily sitting ducks," said one soldier at the time.

Known as Camp Keating, the outpost was "not meant for engagements," said one senior State Department official assigned to Afghanistan, and brings "a sad and terrible conclusion" to a three-year effort to secure roads and connect the Nuristan province to the central government in Kabul.

The boulder strewn road that led into the valley was referred to by U.S. soldiers stationed there as "Ambush Alley."

In addition to the eight dead Americans, at least two Afghan Army officers were killed, with as many as a dozen Afghan National Policemen missing, according to military and Afghan officials.

The base, located less than 10 miles from the Pakistan border and nestled in the Hindu Kush mountains, was attacked almost every day for the first two months it was opened, hit by a constant stream of rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.

By the third or fourth month of the base's existence, resupply had been limited to nighttime helicopter flights because the daytime left helicopters and road convoys too exposed to insurgent attacks. That remained true through the weekend.

The base had several near-misses with enemy fire over the years. In 2006, all daytime helicopter flights landing at the valley floor were cancelled when an American Blackhawk was nearly hit with an incoming rocket as it was taking off. After the incident, helicopters were banned from landing anywhere but an observation post some three hours' walk above the base on a nearby ridgeline. Even then, helicopters filled with troops or equipment were rushed during offloading, as pilots were keen to take off before drawing hostile fire.

And like many other remote and rural parts of Afghanistan, the local population had begun souring on the American presence after airstrikes had hit civilians in the neighboring villages.

Deployment into Nuristan

The initial military goal was to establish the base as a one of 13 Provincial Reconstruction Teams set up throughout Afghanistan to help with reconstruction projects, civil affairs and basic safety for the local population. Within a year, the PRT had been moved to a safer, more hospitable base in the western section of the province.

Camp Keating, along with two other outposts near the border, was then intended to help patrol and oversee the stretch of the Pakistan border. U.S. officials were concerned that the nearby mountain passes were being used by militants to infiltrate Afghanistan and set up for attacks.

American officials were often divided over whether the U.S. effort in the mountainous region could be sustained.

According to an American who has consulted with U.S. forces on their deployment into Nuristan, the effort in the north can only be seen as a failure.

"What have we done there in the last three, four years," he said. "We didn't gain anything. We weren't able to open the road up or make the area secure.

Despite the inherent physical vulnerabilities of Camp Keating, until this weekend, the base had suffered no casualties from hostile fire. The base itself was named after Lieutenant Benjamin Keating, who was killed in vehicle accident nearby in Nov. 2006.

But on Saturday, a force of as many as 300 insurgents attacked the vulnerable base in what the military has termed a "complex" attack that began in a neighboring village mosque. According to an Afghan translator for American forces in Nuristan, the village mosque was used to store the weapons and ammunition used in the attack. The rules of engagement generally prevent U.S. forces from searching or attacking Afghan mosques.

According to the Afghan translator, most of the insurgents were local. Eastern Nuristan has long been filled by the insurgent group led by former mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, called Hezb-e-Islami. U.S. officials believe that Hekmatyar is hiding in Pakistan, and helps coordinate insurgent attacks throughout eastern Afghanistan.

Insurgent Attack

One U.S. military official told ABC News that they believe the insurgents started a fire as they began to attack. "They burned the base down," said the official.

The smoke from the fire initially limited the air support U.S. soldiers requested, according to a military official. The fighting lasted "throughout the day" as there were signs that the insurgents were able to breach the base before being "repelled." As insurgents fired from three or four different locations above the base, they also maneuvered and over took one of the observation posts on higher ground, taking out a post meant to protect Camp Keating from enemy fire.

The outpost at its peak was home to roughly 100 U.S. soldiers and a few dozen Afghans from both the national army and police force. According to reports, the base was down to half that size when the attack came over the weekend.

Patrols in the neighboring villages and mountaintops were often limited by the lack of U.S. forces, and forced commanding officers to stay on base for fear of being over-run while on patrol.

According to a senior state department official familiar with the area, the attack came as a surprise, and was "much bigger than anything U.S. forces could have expected."

The soldiers were preparing to leave the base for good this week, in a plan that had been set in motion as early as a year ago, according to American officials familiar with the military's plan. Military officials have said that they do not believe the insurgents knew the U.S. forces were withdrawing from the base.

The attack, according to a senior State department official, was most likely the last major effort by the insurgents before the winter snows blanket the province and make maneuvering and fighting that much harder to accomplish.

