Memos describe CIA's harsh interrogation program

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The journey into the CIA's most extreme interrogation program began in darkness.

Blindfolded, hooded and wearing earmuffs, suspected terrorists were shackled and flown to secret interrogation centers. The buildings themselves were quiet, clinical and designed to fill prisoners with dread. Detainees were shaved, stripped and photographed nude.

The questioning began mildly, a shackled detainee facing a non-threatening CIA interrogator. But for detainees who refused to cooperate, the interrogation escalated in terrifying ways.

Few people have ever witnessed the process, which was designed to extract secrets from "high value" suspects during the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks on the U.S. But Justice Department documents, which the Obama administration simultaneously released and repudiated Thursday, describe the process from darkness to waterboarding in skin-crawling detail.

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