Waterboarding
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d5/Waterboard3-small.jpg/250px-Waterboard3-small.jpg)
Waterboarding is a method of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages, causing the captive to believe he or she is dying.[1] Waterboarding is considered a form of torture by legal experts,[2][3] politicians, war veterans,[4][5] medical experts in the treatment of torture victims,[6][7] intelligence officials,[8] military judges[9] and human rights organizations.[10][11]
In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates an almost immediate gag reflex.[12] While the technique does not inevitably cause lasting physical damage, it can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death.[2] Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years.[6]
In 2007 it was reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was using waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners and that the Department of Justice had authorized the procedure,[13][14] a revelation that sparked a worldwide political scandal. Al-Qaeda suspects upon whom the CIA is known to have used waterboarding are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.[15][16] According to Justice Department documents, the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed provided information about a potential 9/11-type attack on Los Angeles.[17]
U.S. government officials have at various times said they do not believe waterboarding to be a form of torture.[18][19][20][21] To justify its use of waterboarding, the administration of George W. Bush issued classified legal opinions that argued for a narrow definition of torture under U.S. law, including the Bybee memo, which it later withdrew.[22][23][24] In January 2009 President Barack Obama banned the use of waterboarding. In April 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense refused to say whether waterboarding is still used for training (e.g., SERE) purposes.[17][25]
Technique
Waterboarding was characterized in 2005 by former CIA director Porter J. Goss as a "professional interrogation technique".[10] According to press accounts, a cloth or plastic wrap is placed over or in the person's mouth, and water is poured on to the person's head. As far as the details of this technique, press accounts differ – one article describes "dripping water into a wet cloth over a suspect's face",[26] another states that "cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him".[12]
The United States's Office of Legal Counsel stated the CIA's definition of waterboarding in a Top Secret 2002 memorandum as follows:
In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth... During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths... The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout... You have... informed us that it is likely that this procedure would not last more than twenty minutes in any one application."[27]
Dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, the suffocation of bound prisoners with water has been favored because, unlike most other torture techniques, it produces no marks on the body.[28] CIA officers who have subjected themselves to the technique have lasted an average of 14 seconds before capitulating.[12]
According to at least one former CIA official, information retrieved from the waterboarding may not be reliable because a person under such duress may admit to anything, as harsh interrogation techniques lead to false confessions. "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law", says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.[12] It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough", said former CIA officer Bob Baer.[12]
Reported demonstrations
Two televised segments, one from Fox News and one from Current TV, demonstrated a waterboarding technique.[29][30] In the videos, each correspondent is held against a board by the "interrogators." In the Current TV segment, a rag is then forced into the correspondent's mouth, and several pitchers of water are poured onto the rag. The interrogators periodically remove the rag, and the correspondent is seen to gasp for breath. The Fox News segment mentions five "phases" of which the first three are shown. In the first phase, water is simply poured onto the correspondent's face. The second phase is similar to the Current TV episode. In phase three, plastic wrap is placed over the correspondent's face, and a hole is poked into it over his mouth. Water is poured into his mouth through the hole, causing him to gag. He mentions that it really does cause him to gag; that it could lead to asphyxiation; and that he could stand it for only a few seconds.
Christopher Hitchens, a writer for Vanity Fair, voluntarily subjected himself to a filmed demonstration of waterboarding in 2008. The video shows Hitchens being led into a room that has a horizontal board waiting for him; he is bound and has a black mask over his face, blindfolding him. A group of men who are highly trained in this tactic, and who also demanded anonymity, carry out the torture. Hitchens is strapped to the board at the chest and feet, face up, and is unable to move. Metal objects are placed in each of his hands, meant to be dropped if he experiences "unbearable stress." Next, the torturers place a towel over Hitchens' face, and proceed to pour water on the towel. Within seconds, Hitchens throws the metal objects to the floor, and the torturers pull the mask from his face, allowing him to breathe.
Mental and physical effects
Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. In an interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience', he said".[6] Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that "water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse".[31]
In an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch asserted that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.[2]
In April 2009, Fox News host Sean Hannity offered to subject himself to waterboarding amidst debate over use of the practice, after which MSNBC host Keith Olbermann challenged Hannity to honor his offer. Both hosts separately offered to use the event as a benefit to charities.[32]
Etymology
While the techniques involved in waterboarding have been used for centuries, the use of the phrase "waterboarding" to describe such techniques is a relatively recent phenomenon.
The first use of the term "water boarding" in the media was in a New York Times article of May 13, 2004:
In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11 , 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as 'water boarding', in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.[33][34][35]
The U.S. attorney Alan Dershowitz is reported to have been responsible, two days later, for shortening the term to a single word– "waterboarding"– in a Boston Globe article where he stated: "After all, the administration did approve rough interrogation methods for some high valued detainees. These included waterboarding, in which a detainee is pushed under water and made to believe he will drown unless he provides information, as well as sensory deprivation, painful stress positions, and simulated dog attacks".[36] Dershowitz later stated to New York Times columnist William Safire that "when I first used the word, nobody knew what it meant".[35]
Prior to this use, techniques that involved forcible drownings to extract information were referred to as "water cure", "water treatment", "water torture", or simply "torture".[34][35] Notably, a UPI article in 1976 used the term "'water board' torture" to describe a training technique: "[U.S. Navy trainees] were strapped down and water poured into their mouths and noses until they lost consciousness... A Navy spokesman admitted use of the 'water board' torture... to 'convince each trainee that he won't be able to physically resist what an enemy would do to him'".[35]
Darius Rejali, a professor at Reed College and the author of the 2007 book Torture and Democracy, has speculated that the creation of the word "waterboarding" was probably the result of the need for a euphemism to describe the practice. Rejali stated that "there is a special vocabulary for torture. When people use tortures that are old, they rename them and alter them a wee bit. They invent slightly new words to mask the similarities. This creates an inside club, especially important in work where secrecy matters. Waterboarding is clearly a jailhouse joke. It refers to surfboarding"– a word found as early as 1929– "they are attaching somebody to a board and helping them surf. Torturers create names that are funny to them".[35]
In 2009, Webster's Dictionary added the term waterboarding to its dictionary and described it as "[a]n interrogation technique in which water is forced into a detainee's mouth and nose so as to induce the sensation of drowning." [37]
Classification as torture
Waterboarding is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,[2][3][38] politicians, war veterans,[4][5] intelligence officials,[8] military judges,[9] and human rights organizations.[10][11] David Miliband, the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary described it as torture on July 19, 2008, and stated "the UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture."[39] Arguments have been put forward that it might not be torture in all cases, or that it is unclear.[40][41][42][43] The U.S. State Department has recognized "submersion of the head in water" as torture in other circumstances, for example, in its 2005 Country Report on Tunisia.[44]
The United Nations' Report of the Committee Against Torture: Thirty-fifth Session of November 2006, stated that state parties should rescind any interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, that constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.[45]
Controversy over classification as torture in the United States
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Waterboarding.jpg/300px-Waterboarding.jpg)
Whether waterboarding should be classified as a method of torture was not widely debated in the United States before it was alleged, in 2004, that members of the CIA had used the technique against certain suspected detained terrorists.[46][47]
Subsequently, the U.S. government released a memorandum written in 2002 by the Office of Legal Counsel that came to the conclusion that waterboarding did not constitute torture and could be used to interrogate subjects. The OLC reasoned that "in order for pain or suffering to rise to the level of torture, the statute requires that it be severe" and that waterboarding did not cause severe pain or suffering either physically or mentally.[48]
For over three years during the George W. Bush administration, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an investigation into the propriety of this and other memos by the Justice Department on waterboarding and other "enhanced" interrogation techniques.[49] The OPR is set to conclude its investigation in June 2009 and reportedly will recommend professional sanctions, if not criminal prosecution, against the authors of the memos.[50][51] Commentators have noted that the memos omitted key relevant precedents, including a Texas precedent under then-Governor George W. Bush when the state convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff for waterboarding a criminal suspect.[52] Then Governor Bush did not issue a pardon for the sheriff.[52]
Former Bush administration officials Dick Cheney[18][19] and John Ashcroft[20] have stated since leaving office that they do not consider waterboarding to be torture. At least one Republican member of the U.S. Congress, Ted Poe,[21] has taken a similar position.