"Unfortunately," said the State Department official, "this [attack] gives the insurgents a propaganda victory because they can go and claim to the locals that they forced the Americans out."

With additional reporting by Nick Schifrin.

U.S. Protests Russian 'Sex Tape' Used to Smear American Diplomat

By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross

The U.S. Ambassador in Moscow has lodged a formal protest with the Russian Foreign Ministry over an "attempted smear" of an American diplomat with a purported sex video recorded in a Moscow hotel room.

"This kind of effort to discredit an American diplomat really has no place in the sort of relationship that we are trying to build with the Russian federation," Ambassador John Beyrle told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast tonight on World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline.

American officials say the Russian intelligence agency that replaced the KGB, the Federal Security Service (FSB), produced the video in an attempt to either recruit or discredit the diplomat, Brendan Kyle Hatcher, a 34-year-old married State Department employee who serves as a liaison with religious and human rights groups in Russia.

As recently as this summer, Hatcher attended a meeting with Ambassador Beyrle with the Russian Patriarch Metropolitan Kiril.

When Hatcher rejected the Russian blackmail approach, officials said, the tape was posted last month on a supposed Russian internet news site that has no known reporters and that many Russian journalists believe is closely tied to the FSB.

The Russian Foreign Ministry declined comment to ABC News.

The video begins with surveillance video of Hatcher on a darkened street with a cell phone in his hand. Audio of Hatcher speaking with several women in Russian is dubbed over the scene and a still photograph of a topless woman is posted over the video.

Finally, the video shows footage of Hatcher recorded with a camera hidden in the ceiling of a hotel room. The lights are on and Hatcher is seen on the bed in his underwear. Then the video cuts to the same room without the lights on and shows a man and a woman seemingly having sex on the bed. Hatcher denies he is the man seen in the darkened scenes, and U.S. officials say they believe him.

"Kyle Hatcher has done nothing wrong," said Ambassador Beyrle. "Clearly the video we saw was a montage of lot of different clips, some of them which are clearly fabricated," he told ABC News. "We had our security office back in Washington take a look at that and they are convinced Kyle has done nothing wrong. I have full confidence in him and he is going to continue his work here at the embassy."

'Honey Traps' by Russian Intelligence

A State Department official declined to describe to ABC News how the diplomatic security office determined that video was not authentic, only saying that "a number of individuals viewed the tape, concluded it was a fake, and declined to do forensics."

What could have been just another in a long history of so-called "honey traps" — Russian intelligence attempts to entrap a foreign diplomat with sex for extortion or recruitment — has revealed what some observers see as a new heavy-handed tactic in the long-simmering war between Russia and the West and rekindled the Cold War era of spy versus spy.

The incident also highlights the continuing power and expanse of the FSB, Russia's domestic and counter intelligence agency.

Ambassador Beyrle believes his work drew the ire of "an element" of the Russian government.

Hatcher "is a valued member of the Foreign Service and his job description maybe wasn't to the liking of some people here," Beyrle told ABC News.

The goal of the Russian government, Beyrle believes, is to "smear him in the eyes of his contacts."

According to a senior State Department official, the most disturbing element of the video may be the authentic elements that precede the fraudulent portion. According to this official, the tape begins with surveillance video of Hatcher walking Moscow streets some five years ago.

"That portion of the tape is real," the official said.

Hatcher, according to the official, traveled to Moscow as a tourist years before he worked for the US.. government.

The video then cuts to Hatcher, alone, in a hotel room watching television and checking something on a wall near the hidden camera. Within a few seconds, the lights in the room are off and a man and woman begin touching each other. But with the lights dimmed, it is impossible to identify Hatcher as the man on the tape.

"The Bear is back," says former FBI counterintelligence agent David Majors. Majors ran operations against the KGB for more than 20 years at the FBI. He says that while most Americans believed the struggle with Russian ended when the Berlin Wall fell, the KGB's new iteration, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, is as potent as its Soviet predecessor. "The intelligence service of Russian is as aggressive and large as it was when we had to face them in the Cold War," he said.

British Diplomat James Hudson

A month before the Hatcher video surfaced on the internet, another video was released showing British diplomat James Hudson allegedly having sex with two prostitutes. Hudson resigned within a few days, causing an uproar in England.

Hudson offered no public denials and has avoided all media inquiries since resigning.

