'Borderline Torture'

But Fine's report documents that numerous officials and agents at the FBI were deeply troubled by the interrogation methods that were being used against some Al Qaeda detainees captured after September 11. They questioned their effectiveness and raised repeated objections to them, warning in some cases that the use of such techniques would trigger investigations by Congress and interfere with attempts to prosecute the detainees in military tribunals (warnings that turned out to be prophetic).

The clashes first arose in March 2002 after Zubaydah—allegedly Al Qaeda's logistics chief—was captured in a gunfight in Pakistan and was severely wounded. He  was then taken to a secret CIA facility for medical treatment and interrogation, according to the report.

At first, the report states, two FBI agents were permitted to question Zubaydah, assisted in his treatment and developed his trust, using the bureau's traditional "rapport-building" techniques of interrogation. This soon led to a breakthrough in which a newly cooperating Zubaydah identified a photograph of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the operative known as "Muktar" who was the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

But within a few days, CIA interrogators showed up on the scene, dismissed what Zubaydah was giving the FBI as "throw-away information" and began aggressive new interrogation techniques. (Although the specific techniques are blacked out in the public version of the Justice report, agency officials have since confirmed that, among other methods, he was subjected to waterboarding—a technique that involves strapping a detainee to a board and dousing him with a wet towel in an effort to simulate drowning.) When one of the FBI agents questioned the use of the techniques, he was told by the CIA interrogators at the scene that the methods were approved "at the highest levels" and that he would not get in trouble.

But the use of such methods provoked an uproar back in Washington. Pasquale D'Amuro, then the FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, ordered the FBI agents on the scene to return home rather than participate in such methods. He also took the issue to FBI Director Robert Mueller. In an interview with Inspector General Fine's  investigators, D'Amuro "stated that his exact words to Mueller were 'we don't do that' and that someday the FBI would be called to testify and he wanted to be able to say that the FBI did nto participate in this type of activity."

Among D'Amuro's concerns: that the use of such aggressive tecnuiques "failed to take into account an 'end game,' the report says. "D'Amuro stated that even a military tribunal would require some standard for admissibility of evidence. Obtaining information by way of 'aggressive' techniques would not only jeopardize the government's ability to use the information against the detainees, but also might have a negative impact on the agents' ability to testify in future proceedings."