Other Republican officials have provided less definitive views regarding whether waterboarding is torture. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Republican prosecutor including in the Bush administration, has stated that when used in "some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive," waterboarding should not qualify as torture under the law.[53] McCarthy also has stated that "waterboarding is close enough to torture that reasonable minds can differ on whether it is torture" and that "[t]here shouldn't be much debate that subjecting someone to [waterboarding] repeatedly would cause the type of mental anguish required for torture".[53]
Many former senior Bush administration officials, on the other hand, have seriously questioned or directly challenged the legality of waterboarding. These include former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow,[54][55] former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,[56] former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge,[57] former head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jack Goldsmith,[58] General David Petraeus,[59] General Ricardo Sanchez,[60] FBI Director Robert Mueller,[61] and former Convening Authority for the Guantanamo military commissions Susan J. Crawford.[62]
During his tenure as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003-2004, Jack Goldsmith put a halt to the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique because of serious concern over its legality, but Goldsmith's order was quickly reversed by others within the Bush administration.[58][63]
The Republican 2008 candidate for president, Senator John McCain, has said unequivocally that he considers waterboarding to be torture.[64]
Professors such as Professor Wilson R. Huhn also have challenged the legality of waterboarding.[65]
In May 2008 the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens voluntarily underwent waterboarding and concluded that it was torture.[66][67][68] He also noted that he has suffered ongoing psychological effects from the ordeal.[68]
On May 22, 2009, a radio talk show host Erich "Mancow" Muller subjected himself to waterboarding to prove that it is not torture, but changed his mind because of the experience.[69]
Sean Hannity, another commentator who claims that waterboarding is not torture and has described those who oppose waterboarding as "moral fools", had declared on April 22, 2009 that he would similarly subject himself to waterboarding to prove that it is not torture.[70][71] Hannity has yet to subject himself to the technique even though Keith Olbermann and Jesse Ventura have made public wagers regarding Hannity's inability to withstand the treatment.[71][72][73]
On January 15, 2009 the U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, told his Senate confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture and the President cannot authorize it.[74][75][76][77] In a press conference on April 30, President Obama also stated, "I believe waterboarding was torture, and it was a mistake."[78]
Controversy over description by U.S. media
In covering the debate on the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique by the U.S. government, U.S. reporters had to decide whether to use the term "torture" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" to describe waterboarding. National Public Radio's ombudsman detailed this debate and why NPR had decided to refrain from using the word torture to describe waterboarding.[79] Due to criticism of the policy by the media [80] and to NPR directly, a second piece was written to further explain their position and a desire to describe the technique rather than simply describe it as torture.[81]
Historical uses
Spanish Inquisition
A form of torture similar to waterboarding called toca, and more recently "Spanish water torture", to differentiate it from the better known Chinese water torture, along with garrucha (or strappado) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack), was used infrequently during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. "The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning".[82] William Schweiker claims that the use of water as a form of torture also had profound religious significance to the Inquisitors.[83]
Colonial times
Agents of the Dutch East India Company used a precursor to waterboarding during the Amboyna massacre, which took place on the island of Amboyna in the Molucca Islands in 1623. At that time, it consisted of wrapping cloth around the victim's head, after which the torturers "poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that he could not draw breath but he must suck in all the water".[84][85][86][87] In one case, the torturer applied water three or four times successively until the victim's "body was swollen twice or thrice as big as before, his cheeks like great bladders, and his eyes staring and strutting out beyond his forehead".[86][87][88][89]
American prisoners prior to World War II
An editorial in The New York Times of 6 April 1852, and a subsequent 21 April 1852 letter to the editors documents an incidence of waterboarding, then called "showering," or "hydropathic torture," in New York's Sing Sing prison of an inmate named Henry Hagan, who, after several other forms of beating and mistreatment, had his head shaved, and "certainly three, and possibly a dozen, barrels of water were poured upon his naked scalp." Hagan was then placed in a yoke.[90] A correspondent listed only as "H" later wrote: "Perhaps it would be well to state more fully the true character of this 'hydropathic torture.' The stream of water is about one inch in diameter, and falls from a hight [sic] of seven or eight feet. The head of the patient is retained in its place by means of a board clasping the neck; the effect of which is, that the water, striking upon the board, rebounds into the mouth and nostrils of the victim, almost producing strangulation. Congestion, sometimes of the heart or lungs, sometimes of the brain, not unfrequently [sic] ensues; and death, in due season, has released some sufferers from the further ordeal of the water cure. As the water is administered officially, I suppose that it is not murder!" H. then went on to cite an 1847 New York law which limited prison discipline to individual confinement "upon a short allowance."[91]
Prisoners in late 19th-century Alabama, and in Mississippi in the first third of the 20th century, also suffered waterboarding. In Alabama, in lieu of or in addition to other physical punishment, a "prisoner was strapped down on his back; then 'water [was] poured in his face on the upper lip, and effectually stop[ped] his breathing as long as there [was] a constant stream'."[92] In Mississippi, the accused was held down, and water was poured "from a dipper into the nose so as to strangle him, thus causing pain and horror, for the purpose of forcing a confession."[93]
After the Spanish-American War of 1898
After the Spanish American War of 1898 in the Philippines, the U.S. army used waterboarding, called the "water cure" at the time. Reports of "cruelties" from soldiers stationed in the Philippines led to Senate hearings on U.S. activity there.