The Hatcher video was released on the same website, Komsomolskaya Pravda.

According to Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who covers Russian intelligence, Komsomolskaya Pravda is a known propaganda site linked to the FSB.

"I think that [this] information was provided to this website by security services," Soldatov told ABC News.

Soldatov said that only Russian intelligence would be interested in smearing Hatcher and Hudson.

"In the time of the Cold War, this kind of tactic was used mostly for recruiting of diplomats," Soldatov said. "I think now the same tactics are used for—not for recruiting—but just for expelling diplomats."

According to Majors, producing a fake tape would not work as a method to have recruited Hatcher to spy for Russia, but it would work to hurt his ability to work in Russia.

"If you wanted to cause a wedge and cause problems for this guy, you do that. Do you want to cause the American Embassy to be less aggressive on contacting human rights people? It might work. If anything, this is a message to everybody in the future [that] this can happen," Majors said.

According to Ambassador Beyrle, using the internet as a tool in "honey traps" is a new, effective tactic of pressuring a diplomat. But it is still nothing more than "an old game," he said.

"Clearly since we were antagonists for a long time during the Cold War there are possibly people here who still find that difficult to accept and who feel they need to fight against that," Ambassador Beyrle said. "That's unfortunate. I don't think time or history is on their side but we have to deal with it from time to time."

Deaths, Missing Detainees Still Blacked Out in New CIA Report

By MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS

The CIA and the Obama Administration continue to keep secret some of the most shocking allegations involving the spy agency's interrogation program: three deaths and several other detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.

Of the 109 pages in the 2004 report, 36 were completely blacked out in the version made public Monday, and another 30 were substantially redacted for "national security" reasons.

The blacked-out portions hide the Inspector General's findings on the circumstances that led to the deaths of at least three of the detainees in the CIA's program, the official said. Two of the men reportedly died in CIA in Iraq and the third died in Afghanistan.

The Inspector General's findings about a fourth death involving a prisoner in Afghanistan were made public in the report. A CIA contract employee was convicted of assault in that case and is now in prison.

The still-secret portions of the Inspector General's report also describe fears that the waterboarding of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed came close to killing him. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 separate times, according to the report.

The unredacted version of the report makes a reference to the "unsafe" nature of waterboarding but makes no mention of its actual effects on Mohammed or the two others who were subjected to the technique.

The ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), said he thinks more of the CIA's blacked out information should be made public. "If the sections of the report don't talk about sources and methods, at this point in time, my bias would be toward transparency and toward releasing more information." Hoekstra, who has read the unredacted version of the CIA report, said he could not comment on its contents.

Also hidden from public scrutiny, according to the official, was the discovery by the CIA Inspector General that the CIA could not adequately account for several of the 100 al Qaeda suspects who were part of the detainee program that the CIA maintained had been well administered.

The official said "a few just got lost and the CIA does to know what happened to them."

Other detainees, said the official, were transferred to other countries and their whereabouts are still unknown. In other cases, "incomplete records" were to blame for the failure to account for the detainees' status after leaving the program.

Missing Detainees

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano told ABC News, "The CIA will cooperate with the Department of Justice, as it always has, in this latest look at past detention and interrogation practices. As the agency has noted previously, career prosecutors at Justice have already examined these cases. That includes, in addition to the complete Inspector General's report—which Justice has had since 2004—other allegations of abuse, which the CIA itself referred to the Department."

In his conclusions, Inspector General John Helgerson, found "the Agency—especially in the early months of the program—failed to provide adequate staffing, guidance and support to those involved with the detention and interrogation of detainees."

Helgerson, who left the job in Mar. 2009, said in a statement, "the primary common problem was that management controls and operational procedures were not in place to avoid the serious problems that arose, jeopardizing Agency employees and detainees alike."

Even after the report was completed in 2004, the problem of missing detainees continued, according to the former intelligence official.

One of the detainees who was put in the "missing" category was identified by the CIA as a top al Qaeda figure, Hassan Ghul, who officials had planned to waterboard until they determined he was "obese" and might lead to serious medical issues.

Ghul was turned over to Pakistan in 2006 and has since been released. The CIA does not know whether he returned to fight with al Qaeda or simply disappeared from sight.

"The primary, common problem was that management controls and operational procedures were not in place to avoid the serious problems that arose," said Helgerson, who served as CIA inspector general from 2002 to Mar. 2009.

