The Bybee memo was prepared after an internal debate within the government about the methods used to extract information from Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's top aides, after his capture in April 2002. The memo, which is dated Aug. 1, 2002, was a seminal legal document guiding the government's thinking on interrogation. The memo concluded that a coercive procedure could not be considered torture unless it caused pain equivalent to that accompanying "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." To be regarded as torture, the memo said, mental pain must also be caused by "threats of imminent death; threats of infliction of the kind of pain that would amount to physical torture; infliction of such physical pain as a means of psychological torture; use of drugs or other procedures designed to deeply disrupt the senses, or fundamentally alter an individual's personality; or threatening to do any of these things to a third party." Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion for Qaeda Cases | 