Testimony described the waterboarding of Tobeniano Ealdama "while supervised by ...Captain/Major Edwin F. Glenn (Glenn Highway)."[94]
Elihu Root, United States Secretary of War, ordered a court martial for Glenn in April 1902."[95] During the trial, Glenn "maintained that the torture of Ealdama was 'a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war.'"[94]
Though some reports seem to confuse Ealdama with Glenn,[96] he was found guilty and "sentenced to a one-month suspension and a fifty-dollar fine," the leniency of the sentence due to the "circumstances" presented at the trial.[94]
President Theodore Roosevelt privately rationalized the instances of "mild torture, the water cure" but publicly called for efforts to "prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future." In that effort, he ordered the court-martial of General Jacob H. Smith on the island of Samar, "where some of the worst abuses had occurred." When the court-martial found only that he had acted with excessive zeal, Roosevelt disregarded the verdict and had the General dismissed from the Army.[97]
Roosevelt soon declared victory in the Philippines, and the public lost interest in "what had, only months earlier, been alarming revelations."[94]
Police "Third degree"
The use of "third degree interrogation" techniques to compel confession, ranging from "psychological duress such as prolonged confinement to extreme violence and torture", was widespread in early American policing. Lassiter classified the water cure as "orchestrated physical abuse",[98] and described the police technique as a "modern day variation of the method of water torture that was popular during the Middle Ages". The technique employed by the police involved either holding the head in water until almost drowning, or laying on the back and forcing water into the mouth or nostrils.[98] Such techniques were classified as "'covert' third degree torture" since they left no signs of physical abuse, and became popular after 1910 when the direct application of physical violence to force a confession became a media issue and some courts began to deny obviously compelled confessions.[99] The publication of this information in 1931 as part of the Wickersham Commission's "Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement" led to a decline in the use of third degree police interrogation techniques in the 1930s and 1940s.[99]
World War II
During World War II both Japanese troops, especially the Kempeitai, and the officers of the Gestapo,[100] the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture.[101] During the Japanese occupation of Singapore the Double Tenth Incident occurred. This included waterboarding, by the method of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.[102][103][104]
Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[105] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again... I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."[38]
Algerian War
The technique was also used during the Algerian War (1954–1962). The French journalist Henri Alleg, who was subjected to waterboarding by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957,[106] is one of only a few people to have described in writing the first-hand experience of being waterboarded. His book La Question, published in 1958 with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre subsequently banned in France until the end of the Algerian War in 1962,[107] discusses the experience of being strapped to a plank, having his head wrapped in cloth and positioned beneath a running tap:
The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. "That's it! He's going to talk", said a voice. The water stopped running and they took away the rag. I was able to breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and the captain, who, with a cigarette between his lips, was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed.[106][108]
Alleg stated that he had not broken under his ordeal of being waterboarded.[109] Alleg has stated that the incidence of "accidental" death of prisoners being subjected to waterboarding in Algeria was "very frequent".[4]
Vietnam War
Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[110] On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.[111] The article described the practice as "fairly common".[111] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.[110][112] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.[113]
Chile
Based on the testimonies from more than 35,000 victims of the Pinochet regime, the Chilean Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture concluded that to provoke a near death experience, by waterboarding, is torture.[114]
Khmer Rouge
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/WaterboardWithCanKhmerRouge.jpg/300px-WaterboardWithCanKhmerRouge.jpg)
The Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979.[115] The practice was documented in a painting by former inmate Vann Nath, which is on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The museum also has on display boards and other actual tools used for waterboarding during the Khmer Rouge regime.[116][117]
Northern Ireland
Reports emerged in 2009 that the British Army had used waterboarding while interrogating suspects in Northern Ireland. It was allegedly used from March 1972, after Ted Heath, the Prime Minister at the time had banned five other torture methods. A former Royal Marines officer has also stated that he and his men were waterboarded at the end of counter-interrogation training during the late 1960s and early 1970s.[118]
U.S. Military survival training
All special operations units in all branches of the U.S. military and the CIA's Special Activities Division [119] employ the use of a form of waterboarding as part of survival school (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training, to psychologically prepare soldiers for the possibility of being captured by enemy forces.[120]
Jane Mayer wrote for The New Yorker:
According to the SERE affiliate and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11th several psychologists versed in SERE techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially "tried to reverse-engineer" the SERE program, as the affiliate put it. "They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way", another of the sources said. Interrogators and BSCT members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the SERE program.[121]
and continues to report:
many of the interrogation methods used in SERE training seem to have been applied at Guantánamo.[121]
However, according to a declassified Justice Department memo attempting to justify torture which references a still-classified report of the CIA Inspector General on the CIA's use of waterboarding, among other "enhanced" interrogation techniques, the CIA applied waterboarding to detainees "in a different manner" than the technique used in SERE training:
The difference was in the manner in which the detainees' breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, the subject's airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency interrogator ... applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee's mouth and nose. One of the psychiatrist / interrogators acknowledged that the Agency's use of the technique is different from that used in SERE training because it is 'for real' and is more poignant and convincing.[122]
According to the DOJ memo, the IG Report observed that the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS) stated that "the experience of the SERE psychologist / interrogators on the waterboard was probably misrepresented at the time, as the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant" and that "[c]onsequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used by the psychologist/interrogators was either efficacious or medically safe."[122]
Contemporary use and the United States
Use by law enforcement
In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning".[105] The sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies to four years.[105][112]
Use by intelligence officers
The 21 June 2004 issue of Newsweek stated that the Bybee Memo, a 2002 legal memorandum drafted by former OLC lawyer John Yoo that described what sort of interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists or terrorist affiliates the Bush administration would consider legal, was "prompted by CIA questions about what to do with a top Qaeda captive, Abu Zubaydah, who had turned uncooperative... and was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel, who discussed specific interrogation techniques", citing "a source familiar with the discussions". Amongst the methods they found acceptable was waterboarding.[26]
In November 2005, ABC News reported that former CIA agents claimed that the CIA engaged in a modern form of waterboarding, along with five other "enhanced interrogation techniques," against suspected members of al Qaeda.
On 20 July 2007, U.S. President George W. Bush signed an executive order banning torture during interrogation of terror suspects.[123] While the guidelines for interrogation do not specifically ban waterboarding, the executive order refers to torture as defined by 18 USC 2340, which includes "the threat of imminent death," as well as the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.[124] Reaction to the order was mixed, with the CIA satisfied that it "clearly defined" the agency's authorities, but Human Rights Watch saying that answers about what specific techniques had been banned lay in the classified companion document and that "the people in charge of interpreting [that] document don't have a particularly good track record of reasonable legal analysis".[125]
On 14 September 2007, ABC News reported that sometime in 2006 CIA Director Michael Hayden asked for and received permission from the Bush administration to ban the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations, although a CIA spokesperson declined to discuss interrogation techniques, which he or she said "have been and continue to be lawful." The sources of this information were current and former CIA officials. ABC reported that waterboarding had been authorized by a 2002 Presidential finding.[126] On 5 November 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that its "sources confirm... that the CIA has only used this interrogation method against three terrorist detainees and not since 2003."[127] John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, is the first official within the U.S. government to openly admit to the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique, as of 10 December 2007.[128][129]
On 6 February 2008, the CIA director General Michael Hayden stated that the CIA had used waterboarding on three prisoners during 2002 and 2003, namely Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.[15][130]
On 23 February 2008, the Justice Department revealed that its internal ethics office was investigating the department's legal approval for waterboarding of al Qaeda suspects by the CIA and was likely to make public an unclassified version of its report.[131]
On 15 October 2008, it was reported that the Bush administration had issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in June 2003 and June 2004 explicitly endorsing waterboarding and other torture techniques against al-Qaeda suspects.[132] The memos were granted only after "repeated requests" from the CIA, who at the time were worried that the White House would eventually try to distance themselves from issue; field employees in the agency believed they could easily be blamed for using the techniques without proper written permission or authority.[132] Until this point, the Bush administration had never been concretely tied to acknowledging the torture practices.