Report: CIA Used Power Drills, Guns, Threats Against Children

By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross

CIA officers used power drills, mock executions and threats against children in often futile attempts to break high-value al Qaeda targets, according to portions of a 2004 report by the CIA inspector general that was made public today.

"We now have a document that the world can read that shows in excruciating and disgusting detail that the United States violated its own beliefs and turned to the dark side when it didn't have to," said Richard Clarke, a former national security official and now an ABC News consultant.

The report says the extensive use of waterboarding was well known and fully approved by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who told Congress last year that his "understanding is that it has been done three times."

But the report reveals Ashcroft "was informed the waterboard had been used 119 times on a single individual."

A spokesperson for Ashcroft, who now runs a private consulting firm, said they had not yet reviewed the report and had no comment at this point.

Other interrogation techniques described include: CIA officers told al Qaeda figure Khalid Sheik Mohammed "We're going to kill your children" if anything else happens to the U.S.; Officers put a handgun and a running power drill next to the head of Abd al-rahim al Nashiri, who attacked the USS Cole; and Officers staged a mock execution, firing off a gun and using a hooded CIA officer to pose as a dead detainee.

CIA Director Leon Panetta, who has reportedly been profanity-laced shouting matches with White House officials just seven months after taking over the spy agency, said Monday the agency "made no excuses for behavior, however rare, that went beyond the formal guidelines on counter-terrorism."

American Civil Liberties Union director Jameel Jaffer, who heads the National Security Program, slammed the use of the interrogation techniques detailed in the report, saying, "It is a violation of the U.S. law to carry out a mock execution."

CIA Interrogation Program

Following the release of the inspector general's report, Attorney General Eric Holder reversed course and opened a criminal investigation into the CIA's interrogation program, which was a direct result of the 9/11 attacks and demands from the Bush White House that the CIA get tough on terrorism.

Holder and President Obama initially promised that there would be no prosecutions of CIA personnel, but prosecutor John Durham is set to be appointed by Holder to investigate CIA terror interrogations. He has been investigating the destruction of CIA waterboarding tapes and will now also investigate whether CIA interrogators and contractors violated U.S. torture statutes.

Also today, the Obama White House created a new unit that will report to FBI Director Robert Mueller and follow the Army's policies that prohibit waterboarding, effectively removing the CIA from the al Qaeda interrogation business. Mueller and his agents were the first and strongest internal objectors to the CIA's interrogation tactics.

The announcement will be seen as an effort by the Obama administration to "look forward" rather than backward, as a Department of Justice investigation implies.

The report, compiled by former Inspector General John L. Helgerson, concluded that the CIA waterboarding was not "justified" and that went "beyond" the limits of what the Department of Justice authorized. From the beginning, the report read, CIA officers involved in the program were worried about their personal reputations being "seriously damaged" and that public disclosure of the program would limit the "reputation and effectiveness of the agency itself."

Concerns of the waterboarding were widespread among those who knew of the waterboarding as an interrogation tactic. The Office of Medical Service, the agency's in-house team of doctors who were required to monitor the detainees while they were being waterboarded, noted to the IG staff that potential gains and "power" of the waterboarding to get detainees to talk was "exaggerated" and "appreciably overstated."

According to a former senior CIA official, the IG investigations into waterboarding—even before it was completed—made CIA officials nervous. On June 29, 2003, Director of CIA George Tenet went to the White House to discuss the "expanded use of [waterboarding]" with several senior administration officials. According to the former official, Tenet and CIA general Counsel John Rizzo informed attorney general John Ashcroft on the overuse of waterboarding on three al Qaeda detainees. According to the source, "The attorney general was fully informed of the severity of the situation and gave his approval."

Helgerson released a statement today that said, in part that waterboarding was used in a way that made it "inconsistent" with the understanding between CIA and the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice, Helgerson said in his statement, "provided the Agency a written legal opinion based on an Agency assurance that although some techniques would be used more than once, repetition would "not be substantial." My view was that, whatever methodology was used to count applications of the waterboard, the very large number of applications to which some detainees were subjected led to the inescapable conclusion that the Agency was abusing this technique."

Jameel Jaffer, of the ACLU, which sued the government to get this report released told ABC News said the report was "quite shocking. The fact that interrogators threatened children, the fact that they threatened prisoners with electric drills ... that's really not something that I expected to read in a document discussing the activities of U.S. personnel."

