The horrible details of U.S. waterboarding

by Jay McDonough

It shouldn't be a big surprise that, when relying on the architects of the Bush Administration torture policies for details, information about the use of torture will come in small dribs and drabs, be shaded by understatement of the harm and exaggeration of the benefits, and be massaged to be way less horrible than it no doubt actually is.

Torture supporters typically use euphemisms to describe the torture; waterboarding is really just "a dunk in the water" or "a splash on the face".  The advocates also claim that waterboarding can't be torture, as U.S. troops are subjected to the treatment as a part of SERE training.  The torture supporters seem never to be asked how a controlled and voluntary simulation by fellow soldiers is anything like a protracted interrogation of a terrorist suspect by CIA agents who are only interested in extracting information.

After reviewing released CIA internal documents, some new details on the "dunk in the water" is documented by Mark Benjamin at Salon. 

The documents ... lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding "session." Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to "dam the runoff" and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee's mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second "applications" of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee's nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

The CIA's waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown. "In our limited experience, extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new risks," the CIA's Office of Medical Services wrote in its 2003 memo. "Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness."

When torture supporters were busily claiming the effectiveness of waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, they conveniently omitted the fact that KSM had been waterboarded 183 times and Zubaydah 83 times.  When torture supporters would tout the value of the information Abu Zubaydah provided, they somehow failed to mention that the actionable intelligence he provided was admitted prior to his waterboarding.  After President Bush bragged about the information obtained by torturing Abu Zubaydah, the Washington Post, after reviewing case files, concluded that absolutely no credible intelligence came from Zubaydah's interrogations that utilized torture.

According to a released Department of Justice memorandum, waterboarding was discontinued in 2005 and ex Vice President Dick Cheney maintains that only three suspected terrorists were waterboarded in U.S. custody.

Given the history of lies and understatement?  Sorry, but I'm way skeptical.