Enhanced interrogation techniques " or " enhanced interrogation " is a euphemism for the U.S. government 's program of systematic alleged torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , the Defense Intelligence Agency ( DIA ) , and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at black sites around the world , including Bagram , Guantanamo Bay , and Abu Ghraib , authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration . Methods used included beating , binding in contorted stress positions , hooding , subjection to deafening noise , sleep disruption , sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination , deprivation of food , drink , and withholding medical care for wounds , as well as waterboarding , walling , sexual humiliation , subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold , and confinement in small coffin-like boxes . Several detainees endured medically unnecessary " rectal rehydration " , " rectal fluid resuscitation " , and " rectal feeding " . In addition to brutalizing detainees , there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children , and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees ' mothers . The number of detainees subjected to these methods has never been authoritatively established , nor how many died as a result of the interrogation regime , though this number is believed to be at least 100 . The CIA admits to waterboarding three people implicated in the September 11 attacks : Abu Zubaydah , Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , and Mohammed al-Qahtani . A Senate Intelligence Committee found photos of a waterboard surrounded by buckets of water at the Salt Pit prison , where the CIA had claimed waterboarding was never used . Former guards and inmates at Guantánamo have said that deaths which the US military called suicides at the time , were in fact homicides under torture . No murder charges have been brought for these or for acknowledged torture related homicides at Abu Ghraib and at Bagram
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Enhanced interrogation techniques