Jaffer also applauded attorney general Holder's decision to open an investigation, but warned that any investigation that focused on low-lever CIA officers and not those who gave guidance to operatives on the ground would be inadequate.

"It's important that this investigation can be broad enough to encompass not just the interrogators who exceeded authority, but the senior officials who authorized torture and lawyers who facilitated it," Jaffer said. "We don't want an investigation that begins and ends with so-called rogue interrogators."

Robert Grenier, a former chief of counterterrorism, who oversaw the detention and interrogation program from later 2004 until early 2006, believes prosecuting the CIA officers would be a mistake.

"Here the CIA has done this report a number of years ago," he said. "It's a very thorough report. In fact, it was done by people who were not supportive of the program to begin with. It was very thorough. Any and all abuses were brought to light. Many of those abuses were then referred for possible prosecution to the Department of Justice. It seems to me that the CIA did everything that is was supposed to have done and yet now, both the organization and the individuals concerned are being subject to double jeopardy." Grenier condemned the interrogation tactics that were unauthorized and pointed echoed some of the IG report's conclusions which noted that the detention program improved as time went on, and noted that prior to 9/11 the CIA simply did not have the capacity to interrogate Islamic terrorists.

"You can't have people who are freelancing. Unfortunately, I think in the very early days, apparently there was a certain amount of freelancing that took place," Grenier said. "It takes time to develop a disciplined, professional program...Part of the problem here was that the CIA got into this business and was trying to construct a locomotive as it was going 60 miles down the track."

In some ways, the much anticipated report raises more questions than it provides answers. During the two yearinvestigation, for example, Helgerson and his staff viewed most of the 92 videotapes made of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri's interrogations but noted that 21 hours of interrogations were missing. The missing hours include the two waterboarding sessions of al-Nashiri.

The announcement today by the Obama administration in some ways tries to address the underlying question posed by Helgerson and his report: Did torture work?

The CIA released two intelligence reports that former Vice President Richard Cheney had called to be declassified. Last May, Cheney claimed the reports showed that the CIA's interrogation program worked. The reports, while noting the valuable intelligence that came from detainee interrogations, do not specifically address which tactics worked, and which did not.

The IG report concluded the same. "There is no doubt," the report stated, "that the Program has been effective. Measuring the effectiveness of [enhanced interrogation techniques] however, is a more subjective process and not without some concern."

Obama White House v. CIA; Panetta Threatened to Quit

By Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito and Brian Ross

A "profanity-laced screaming match" at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com.

Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

"You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year," a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.

Since 9/11, the CIA has had five directors or acting directors.

A White House spokesperson, Denis McDonough, said reports that Panetta had threatened to quit and that the White House was seeking a replacement were "inaccurate."

According to intelligence officials, Panetta erupted in a tirade last month during a meeting with a senior White House staff member. Panetta was reportedly upset over plans by Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation of allegations that CIA officers broke the law in carrying out certain interrogation techniques that President Obama has termed "torture."

A CIA spokesman quoted Panetta as saying "it is absolutely untrue" that he has any plans to leave the CIA. As to the reported White House tirade, the spokesman said Panetta is known to use "salty language." CIA spokesman George Little said the report was "wrong, inaccurate, bogus and false."

Investigation by CIA Inspector General

Another source of contention for Panetta was today's public release of an investigation by the CIA inspector general on the first two years of the agency's interrogation and detention program. The report has been delayed by an internal administration debate over how much of the report should be kept secret.

One CIA official said colleagues involved in the interrogation program were preparing for a far-reaching criminal investigation.

In addition to concerns about the CIA's reputation and its legal exposure, other White House insiders say Panetta has been frustrated by what he perceives to be less of a role than he was promised in the administration's intelligence structure. Panetta has reportedly chafed at reporting through the director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, according to the senior adviser who said Blair is equally unhappy with Panetta.

"Leon will be leaving," predicted a former top U.S. intelligence official, citing the conflict with Blair. The former official said Panetta is also "uncomfortable" with some of the operations being carried out by the CIA that he did not know about until he took the job.

Other Candidates for the Job

The New York Times reported Thursday that the CIA had planned to use the private security contractor Blackwater to carry out assassinations of al Qaeda leaders.

Six other current and former senior intelligence officials said they too had been briefed about Panetta's frustrations in the job, including dealing with his former Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives.

