Slahi Special Interrogation Plan

The Slahi Special Interrogation Plan was a formally authorized program to intensify the isolation and interrogation of Mohamedou Ould Slahi at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in 2003. Its significance lies both in the measures it prescribed and in the documentary record that later connected those measures to his account: a planned deception about being taken off the island, followed by confinement in a specially modified hut at Camp Echo.

Development and Authorization

The plan emerged within a sequence of approvals for interrogation methods beyond those in the Army Field Manual. The governing framework included a December 22, 2002 memorandum signed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a March 13, 2003 legal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, and a further authorization memorandum signed by Rumsfeld on April 16. At Guantánamo, military interrogators were under the command of Joint Task Force Guantánamo, then led by General Geoffrey Miller.

General Miller signed an initial version of Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s plan on July 1, 2003. As sessions continued that month, Miller submitted the plan to U.S. Southern Command commander General James Hill; Hill forwarded it to Rumsfeld on July 18. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz approved it on July 28, and Rumsfeld signed it on August 13. The Senate Armed Services Committee later found that Miller sought Pentagon approval and that Rumsfeld personally approved the plan. This sequence placed the interrogation within a chain of command and authorization rather than leaving it as an undocumented initiative by individual interrogators.

Staged Transfer and Camp Echo

The plan called for Mohamedou Ould Slahi to be hooded and flown around Guantánamo Bay for one or two hours, creating the impression that he had been moved to a place where different rules applied. Investigators later reported that the helicopter proposal was abandoned because it was logistically difficult and would have involved too many people at the base. On August 25, 2003, he was instead taken from his cell in Camp Delta wearing blackout goggles and brought on a disorienting boat ride. During the trip, he was allowed to hear conversations arranged in advance to support the deception that he had been taken away from the island.

The staged journey led to Camp Echo, where the plan provided for an isolation hut designed to limit outside stimulation. The hut’s doors were to be sealed to block light; its walls could be covered with white material to reduce visible objects; and the room was to contain a floor bolt and speakers. Preparations also included covering the hut’s exterior with a tarp to prevent visual contact with the guards. These provisions made the setting itself part of the interrogation: movement, light, and contact with other people were all subject to control.

The manuscript describes the transfer as taking place after a period of isolation. On the weekend before the August 25 session, Mohamedou Ould Slahi had been held apart from other detainees in an emptied block. He regarded that cell as an improvement over the colder cell he had occupied because it was warmer and allowed him to see daylight. The contrast records how restricted the available conditions were, even before the move to Camp Echo.

Isolation and the Plan’s Recorded Effects

Earlier in the 2003 sequence, Mohamedou Ould Slahi describes being placed in an otherwise empty block, with two other detainees kept at a distance and later transferred elsewhere. His books, Qur’an, soap, toothpaste, and other basic possessions were taken away; access to daylight and contact with other detainees was restricted. He recounts interrogation continuing across the day and night in multiple shifts. These details help establish the surrounding practice of isolation, although the evidence does not make every condition in that earlier block a provision of the later written plan.

The plan’s procedural design is especially clear in the relationship between the simulated removal and the prepared hut. The boat ride was not an actual transfer off the island, but a staged experience intended to make the detainee believe he had entered a different custodial setting. Camp Echo then extended that separation through a deliberately controlled room and reduced opportunity for outside contact. The arrangement joined physical relocation, deception, and environmental restriction as parts of one interrogation program.

Documentary Corroboration and Limits

The plan became publicly legible through records reviewed by investigators and later summarized in government reports. In fall 2003, prosecutor Stuart Couch received intelligence reports about Mohamedou Ould Slahi and was told that he was on Special Projects. Couch’s investigator, a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent, obtained access to interrogators’ files, including daily memoranda that recorded both what was said in sessions and how information was obtained. The underlying files remain classified, but the Senate Armed Services Committee’s 2008 inquiry and the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2008 review documented a special interrogation conducted under a second, painstaking plan and found that it unfolded almost exactly as described in the manuscript.

The editorial notes accompanying the manuscript distinguish corroboration from reconstruction. They draw on declassified records, investigations, public reporting, and close reading, but explicitly do not claim to recover the original redacted text or disclose classified material. The documented plan therefore confirms important parts of the account without resolving every obscured name, action, or detail. That boundary matters: the evidence supports the existence, approvals, and principal elements of the program, while the redactions preserve gaps in the record and in the author’s ability to participate in the editorial process.