On February 14, 2007, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) wrote a confidential report that the CIA shared with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The report “described the treatment regime that he [Al Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubayda] underwent, categorically, as ‘torture’ and warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted… The ICRC was the first and only outside group to gain access to the CIA’s fourteen most highly prized detainees. They were held in complete isolation from the outside world for five years before the relief group got to speak with them.”
– Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, Pages 164-165