One of the officials said the White House had begun informal discussions with candidates who were runners-up to Panetta in the CIA director selection process last year.

One of the candidates reportedly has begun a series of preparatory briefings.

"It would be a shame if such as talented a Washington hand as Panetta were to leave after one year," said Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant who worked on the national security team for the Clinton and Bush administrations and served as an adviser to President-elect Obama.

"It takes that long for any senior bureaucrat to begin to understand what needs to get done and how to do it, "said Clarke. "The CIA needs some stability."

Officials: Lithuania Hosted Secret CIA Prison To Get "Our Ear"

By Matthew Cole

A third European country has been identified to ABC News as providing the CIA with facilities for a secret prison for high-value al Qaeda suspects: Lithuania, the former Soviet state.

Former CIA officials directly involved or briefed on the highly classified program tell ABC News that Lithuanian officials provided the CIA with a building on the outskirts of Vilnius, the country's capital, where as many as eight suspects were held for more than a year, until late 2005 when they were moved because of public disclosures about the program. Flight logs viewed by ABC News confirm that CIA planes made repeated flights into Lithuania during that period.

The CIA told ABC News that reporting the location of the now-closed prison was "irresponsible." "The CIA does not publicly discuss where facilities associated with its past detention program may or may not have been located," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "We simply do not comment on those types of claims, which have appeared in the press from time to time over the years. The dangers of airing such allegations are plain. These kinds of assertions could, at least potentially, expose millions of people to direct threat. That is irresponsible."

Former CIA officials tell ABC News that the prison in Lithuania was one of eight facilities the CIA set-up after 9/11 to detain and interrogate top al Qaeda operatives captured around the world. Thailand, Romania, Poland, Morocco, and Afghanistan have previously been identified as countries that housed secret prisons for the CIA.

According to a former intelligence official involved in the program, the former Soviet Bloc country agreed to host a prison because it wanted better relations with the U.S. Asked whether the Bush administration or the CIA offered incentives in return for allowing the prison, the official said, "We didn't have to." The official said, "They were happy to have our ear."

Through their embassy in Washington, the Lithuanian government denied hosting a secret CIA facility. "The Lithuanian Government denies all rumors and interpretations about alleged secret prison that supposedly functioned on Lithuanian soil and possibly was used by [CIA]," said Tomas Gulbinas, an embassy spokesman.

CIA Secret Prisons

According to two top government officials at the time, revelations about the existence of prisons in Eastern Europe in late 2005 by the Washington Post and ABC News led the CIA to close its facilities in Lithuania and Romania and move the al Qaeda prisoners out of Europe. The so-called High Value Detainees (HVD) were moved into "war zone" facilities, according to one of the former CIA officials, meaning they were moved to Iraq and Afghanistan. Within nine months, President Bush announced the existence of the program and ordered the transfer of 14 of the detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al Shihb and Abu Zubaydah, to Guantanamo, where they remain in CIA custody.

The CIA high value detainee (HVD) program began after the March 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah. Within days, the CIA arranged for Zubaydah to be flown to Thailand. Later, in mid-2003 after Thai government and intelligence officials became nervous about hosting a secret prison for Zubaydah and a second top al Qaeda detainee, according to a former CIA officer involved in the program. One was transferred to a facility housed on a Polish intelligence base in December 2002, said a former official involved with transferring detainees. The facility was known as Ruby Base, according to two former CIA officials familiar with the location.

One of the former CIA officers involved in the secret prison program allowed ABC News to view flight logs that show aircraft used to move detainees to and from the secret prisons in Lithuania, Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, Romania, Morocco and Guantanamo Bay. The purpose of the flights, said the officer, was to move terrorist suspects. The official told ABC News that the CIA arranged for false flight plans to be submitted to European aviation authorities. Planes flying into and out of Lithuania, for example, were ordered to submit paperwork that said they would be landing in nearby countries, despite actually landing in Vilnius, he said. "Finland and Poland were used most frequently" as false destinations, the former CIA officer told ABC News. A similar system was used to land planes in Romania and Poland.

Interrogation and Detention Program

Lithuania, Poland, and Romania have all ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. All three countries' legal systems prohibit torture and extrajudicial detention. Polish authorities are currently conducting an investigation into whether any Polish law was broken by government officials there in hosting one of the secret prisons, according to a published report in the German magazine Der Spiegel.

