CIA interrogators inflated suspect's importance: NYT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Senior CIA officials ordered the first use of waterboarding and other harsh treatment on an al Qaeda prisoner despite interrogators' belief that the prisoner had already told all he knew, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Citing former intelligence officials, as well as a footnote in a newly released legal memorandum, the newspaper said the use of brutal tactics against Abu Zubaydah, such as confining him in boxes and slamming him against the wall, was ordered by CIA headquarters officials based on an inflated assessment of his significance.

One former official with direct knowledge of the details of the case said Abu Zubaydah had provided valuable information under less severe treatment and that the harsher measures brought no breakthroughs, the Times reported. The official added that the prisoner's captors experienced great distress upon witnessing his suffering.

"He pleaded for his life," the official said. "But he gave up no new information. He had no more information to give."

A footnote to another memo detailed a rift between line officers questioning the prisoner at a secret CIA prison in Thailand and their superiors at headquarters. The note offered that the brutal treatment used may have been "unnecessary."

"Although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within CIA headquarters still believed he was withholding information," the footnote read.

A memo written in 2005 and signed by Steven Bradbury, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the waterboarding used was justified even if the prisoner turned out not to know as much as officials had thought, the newspaper reported.

The U.S. Justice Department publicly released a 2002 memo on Thursday that approved interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation and slapping, and formally withdrew the memo as valid.

(Writing by Chris Michaud, editing by Patricia Zengerle)