In an interview in January 2009, Cheney acknowledged the use of waterboarding to interrogate suspects and stated that waterboarding had been "used with great discrimination by people who know what they're doing and has produced a lot of valuable information and intelligence."[133]
In December 2008, Robert Mueller, the Director of the FBI since July 5, 2001, had stated however that despite Bush Administration claims that waterboarding has "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks", he does not believe that evidence obtained by the U.S. government through enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding disrupted an attack.[134][135]
On July 1, 2009, the US government announced that it was delaying again the scheduled release of declassified portions of a report by the CIA Inspector General in response to a civil lawsuit; the CIA report reportedly casts doubt on the effectiveness of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques employed by CIA interrogators, according to references to the report contained in several Bush-era Justice Department memos declassified in the Spring of 2009 by the US Justice Department.[122][136][137]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had water poured on him 183 times while being interrogated by the CIA. These 183 pours happened during an unknown amount of waterboarding sessions.[138] According to the Bush administration, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed divulged information of tremendous value during his detention. He is said to have helped point the way to the capture of Riduan Isamuddin (AKA Hambali), the Indonesian terrorist responsible for the 2002 bombings of night clubs in Bali. According to the Bush administration, he also provided information on an Al Qaeda leader in England.[139]
During a radio interview on October 24, 2006, with Scott Hennen of radio station WDAY, Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to agree with the use of waterboarding.[140][141]
The administration later denied that Cheney had confirmed the use of waterboarding, saying that U.S. officials do not talk publicly about interrogation techniques because they are classified. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said that Cheney was not referring to waterboarding, but only to a "dunk in the water", prompting one reporter to ask, "So dunk in the water means, what, we have a pool now at Guantanamo and they go swimming?" Tony Snow replied, "You doing stand-up?"[142]
On 13 September 2007, ABC News reported that a former intelligence officer stated that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded in the presence of a female CIA supervisor.[143]
Captured along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a letter from bin Laden which led officials to think that he knew where the Al Qaeda founder was hiding.[144][145]
According to sources familiar with a private interview of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he claimed to have been waterboarded five times.[139] A CIA official told ABC News that "he had been water-boarded, and had won the admiration of his interrogators because it took him two to two-and-half minutes to start confessing—well beyond the average of 14 seconds observed in others".[146] This is disputed by two former CIA officers who are reportedly friends with one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's interrogators. The officers called this "bravado" and claimed that he was waterboarded only once. According to one of the officers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed needed only to be shown the drowning equipment again before he "broke". "Waterboarding works", the former officer said. "Drowning is a baseline fear. So is falling. People dream about it. It's human nature. Suffocation is a very scary thing. When you're waterboarded, you're inverted, so it exacerbates the fear. It's not painful, but it scares the shit out of you". This former officer had been waterboarded himself in a training course. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he claimed, "didn't resist. He sang right away. He cracked real quick". He said, "A lot of them want to talk. Their egos are unimaginable. [He] was just a little doughboy. He couldn't stand toe to toe and fight it out".[139] After being subjected to waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed involvement in thirty-one terrorist plots.[147]
On June 15, 2009, in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU, the government was forced disclose a previously classified portion of a CIA memo written in 2006 which recounted how Mohammed told the CIA that he "made up stories" to stop from being tortured.[148]
Abu Zubaida
Abu Zubaida was also waterboarded by the CIA.[15]
In 2002, U.S. intelligence located Abu Zubayda by tracing his phone calls. He was captured March 28, 2002, in a safehouse located in a two story apartment in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Participating in his interrogation were two American psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and R. Scott Shumate.[149][150]
In December 2007, The Washington Post reported that there were some discrepancies regarding reports about the number of times Zubaida was waterboarded. According to a previous account by former CIA officer John Kiriakou, Abu Zubaida broke after just 35 seconds of waterboarding, which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning.[151] Kiriakou later admitted that he had no first had knowledge of the event and accused the CIA of using him to spread disinformation.[152]
One of Abu Zubayda's interrogators, Ali Soufan, later testified to Congress that Zubayda was producing useful information in response to conventional interrogation methods and stopped providing accurate information in response to harsh techniques.[153] Ali Soufon, also one of the FBI's most successful interrogators, explained, "When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information you're getting is useless."[153]
Obama administration
President Barack Obama banned the use of waterboarding and several other interrogation methods in January 2009. He reported that U.S. personnel must stick to the Army Field Manual guidelines.[154] In early April 2009, the Obama administration released several classified Justice Department memos from the George W. Bush administration that discussed waterboarding.[155]
Obama opposes the idea of legally prosecuting CIA personnel or CIA related people that committed waterboarding based upon legal advice provided by superiors. The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized his stance.[155] In early April 2009, news reports stated that Obama would support an independent investigation over the issue as long as it would be bipartisan.[154][155][156] On 23 April 2009, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that the administration had changed its position and now opposes such an idea. The topic has been subject to heated internal debate within the White House.[156]
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has stated that "high value information" came from waterboarding certain prisoners during the George W. Bush administration. He also commented that he could not know for sure whether or not other interrogation methods would have caused them to talk, had they been tried.[154] In a administration memo that was publicly released, he wrote, "I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given."[157]
An April poll by Rasmussen Reports found that 77 percent of voters had followed the story in the media and that 58 percent believe that releasing the memos compromised American national security. On the issue of a further investigation, 58 percent disagreed while 28% agreed.[158]
Obama detailed his view on waterboarding and torture in a press conference on 29 April 2009.[159]
Legality
International law
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/07-09-02_14-44-06_Manfred_Nowak_1.jpg/220px-07-09-02_14-44-06_Manfred_Nowak_1.jpg)
All nations that are signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture have agreed they are subject to the explicit prohibition on torture under any condition. This was affirmed by Saadi v. Italy in which the European Court of Human Rights, on 28 February 2008, upheld the absolute nature of the torture ban by ruling that international law permits no exceptions to it.[160][161] The treaty states "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture".[162] Additionally, signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are bound to Article 5, which states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".[163] Many signatories of the convention have made specific declarations and reservations regarding the interpretation of the term "torture" and restricted the jurisdiction of its enforcement.[164] However, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, stated on the subject "I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture", and that violators of the UN Convention Against Torture should be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction.[165]
Bent Sørensen, Senior Medical Consultant to the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and former member of the United Nations Committee Against Torture has said:
It's a clear-cut case: Waterboarding can without any reservation be labeled as torture. It fulfils all of the four central criteria that according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) defines an act of torture. First, when water is forced into your lungs in this fashion, in addition to the pain you are likely to experience an immediate and extreme fear of death. You may even suffer a heart attack from the stress or damage to the lungs and brain from inhalation of water and oxygen deprivation. In other words there is no doubt that waterboarding causes severe physical and/or mental suffering– one central element in the UNCAT's definition of torture. In addition the CIA's waterboarding clearly fulfills the three additional definition criteria stated in the Convention for a deed to be labeled torture, since it is 1) done intentionally, 2) for a specific purpose and 3) by a representative of a state– in this case the US.[7]
Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, concurred by stating, in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that he believes waterboarding violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.[166]
In a review of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, by Jane Mayer, The New York Times reported on 11 July 2008, that "Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes",[167] that the techniques applied to Abu Zubaydah were "categorically" torture,[167] and that Abu Zubaydah had told investigators that, contrary to what had been revealed previously, "he had been waterboarded at least 10 times in a single week and as many as three times in a day".[167]
Shortly before the end of Bush's second term newsmedia in other countries were opining that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture the U.S. is obligated to hold those responsible to account under criminal law.[168][169]
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment– Professor Manfred Nowak– on 20 January 2009, remarked on German television that, following the inauguration of Barack Obama as new President, George W. Bush has lost his head of state immunity and under international law the U.S. is now mandated to start criminal proceedings against all those involved in violations of the UN Convention Against Torture.[170][171] Law professor Dietmar Herz explained Novak's comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool.[170][171]
United States law
The United States Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, said that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law."[172] However, the United States has a historical record of regarding water torture as a war crime, and has prosecuted as war criminals individuals for the use of such practices in the past.