"There are important legal issues at stake," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "As with Poland and Romania, CIA personnel involved in any secret detentions and interrogations in Lithuania were not only committing violations of U.S. federal law and international law, they were also breaking Lithuanian laws relating to lawless detention, assault, torture, and possibly war crimes. Lithuanian officials who worked with the CIA were breaking applicable Lithuanian laws as well."

Washington has been sharply divided over whether investigations into the interrogation and detention program should be opened. The CIA has been ordered by a federal judge to declassify and release much of the agency's inspector general report about the first years of the program by next week.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he is weighing whether he should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate alleged abuses in the program after reading the IG report. At issue are instances of abuse that went beyond the guidelines set up by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which included waterboarding and sleep deprivation of up to 11 days, according to people aware of Holder's thinking. President Obama has called the practices "torture" and abolished the program within a few days of taking office this year. But the president has also said that his administration intended to "look forward" not backward at Bush-era policies of interrogation and detention.

One current intelligence official involved in declassifying the IG report told ABC News that the unredacted portions will reveal how and when CIA interrogators used methods and tactics that were not permitted by the OLC. "The focus will be on the cases where rules were broken," the official said. "But remember that all instances were referred to the Justice Department and only one resulted in a prosecution," said the official, referring to the conviction of CIA contractor David Passaro, who beat an Afghan detainee to death in 2003.

Featured Image Credit: By CIA photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Missing U.S. Soldier May Be in Pakistan

By Matthew Cole

The U.S. soldier kidnapped by Taliban forces in Afghanistan may have been taken across the border to Pakistan, complicating efforts to obtain his release, according to two people involved in U.S. and Afghan military efforts to locate him, and three Afghan soldiers captured with him.

The soldier, Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Idaho, is the first serviceman captured since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. According to a person actively involved in the search, a top Afghan insurgent commander has taken credit for capturing the soldier and has now moved the soldier to South Waziristan, Pakistan. U.S. armed forces are not permitted to operate inside Pakistan except under extreme circumstances.

The insurgent leader, Mullah Sangeen, has reportedly demanded the U.S. halt air raids as a condition for the return of the soldier.

Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said that "the efforts continue to locate the soldier, but we're not going to provide any details." The Pentagon yesterday announced that it took two days to determine that Bergdahl had been captured by enemy forces.

Officials at the Pentagon said they still believe Bergdahl is in Afghanistan.

Bergdahl was taken by Mullah Sangeen's men from village near the U.S. military post in Paktika, where he was stationed, according to a senior Afghan Army official in the province. The captors "punched and hit the soldier after some resistance. But than they were able to take the soldier and left all of his things: weapon, body armor and radios." The Afghan official says Bergdahl and the three Afghan National Army soldiers were moved from the near-by village and quickly vanished.

"We have an entire Afghan National Army platoon searching the area," says the Afghan official, who is searching for his soldiers as well. "But I suspect they might have moved him in to Pakistan already." Yesterday, Bergdahl's captors released a video showing the soldier eating and sitting on a carpet. After Bergdahl is prompted by one of his captors, he is heard saying that the date is July 14th, nearly two weeks after he was captured, and that he is scared.

U.S. Military Distributes Leaflet in Afghanistan

Bergdahl's family released a statement yesterday asking for privacy and that Americans "please continue to keep Bowe in your thoughts and prayers." Bergdahl, who is assigned to 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska, went missing from his post with three Afghan National Army soldiers in Eastern Afghanistan on or around July 1st under circumstances that remain unclear.

The U.S. military began distributing a leaflet in eastern Afghanistan last week that warns, "If you do not release the U.S. soldier, then You will be hunted." A picture of an American soldier kicking in the door of an Afghan home covers the leaflet. A Pentagon official tells ABC News that the leaflets were distributed in the areas inside Afghanistan that the military believes Bergdahl is being held.

Any effort to stage a rescue attempt would be fraught with risk, Pentagon officials say, but if Bergdahl has been moved to Pakistan, the challenge is even harder. The U.S. military is not allowed to operate inside Pakistan, unless its forces are in "hot pursuit" of Taliban fighters fleeing Afghanistan. In addition to U.S. military rules of engagement, operating inside Pakistan covertly has proven to be difficult for U.S. forces.

In private meetings, U.S. military officials based in Afghanistan have insisted that their soldier is still inside Afghanistan. "They want to think he's in Afghanistan," said an American involved in the search efforts.

