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Waterboarding: Not Much of a Slippery Slope

Comment comment by LordDilly on 02 November 2007

According to this ABC report, waterboarding has only been used three times on Al Qaeda operatives since 2001 (one of whom was Khalid Sheik Mohammad) and hasn't been used since 2003, after Gen. Michael Hayden took over as CIA director. The article also offers some of these tidbits:

A senior CIA official said KSM later admitted it was only because of the waterboarding that he talked.

Ultimately, KSM took responsibility for the 9/ll attacks and virtually all other al Qaeda terror strikes, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

"KSM lasted the longest under waterboarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again," said a former CIA official familiar with KSM's case.

snip

CIA sources outlined for ABC News a list of harsh interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration in a "Presidential Finding," which authorized the use of the techniques on a narrow range of "high-value" targets.

The CIA sources described the list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

  1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
  2. The Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
  3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
  4. Longtime Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
  5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
  6. Waterboarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
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RE: Waterboarding: Not Much of a Slippery Slope by scottb :: NR7

According to this ABC report, waterboarding has only been used three times on Al Qaeda operatives since 2001

The point being what? That it's ok to torture, so long as we don't do it a lot?

Of the six items you list, I'd consider the last three to be torture. The "cold cell" is almost certain to cause hypothermia. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are pretty widely thought to be "cruel and unusual".

Even the first three are pretty questionable - remember that these people haven't been given the benefit of a trial. So, technically, they're nothing more than uncooperative suspects. If these techniques are reasonable to use in interrogating foreign suspects, then why shouldn't they be permissible for use by local police forces?

Posted 02 November 2007, Hide, Parent, Reply