In 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese civilian who had served in World War II as an interpreter for the Japanese military, Yukio Asano, for "Violation of the Laws and Customs of War," asserting that he "did unlawfully take and convert to his own use Red Cross packages and supplies intended for" prisoners, but, far worse, that he also "did willfully and unlawfully mistreat and torture" prisoners of war. Asano received a sentence of 15 years of hard labor.[111] The charges against Asano included "beating using hands, fists, club; kicking; water torture; burning using cigarettes; strapping on a stretcher head downward."[173] The specifications in the charges with regard to "water torture" consisted of "pouring water up [the] nostrils" of one prisoner, "forcing water into [the] mouths and noses" of two other prisoners, and "forcing water into [the] nose" of a fourth prisoner.[174]
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, several memoranda, including the Bybee memo, were written analyzing the legal position and possibilities in the treatment of prisoners.[175] The memos, known today as the "torture memos,"[176] advocate enhanced interrogation techniques, while pointing out that refuting the Geneva Conventions would reduce the possibility of prosecution for war crimes.[177][178] In addition, a new definition of torture was issued. Most actions that fall under the international definition do not fall within this new definition advocated by the U.S.[179][180]
In its 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. Department of State formally recognized "submersion of the head in water" as torture in its examination of Tunisia's poor human rights record,[44] and critics of waterboarding[who?] draw parallels between the two techniques, citing the similar usage of water on the subject.[citation needed]
On September 6, 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense released a revised Army Field Manual entitled Human Intelligence Collector Operations that prohibits the use of waterboarding by U.S. military personnel. The department adopted the manual amid widespread criticism of U.S. handling of prisoners in the War on Terrorism, and prohibits other practices in addition to waterboarding. The revised manual applies only to U.S. military personnel, and as such does not apply to the practices of the CIA.[181] Nevertheless Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel, on February 14, 2008 testified:
There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law.[182]
In addition, both under the War Crimes Act[183] and international law, violators of the laws of war are criminally liable under the command responsibility, and they could still be prosecuted for war crimes.[184] Commenting on the so-called "torture memoranda" Scott Horton pointed out
the possibility that the authors of these memoranda counseled the use of lethal and unlawful techniques, and therefore face criminal culpability themselves. That, after all, is the teaching of United States v. Altstötter, the Nuremberg case brought against German Justice Department lawyers whose memoranda crafted the basis for implementation of the infamous "Night and Fog Decree."[185]
Michael Mukasey's refusal to investigate and prosecute anyone that relied on these legal opinions led Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center to write an article for JURIST stating:
it is legally and morally impossible for any member of the executive branch to be acting lawfully or within the scope of his or her authority while following OLC opinions that are manifestly inconsistent with or violative of the law. General Mukasey, just following orders is no defense![186]
On February 22, 2008 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse made public that "the Justice Department has announced it has launched an investigation of the role of top DOJ officials and staff attorneys in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by U.S. intelligence agencies."[187][188]
Both houses of the United States Congress approved a bill by February 2008 that would ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. As he promised, President Bush vetoed the legislation on March 8. His veto applied to the authorization for the entire intelligence budget for the 2008 fiscal year, but he cited the waterboarding ban as the reason for the veto.[189] It appears unlikely that bill supporters will be able to gather enough votes to overturn the veto.[190]
On January 22, 2009 President Barack Obama signed an executive order that requires both U.S. military and paramilitary organizations to use the Army Field Manual as the guide on getting information from prisoners, moving away from the Bush administration tactics.[191]
See also
- At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
- Command responsibility
- Department of Defense Directive 2310
- Dunking
- Enhanced interrogation techniques
- Torture and the United States
- Water cure
- Water torture
Further reading
- Alleg, Henri (2006; original French version published in 1958). The Question. Preface by Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by John Calder. Bison Books. ISBN 0803259603. ISBN 9780803259607.
- Bentham, Jeremy (2009 (1775)). The Rationale of Punishment, Book II, Chapter I, "Simple Afflictive Punishments", p.102. New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-627-3.
{{cite book}}
: Check date values in:|year=
(help)CS1 maint: year (link) - McCoy, Alfred W. (2006). A question of torture: CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0-8050-8041-4.
- Human Rights Watch. (2006). Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 (Human Rights Watch World Report). New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-715-6.
- Paust, Jordan L. (2007). Beyond the Law: The Bush Administration's Unlawful Responses in the "War" on Terror. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-88426-8.
- Tushnet, Mark V.; Martin, Francisco Forrest; Stephen J. Schnably; Wilson, Richard; Simon, Jonathan (2006). International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law: Treaties, Cases, and Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85886-0.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Report of the Committee Against Torture: Thirty-fifth Session (14 - November 25, 2005); Thirty-sixth Session (1-May 19, 2006). United Nations Pubns. ISBN 92-1-810280-X.
- Welch, Michael (2006). Scapegoats of September 11th: Hate Crimes & State Crimes in the War on Terror (Critical Issues in Crime and Society). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers. ISBN 0-8135-3896-3.
- Williams, Kristian (2006). American methods: torture and the logic of domination. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-753-0.
References
- ^ Safire, William. Safire's Political Dictionary, page 795 (Oxford University Press 2008): “Waterboarding. A form of torture in which the captive is made to believe he is suffocating to death under water.”
- ^ a b c d "Open Letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales". Human Rights Watch. 5 April 2006. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b Davis, Benjamin (8 October 2007). "Endgame on Torture: Time to Call the Bluff". JURIST. Retrieved 18 December 2007.
- ^ a b c "French Journalist Henri Alleg Describes His Torture Being Waterboarded by French Forces During Algerian War". Democracy Now!. 5 November 2007. Retrieved 18 December 2007.
- ^ a b McCain, John (21 November 2005). "Torture's Terrible Toll". Newsweek. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
In my view, to make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture, very exquisite torture.
- ^ a b c Mayer, Jane (14 February 2005). "Outsourcing Torture". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b "Former member of UN Committee Against Torture: 'Yes, waterboarding is torture'" (Press release). International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. 12 February 2008. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ a b Grey, Stephen (2006). Ghost plane: the true story of the CIA torture program. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 226. ISBN 0-312-36023-1. OCLC 70335397.
As one former CIA official, once a senior official for the directorate of operations, told me: 'Of course it was torture. Try it and you'll see.' Another, also a former higher-up in the directorate of operations, told me: 'Yes, it's torture...'