But Bergdahl's location was identified in field reports from people operating in Pakistan's tribal areas. Bergdahl was recently seen at a Sangeen training camp, just inside Pakistan, according to one of those involved in his search.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that she is not allowed to talk about where Bergdahl might be.

The U.S. military has had a succession of efforts to locate the missing soldier and free him. Initially, a reward of $25,000 for location tips was offered to Afghans in the eastern portions of the region from which he disappeared. According to a source involved in the effort, a large number of calls flooded, and overwhelmed U.S. military efforts.

Complicating the search is determining who, if anyone, Mullah Sangeen works for. In the past, he has associated with the Haqqani network, the largest and most powerful insurgent group in eastern Afghanistan. The Haqqani network is lead by Siraj Haqqani, who has $5M bounty on his head for terrorist and insurgent activities against foreign forces in Afghanistan. But Haqqani however, is not technically part of the Taliban, who aligned with fugitive leader Mullah Omar.

"I am not sure if Mullah Sangeen is a hardcore Siraj Haqqani group member," says an Afghan intelligence officer in the province where Pfc. Bergdahl was captured. "However, Siraj is the boss. Let's hope the solider is still with Sangeen's people because you can [negotiate] with him."

War in Afghanistan

Paktika province is largely under Haqqani control. Two Taliban spokesman have denied holding or capturing the soldier, suggesting that Sangeen acted alone or in concert with Haqqani. Siraj Haqqani is believed to be responsible for the kidnap of New York Times reporter David Rohde, who escaped last month from Pakistan after seven months of captivity.

The war in Afghanistan has escalated in recent months, as the U.S. has surged troops and conducted more operations. July has already become the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war began in 2001.

You're Fired! CIA Axes $1000-A-Day Waterboarding Experts

By Matthew Cole

The CIA has reportedly cut its ties to the two psychologists credited for being the architects of the CIA's brutal interrogation program after 9/11, a news report said yesterday. Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen, who suggested and supervised waterboarding at secret prisons around the world have been told their services are no longer needed. Mitchell and Jessen, according to their associates, boasted of being paid $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the technique on top al Qaeda suspects.

Their firings came during a purge by CIA Director Leon Panetta of all contractors involved in the interrogation program. In early April, Panetta told CIA employees that contractors involved in the interrogation program and secret prisons were being "promptly terminated."

Mitchell and Jessen, who created a consulting company called Mitchell & Jessen Associates, are among the most public contractors who were let go. According to the most recent issue of the New Yorker, the psychologists had their contract renewed by the agency just weeks earlier, after President Obama took office, but before Panetta was confirmed as the new director.

The company had at least 120 employees as of 2007, according to a recent Senate investigation. One former military psychologist tells ABC News that Mitchell & Jessen charged the CIA roughly $500,000 a year for their services. It was this source's understanding that the money was largely tax-free and did not include expenses, which the agency also paid for.

In April, ABC News reported that neither Mitchell nor Jessen, both former military psychologists, who were part of a military training program that taught U.S. soldiers how to withstand harsh interrogation techniques, had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before they were hired by the CIA. The two, and later with additional employees, however, recommended so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Obama and Cheny Disagree on 'Torture'

Air Force Colonel Steve Kleinman, a former colleague of both Mitchell and Jessen and an expert interrogator, told ABC News that the two knew virtually nothing about conducting interrogations.

"They went to two individuals who had no interrogation experience," said Col. Kleinman. "They are not interrogators."

The Obama administration has repeatedly said the regimen the CIA applied to top terrorism suspects was "torture." In his second full day in office, President Obama signed an executive order to halt all the techniques and close all CIA secret prisons.

Since then, however, the uproar over the Bush Administration counter-terrorism policies and CIA tactics have flared up. Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney has publically lashed out at the new administration. In a series of television interviews and speeches, Cheney has accused Obama of making the country less safe and more likely to get attacked by terrorism because he closed down the CIA prison system and the Mitchell and Jessen interrogation program.

CIA director Leon Panetta told the New Yorker magazine recently that he believes Cheney was playing "gallows politics." Panetta said, "It's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."

Mitchell and Jessen were headquartered for several years in Spokane, Washington, near a U.S. military base that served as their respective offices while serving in the military. Their unassuming downtown office has recently been vacated, according to ProPublica. Calls to their listed office number are now disconnected. Neither Mitchell nor Jessen would speak to ABC News citing non-disclosure agreements with the CIA.