Memo Says Prisoner Was Waterboarded 183 Times
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: April 19, 2009
Waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, was used by C.I.A. interrogators 183 times on one prisoner from Al Qaeda and 83 times on another, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum.
The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Bush administration Justice Department declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.
A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news organizations in 2007 that the first prisoner questioned in the C.I.A.’s secret overseas detention program in 2002, Abu Zubaydah, had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
But the May 30, 2005 memo, quoting a 2004 investigation by the C.I.A. inspector general, says C.I.A. officers used the waterboard at least 83 times during August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah.
During March 2003, the memo says, the waterboard was used 183 times against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed planner of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged with more than 100 different harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and halting his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method that had been used so extensively was not previously known.
The sentences in the 2005 memo including the number of times the two men were waterboarded appear to be redacted from some copies of the memo but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers, but several bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the emptywheel blog, discovered the numbers over the weekend.
Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, said on Fox News on Sunday that he had opposed the release of the memos, even though President Obama has said the techniques will never be used again, because they would tell Al Qaeda “the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist.” He also disputed an article in The New York Times on Saturday saying that Abu Zubaydah revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying he believed that after unspecified “techniques” were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html?ref=global-home
Yep. That waterboarding thing really works, doesn't it?
Have you ever taken that test yourself. . . .
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: April 19, 2009
Waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, was used by C.I.A. interrogators 183 times on one prisoner from Al Qaeda and 83 times on another, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum.
The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Bush administration Justice Department declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.
A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news organizations in 2007 that the first prisoner questioned in the C.I.A.’s secret overseas detention program in 2002, Abu Zubaydah, had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
But the May 30, 2005 memo, quoting a 2004 investigation by the C.I.A. inspector general, says C.I.A. officers used the waterboard at least 83 times during August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah.
During March 2003, the memo says, the waterboard was used 183 times against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed planner of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged with more than 100 different harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and halting his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method that had been used so extensively was not previously known.
The sentences in the 2005 memo including the number of times the two men were waterboarded appear to be redacted from some copies of the memo but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers, but several bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the emptywheel blog, discovered the numbers over the weekend.
Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, said on Fox News on Sunday that he had opposed the release of the memos, even though President Obama has said the techniques will never be used again, because they would tell Al Qaeda “the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist.” He also disputed an article in The New York Times on Saturday saying that Abu Zubaydah revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying he believed that after unspecified “techniques” were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html?ref=global-home
Yep. That waterboarding thing really works, doesn't it?
Have you ever taken that test yourself. . . .