- ^ a b Bell, Nicole (2 November 2007). "Retired JAGs Send Letter To Leahy: 'Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.'". Crooks and Liars. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b c "CIA Whitewashing Torture". Human Rights Watch. 21 November 2005. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b "Amnesty International Response to Cheney's 'No-Brainer' Comment" (Press release). Amnesty International. 26 October 2006. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b c d e Ross, Brian (18 November 2007). "CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described". ABC News. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ "History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding". World News with Charles Gibson. ABC News. 29 November 2005. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ "Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations". The New York Times. 4 October 2007. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b c Price, Caitlin (5 February 2008). "CIA chief confirms use of waterboarding on 3 terror detainees". JURIST. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Tran, Mark (5 February 2008). "CIA admit 'waterboarding' al-Qaida suspects". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b Lucas, Fred (22 April 2009). "Obama Bans Waterboarding Terrorists, But Pentagon Won't Say If It Still Waterboards Military Trainees". Cybercast News Service. Retrieved 29 April 2009.
- ^ a b Beam, Alex (June 5, 2009) "The New Tricky Dick". Boston Globe. Retrieved on June 10, 2009.
- ^ a b Defrank, Thomas (June 1, 2009) "Former Vice President Dick Cheney 'a strong believer' in waterboarding". Daily News. Retrieved on June 10, 2009.
- ^ a b "Ashcroft defends waterboarding before House panel, CNN, July 17, 2008". Edition.cnn.com. 2008-07-17. Retrieved 2009-10-21.
- ^ a b Glenn Beck Show. Transcript. Retrieved May 24, 2009.
- ^ Warrick, Joby (15 October 2008). "CIA Tactics Endorsed In Secret Memos". The Washington Post. Retrieved 25 November 2009.
- ^ Goldberg, Elizabeth. Beyond Terror: Gender, Narrative, Human Rights, page 213 (Rutgers University Press 2007): “the U.S. government has, since 9/11, repeatedly sought to redefine torture so as to exclude acts once accepted as torture, such as waterboarding.”
- ^ Behind the 'torture memos' by John Yoo
- ^ Finn, Peter and Warrick, Joby. “In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture,'” Washington Post(2009-04-25): "obviously the United States government does not torture its own people."
- ^ a b Hirsh, Michael (21 June 2004). "A Tortured Debate". Newsweek. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ 2002 Bybee memo, page 3-4[non-primary source needed]
- ^ "Waterboarding: An Issue Before Mukasey's Bid". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. 3 November 2007. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Harrigan, Steve (6 November 2006). "Waterboarding: Historically Controversial". Fox News Channel. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Larsen, Kaj (31 October 2007). "Getting Waterboarded". Current TV. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Keller, Allen S. (25 September 2007). "Water-boarding" (PDF). Statement by Allen S. Keller at the Hearing on U.S. Interrogation Policy and Executive Order 13440. United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Bauder, David (28 April 2009). "Olbermann presses Hannity on his waterboard offer". Associated Press. Retrieved 19 May 2009.
- ^ Risen, James (13 May 2004). "The Struggle for Iraq: Detainees; Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited In Top Qaeda Interrogations". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ a b MacDonald, Isabel (13 May 2008). "From Water Torture to 'Waterboarding'". Extra!. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b c d e Safire, William (9 March 2008). "On Language: Waterboarding". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Dershowitz, Alan (15 May 2004). "Covering up the coverup". Boston Globe. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Miami Herald Article[dead link]
- ^ a b Wallach, Evan (2007). "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts". The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. 45 (2): 468–506. ISSN 0010-1931. A rough draft is also available.
- ^ "UK 'must check' US torture denial". BBC News. 19 July 2008. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ McCarthy, Andrew C. (10 December 2007). "Waterboarding and Torture". National Review. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Eggen, Dan (31 October 2007). "Mukasey Losing Democrats' Backing". Washington Post. p. A01. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Cooper, Michael (25 October 2007). "In His Words: Giuliani on Torture". Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ "Congressman Poe". Glenn Beck Program. 12 December 2007. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ a b Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (8 March 2006). "Tunisia". 2005 County Reports on Human Rights Practices. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Report of the UN Committee against Torture: Thirty-fifth Session (14–25 November 2005), Thirty-sixth Session (1–19 May 2006). United Nations. 2006. p. 71. ISBN 92-1-810280-X. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Hess, Pamela (11 December 2007). "New Details in CIA Waterboarding". Associated Press. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Decker, Jon (5 November 2007). "Waterboarding demonstrated in DC". Reuters. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ 2002 OLC Bybee memo pg 11, 15[non-primary source needed]
- ^ Shapiro, Ari and Norris, Michele (May 5, 2009). "LEGAL AFFAIRS Sources: Interrogation Probe Almost Complete". NPR. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Perez, Evan (May 6, 2009). "Justice Likely to Urge No Prosecutions". WSJ. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Johnson, Carrie (May 6, 2009). "Bush Officials Try to Alter Ethics Report". Washington Post. Retrieved on May 24, 2009
- ^ a b Galloway, Joseph L. (November 7, 2007). "Commentary: Is waterboarding torture? Yes". McClatchy's. Retrieved on May 24, 2009
- ^ a b McCarthy, Andrew (October 26, 2007). "Waterboarding and Torture". National Review Online. Retrieved May 24, 2009
- ^ Johnston, David (May 14, 2009). "Bitter Start to a Hearing on Interrogation Tactics". New York Times. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Baumann, Nick (May 13, 2009). "Highlights from the Bush Administration's Anti-Torture Memos". Mother Jones. Retrieved May 24, 2009. (links to copies of two of Zelikow's three memos)
- ^ [Grim, Ryan (April 15, 2009). "Richard Armitage On Torture: I Should Have Resigned From Bush Administration". Huffingston Post. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Fein, Bruce (February 17, 2009 "The More Things Change". Washington Times. Retrieved on May 24, 2009
- ^ a b Rosen, Jeffrey (September 9, 2007). "Conscience of a Conservative". New York Times. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ MacCallum, Martha (May 29, 2009) Fox News Interview. Hosted by Crooks and Liars. Retrieved on June 20, 2009. ("When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those.")
- ^ Zeese, Kevin (June 11, 2009). "The Case for Disbarment of Lawyers Who Facilitated Torture Grows." Op Ed News. Retrieved on June 20, 2009.
- ^ (April 24, 2008) "FBI: We Warned About Torture of Detainees". Associated Press. Retrieved on June 20, 2009.
- ^ "Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official." Washington Post. Retrieved on June 20, 2009. ("We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.")
- ^ Shane, Scott & Johnston, David (June 8, 2009) "U.S. Lawyers Agreed on Legality of Brutal Tactic". New York Times. Retrieved on June 10, 2009.
- ^ "Sen. John McCain 'On the Record' on Torture, Pelosi and More". Fox News Web Site (May 22, 2009). Retrieved on June 7, 2009.]
- ^ Huhn, Wilson R. (10 May 2008). "Waterboarding is Torture". Washington University Law Review. Washington University School of Law. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ "On the Waterboard". Vanity Fair. 2008. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2008). "Believe Me, It's Torture". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ a b Nizza, Mike (2 July 2008). "A Window Into Waterboarding". New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Pollyea, Ryan (May 22, 2009). "Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture". NBC News, Chicago. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Grodin, Charles (April 22, 2009). "Hannity Offers To Be Waterboarded For Charity". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ a b Lieberman, Rich (May 22, 2009). "Friday Night Fish-- Sean Hannity: Those who oppose Waterboarding are "Moral Fools"". SFGate. Retrieved on May 24, 2009.
