Report: Uncooperative suspects faced rectal rehydration, feeding

WASHINGTON - Among the more jarring passages in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects are descriptions of agency employees subjecting uncooperative detainees to "rectal rehydration" and "rectal feeding."

The report said that at least five CIA detainees were subjected to rectal rehydration or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity, while other detainees were threatened with the procedure.

At one point, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen who allegedly masterminded the bombing of the USS Cole, launched a short-lived hunger strike, which resulted in the CIA force feeding him rectally, it stated.

According to the report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also was subjected to rectal rehydration with no documented medical need for the procedure. An interrogation official later characterized the measure as illustrative of his "total control over the detainee."

The practice of rectal feeding and rehydration, while not unheard of, seems to have received little attention in modern medical literature, and certainly not in the context of treating obstinate prisoners.

Traditionally, it has been used only in dire circumstances, such as in the treatment of a 21-year-old man who was discovered by trekkers to be suffering from shock in the mountains of Nepal. President James Garfield's doctors decided to feed him rectally as he lay dying from an assassin's bullet - he received egg yolks, milk, whiskey, beef bouillon and drops of opium in this manner, though he continued to waste away, according to a biographer. Some German psychiatric patients who refused food in the 19th century apparently were subjected to the practice.

According to the Senate report, one of the detainees who underwent the procedure was Majid Khan, a Pakistani citizen and former resident of the Baltimore suburbs, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to five war crimes, including murder, attempted murder and spying. He previously had been held by the CIA at a secret prison overseas for three years before his transfer to the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay. He claimed he was "mentally tortured" by the agency and twice attempted suicide.

The report said Khan was subjected to "involuntary rectal feeding and rectal rehydration," which included two bottles of Ensure. Later the same day, his "lunch tray," consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins, was pureed and "rectally infused."

The report also said CIA medical officers discussed rectal rehydration as a form of behavior control.