- ^ Ellen (May 24, 2009). "Hannity Responds To Waterboarding Challenge By Smearing Ventura". News Hounds. Retrieved on May 24, 2009
- ^ Silva, Mark (May 22, 2009). "Sean Hannity: Jesse Ventura surfed out". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on May 24, 2009. According to the Chicago Tribune, Sean Hannity responded by saying, "Clearly Jesse swallowed too much water while surfing, which is how he now spends his time."
- ^ "Holder: Water-boarding is torture; president can't authorize it". USA Today. 15 January 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Landers, Kim (15 January 2009). "Waterboarding is torture, declares Obama's Attorney General". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ "Senators endorse new Clinton role". BBC News. 15 January 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ Barrett, Devlin (15 January 2009). "Obama's pick breaks from Bush on torture" (subscription required). Taiwan News. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ MacAskill, Ewen (April 30, 2009). "http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/30/obama-waterboarding-mistake". The Guardian. Retrieved on June 15, 2009.
- ^ byline goes here (2009-06-21). "Harsh Interrogation Techniques or Torture? - NPR Ombudsman Blog". NPR. Retrieved 2009-10-21.
- ^ Glenn Greenwald (2009-06-22). "NPR's ombudsman: Why we bar the word "torture" - Glenn Greenwald". Salon.com. Retrieved 2009-10-21.
- ^ http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2009/06/torture_round_two.html
- ^ Scott, George Ryley (2004). The History of Torture Throughout the Ages. London: Kegan Paul. p. 172. ISBN 0-7103-0837-X. OCLC 51963457.
- ^ Schweiker, William (2008). "Torture and Religious Practice". Dialog. 47 (3): 208–216. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6385.2008.00395.x.
{{cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ East India Company (1624). A true relation of the vniust, cruell, and barbarous proceedings against the English at Amboyna in the East-Indies. London: H. Lownes. pp. 10–11. OCLC 282074622.
- ^ Milton, Giles (1999). Nathaniel's nutmeg: how one man's courage changed the course of history. London: Hodder & Stoughton. p. 238. ISBN 0-340-69675-3. OCLC 41580815.
- ^ a b Keay, John (1993). The Honourable Company: a history of the English East India Company. London: HarperCollins. p. 49. ISBN 0-00-638072-7. OCLC 246914399.
- ^ a b Kerrigan, Michael (2001). The Instruments of Torture. Staplehurst: Spellmount. p. 85. ISBN 1-862-27115-1. OCLC 59535043.
- ^ East India Company (1624). A true relation of the vniust, cruell, and barbarous proceedings against the English at Amboyna in the East-Indies. London: H. Lownes. p. 11. OCLC 282074622.
- ^ Milton, Giles (1999). Nathaniel's nutmeg: how one man's courage changed the course of history. London: Hodder & Stoughton. pp. 328–329. ISBN 0-340-69675-3. OCLC 41580815.
- ^ "Extra-Judicial Punishments". The New York Times. 6 April 1852. p. 2. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ "Prison Punishments--Showering". The New York Times. 21 April 1852. p. 4. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ Mary Ellen Curtin, Black Prisoners and their World, Alabama, 1865-1900, at 69 (The University Press of Virginia 2000).
- ^ Neil R. McMillen, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow, at 213 (University of Illinois Press 1990).
- ^ a b c d Kramer, Paul (25 February 2008). "The Water Cure". The New Yorker. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ "More Courts-Martial in the Philippines". The New York Times. 16 April 1902. p. 1. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ Tran, Mark (27 October 2006). "Cheney endorses simulated drowning". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ Rezneck, Daniel A. (31 October 2007). "Roosevelt was right: Waterboarding wrong". The Politico. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ a b Lassiter, G. Daniel (2004). "Orchestrated Physical Abuse". Interrogations, confessions, and entrapment. New York City: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 47–48. ISBN 0-306-48470-6. OCLC 54685952.
{{cite book}}
:|access-date=
requires|url=
(help); External link in
(help); Unknown parameter|chapterurl=
|chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (help) - ^ a b Leo, Richard A. (1992). "From coercion to deception: the changing nature of police interrogation in America". Crime, Law and Social Change. 18 (1–2): 35–59. doi:10.1007/BF00230624.
{{cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ Gorman, H. Candace (14 June 2007). "Torture By Another Name". In These Times. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ Delarue, Jacques (1964). The Gestapo: A History of Horror. New York City: William Morrow and Company. p. 234. OCLC 301833480.
- ^ Sidhu, H. (1991). The bamboo fortress: true Singapore war stories. Singapore: Native Publications. p. 113. ISBN 981-00-3101-7. OCLC 25961588.
- ^ Au, Waipang (1997). "Sime Road Camp". Yawning Bread. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ "Victim of Japanese torture". 31 July 2007. Retrieved 18 April 2009.[unreliable source?]
- ^ a b c Wallach, Evan (4 November 2007). "Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime". The Washington Post. p. B01. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
- ^ a b Leonard, Doyle (1 November 2007). "Waterboarding is torture — I did it myself, says US advisor". The Independent. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ "Algerian revolutionary journalist Henri Alleg to discuss torture in war" (Press release). Vassar College. 17 April 2007. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
- ^ Alleg, Henri (2006) [1958]. The question. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. p. 49. ISBN 0-8032-5960-3. OCLC 62109991.
{{cite book}}
:|access-date=
requires|url=
(help) - ^ "Ordeal by Torture". Time. 9 June 1958. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ a b "History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding". World News with Charles Gibson. ABC News. 12 November 2005. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ a b c Pincus, Walter (5 October 2006). "Waterboarding Historically Controversial". The Washington Post. p. A17. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ a b Weiner, Eric (3 November 2007). "Waterboarding: A Tortured History". National Public Radio. Retrieved 19 December 2007.
- ^ Fletcher, Harrel. "Harrel Fletcher — The American War". Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ Correa, Cristián (14 January 2008). "Debate on waterboarding is artificial; it is clearly torture". JURIST. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ Milbank, Dana (2 November 2007). "Logic Tortured". The Washington Post. p. A02. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ "Waterboard". 11 December 2007. Retrieved 19 April 2009.[unreliable source?]
- ^ "Waterboard, Table, Barrel". 2 January 2008. Retrieved 19 April 2009.[unreliable source?]
- ^ Cobain, Ian (21 December 2009). "British Army 'waterboarded' suspects in 70s". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 December 2009.
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.html?pagewanted=3
- ^ Eban, Katherine (17 July 2007). "Rorschach and Awe". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
- ^ a b Mayer, Jane (11 July 2005). "The Experiment". The New Yorker. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
- ^ a b c Worthington, Andy (July 1, 2009) "Release of the "Holy Grail" of Torture Reports Delayed Again." Huffington Post. Retrieved on July 2, 2009.
- ^ "Bush bans terror suspect torture". BBC News. 20 July 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency" (Press release). White House Press Secretary. 20 July 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Miller, Greg (21 July 2007). "Bush signs rules for CIA interrogators". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Ross, Brian (14 September 2007). "CIA Bans Waterboarding in Terror Interrogations". The Blotter. ABC News. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Schumer's Epiphany". The Wall Street Journal. 5 November 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Warrick, Joby (11 December 2007). "Waterboarding Recounted". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ Davis, Mark (12 December 2007). "His second guess is wrong". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "CIA finally admits to waterboarding". The Australian. News Limited. 7 February 2008. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Shane, Scott (23 February 2008). "Waterboarding Focus of Inquiry by Justice Dept". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ a b Warrick, Joby (15 October 2008). "CIA Tactics Endorsed In Secret Memos". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Riechmann, Deb (8 January 2009). "Cheney: CIA did nothing illegal in interrogations". Fox News Channel. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Did torture Work? Washington Post December 11, 2007
- ^ David Rose (December 16, 2008) "Reckoning" Vanity Fair. Retrieved on June 7, 2009.
- ^ Hess, Pamela (June 19, 2009) "Gov't delays release of report on interrogations." Associated Press. Retrieved on June 20, 2009.
- ^ Landay, Jonathan and Strobel, Warren (May 21, 2009) "Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths." McClatchy's. Retrieved on June 19, 2009.
- ^ Weaver, Matthew (20 April 2009). "CIA waterboarded al-Qaida suspects 266 times". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ a b c Mayer, Jane (13 August 2007). "The Black Sites". The New Yorker. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Feeling chilled? Let your blood boil". Unbossed. 24 October 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.[unreliable source?]
- ^ "Interview of the Vice President by Scott Hennen, WDAY at Radio Day at the White House" (Press release). White House Press Secretary. 24 October 2006. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Press Briefing by Tony Snow" (Press release). White House Press Secretary. 27 October 2006. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Ross, Brian (13 September 2007). "How the CIA Broke the 9/11 Attacks Mastermind". The Blotter. ABC News. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Associated Press (16 March 2007). "Experts: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest slowed al-Qaeda". USA Today. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: life of terror". CNN. 23 September 2003. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Gumbel, Andrew (18 March 2007). "Confession of 9/11 architect backfires on US". The Independent. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's '31 plots'". BBC News. 15 March 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Barnes, Julian and Miller, Greg (June 15, 2009). "Detainee says he lied to CIA in harsh interrogations" LA Times. Retrieved on June 15, 2009.
- ^ "Rorschach and Awe: As Opposition Grows Over the APA's Policy Allowing Psychologists to Take Part in Military Interrogations, Vanity Fair Exposes How Two Psychologists Shaped the CIA's Torture Methods". Democracy Now!. 30 July 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "The Destroyed CIA Torture Tapes & Psychologists". Democracy Now!. 10 December 2007. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Eggen, Dan (18 December 2007). "FBI, CIA Debate Significance of Terror Suspect". The Washington Post. p. A01. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ Stein, Jeff (26 January 2010). "CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding". Foreign Policy Magazine. p. A01. Retrieved 27 January 2010.
- ^ a b Ghosh, Bobby (April 24, 2009). "A Top Interrogator Who's Against Torture". Time. Retrieved on June 15, 2009
- ^ a b c "Bush officials blamed over torture". Al Jazeera English. 23 April 2009. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
- ^ a b c Warrick, Joby (21 April 2009). "Obama Cites CIA's Possible 'Mistakes' But Vows Support". The Washington Post. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
- ^ a b Espo, David (23 April 2009). "White House opposes special commission". The Modesto Bee. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
- ^ Baker, Peter (21 April 2009). "Banned Techniques Yielded 'High Value Information,' Memo Says". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
- ^ "58% Say Release of CIA Memos Endangers National Security". Rasmussen Reports. 23 April 2009. Retrieved 30 April 2009.
- ^ "News Conference by the President" (Press release). White House Press Secretary. 30 April 2009. Retrieved 19 May 2009.
- ^ Murphy, Brett (28 February 2008). "Europe rights court upholds absolute torture ban in Tunisia deportation case". JURIST. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Sceats, Sonya (28 February 2008). "Saadi — The Ban on Torture Is Absolute". Opinio Juris. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ United Nations General Assembly. "Article 2". United Nations Convention Against Torture. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ United Nations General Assembly. "Article 5". Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- ^ "Status". Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Retrieved 27 April 2009.
- ^ Australian Associated Press (8 February 2008). "Waterboarding qualifies as torture: UN". ninemsn. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ "Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee: Annual Threat Assessment" (PDF). Director of National Intelligence. 27 February 2008. p. 31. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ a b c Shane, Scott (11 July 2008). "Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Horton, Scott (19 January 2009). "Overseas, Expectations Build for Torture Prosecutions". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Kaleck, Wolfgang (19 January 2009). "Die leere Anklagebank". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 21 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ^ a b Marinero, Ximena (21 January 2009). "UN torture investigator calls on Obama to charge Bush for Guantanamo abuses". JURIST. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ a b Horton, Scott (21 January 2009). "UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004).
- ^ "Yukio Asano". Case Synopses from Judge Advocate's Reviews: Yokohama Class B and C War Crimes Trials. UC Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center. 2007. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ "Retrieved on May 14, 2009" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-10-21.
- ^ "The Interrogation Documents: Debating U.S. Policy and Methods". National Security Archive. 13 July 2004. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ "The Torture Memo". Thenation.com. Retrieved 2009-10-21.
- ^ Isikoff, Michael (17 May 2004). "Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings". Newsweek. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Holtzman, Elizabeth (28 June 2005). "Torture and Accountability". The Nation. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (17 February 2006). "Judge's anger at US torture". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ Jamail, Dahr (9 March 2006). "Torture as National Policy". AlterNet. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Alfano, Sean (6 September 2007). "U.S. Army Bans Torture Of Prisoners". CBS News. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ Murphy, Brett (14 February 2008). "Waterboarding not authorized under current law: DOJ to House panel". JURIST. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Cohn, Marjorie (15 February 2008). "Injustice at Guantanamo: Torture Evidence and the Military Commissions Act". JURIST. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Samuel, Alexandria (23 April 2005). "Rights group calls for special prosecutor to investigate abuse roles of Rumsfeld, Tenet". JURIST. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Horton, Scott (7 November 2005). "The Return of Carl Schmitt". Balkinization. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Paust, Jordan (18 February 2008). "Just Following Orders? DOJ Opinions and War Crimes Liability". JURIST. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Shane, Scott (23 March 2008). "Waterboarding Focus of Inquiry by Justice Dept". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ "Durbin and Whitehouse: Justice Department is Investigating Torture Authorization" (Press release). Dick Durbin. 22 February 2008. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- ^ Eggen, Dan (8 March 2008). "Bush Announces Veto of Waterboarding Ban". The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
- ^ Cowan, Richard (8 March 2008). "Bush vetoes bill outlawing CIA waterboarding". Reuters. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ Mount, Mike (22 January 2009). "Obama gives military's interrogation rules to CIA". CNN. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Wikinews-logo.svg/40px-Wikinews-logo.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Wikinews-logo.svg/40px-Wikinews-logo.svg.png)
- Hitchens, Christopher (2008). "Believe Me, It's Torture". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - Lomax, Eric (4 March 2008). "Waterboarding: the most horrific experience of my life". The Times. London. Retrieved 24 April 2009.[dead link]
- Warrick, Joby (9 December 2007). "Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002". The Washington Post. p. A01. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - Safire, William (9 March 2008). "Waterboarding". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- Vanity Fair video of waterboarding, July 2008
- Former U.S. Navy interrogator on waterboarding
- Victim of waterboarding talks: veteran French journalist Henri Aleg
- MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann on waterboarding, November 2007
- Mancow Discusses Being Waterboarded by Nicholas Graham, The Huffington Post, May 26, 2009