Don't Try This at Home

Today's Wall Street Journal chronicles the experience of do-it-yourself waterboarders. And, yes, if you're not a subscriber and able to read the whole piece, those who have experienced waterboarding DO think it's torture.

Mukasey Doesn't Know If Private Contractors Are Authorized to Torture

Senator Feinstein just asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey whether private contractors employed by the U.S. government are currently authorized to apply the so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques. Mukasey's response: "I don't know."



C-Span is broadcasting the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing here: http://www.cspan.org/watch/cs_cspan_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS

10 Questions on Torture for Attorney General Michael Mukasey

During his confirmation hearings last October, Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to say that waterboarding and other obvious forms of torture and cruel treatment were illegal and should never be used. When he testifies before the Senate judiciary committee today, Senators are likely to ask once again that the Attorney General disavow the so-called “enhanced” techniques that violate U.S. law and treaty obligations. Unfortunately, Mukasey has already said that he simply won't answer the question.

Despite Mukasey's unacceptable response to the Senate Judiciary Committee, below are 10 questions on torture the Attorney General must answer.

1) Is waterboarding, or inducing the perception of drowning and creating the fear of imminent death, illegal?

2) If waterboarding is illegal, then any individual who has engaged in or authorized waterboarding has presumably broken the law. Will you investigate the potential criminal liability of individuals who may have engaged in or authorized the use of waterboarding?

3) Have you examined cases in which the United States has successfully prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime?

4) Do you believe that such prosecutions are relevant to evaluating the legality of waterboarding?

5) If you are now able to state that waterboarding is illegal, will you rescind or correct all relevant Department of Justice legal analysis to reflect your conclusion that waterboarding is illegal?

6) Have you completed your review of the legal analysis related to other so-called “enhanced” interrogation practices?

7) Did you find it necessary to rescind or correct any of the existing legal analysis on interrogation?

8) In August 2006, our nation’s top uniformed military lawyers, the Judge Advocates General of the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine Corps, all agreed that waterboarding, the use of dogs, removal of clothing, and stress positions — in which individuals are forced to stand, sit, or kneel in abnormal positions for extended periods of time — was inhumane and illegal. Do you agree with our nation’s top military lawyers?

9) Will John Durham, the prosecutor you appointed to investigate the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes, have the mandate to investigate any illegal conduct — including the use of abusive interrogations such as waterboarding — that was shown on the tapes?

10) Given the widespread distrust of the U.S. government’s record on matters of prisoner treatment, will you make the results of the criminal investigation into the CIA tape destruction available to the public regardless of whether it results in prosecution?

Former Intelligence Chief Confirms That the U.S. Engaged in Torture

Today, the former U.S. intelligence chief confirmed that the United States used the technique known as waterboarding in interrogations. While John Negroponte was likely trying to get the word out that the Bush Administration no longer engages in this form of torture, the admission that it was used in the past is significant, particularly because President Bush has repeatedly said that the United States does not torture. (For more on the legal and medical reasons why waterboarding is a form of torture see the Human Rights First and Physicians for Human Rights report on the subject here. For the history of how the United States used to prosecute waterboarding as a war crime see Judge Evan Wallach's history, here.)

Negroponte's comments mark the first time a high-ranking Administration official has gone on record to confirm that this torture technique was used by the U.S. (While Vice President Cheney said that dunking a terrorist suspect in water would be a "no-brainer", the White House later denied that Cheney was in fact talking about waterboarding.)

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who has repeatedly declined to say that waterboarding is a form of torture, is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and Negroponte's comments that the U.S. no longer engages in this particular technique are likely an attempt to take some of the heat off of him, particularly since Senate Democrats have made it clear that waterboarding is a subject they are eager to question Mukasey on.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration's torture problem goes beyond waterboarding. Other so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques also violate U.S. law and treaty obligations. On Wednesday, Americans will be listening to hear whether Mukasey disavows all of them, not simply the apparently no-longer-in-use technique of waterboarding.

U.S. Intelligence Chief: Waterboarding Would Be Torture If Used on Him

McConnell says it would be torture if he were waterboarded. But he won't say it would be torture if used against others.

Intelligence Chief Couches Reference to Waterboarding as
'Torture'
Associated Press
Sunday, January 13, 2008; A06

The nation's intelligence chief says that waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him, or if someone under interrogation was taking water into his lungs.

But Mike McConnell declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.

"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," the director of national intelligence told the New Yorker in this week's issue, released today.

As McConnell describes it, a prisoner is strapped down with a washcloth over his face and water dripped into his nose.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.

A spokesman for McConnell said the intelligence chief does not dispute the quotes attributed to him. McConnell was interviewed by Lawrence Wright, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for "The Looming Towers," a book on al-Qaeda and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

McConnell said the legal test for torture should be "pretty simple": "Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?"

White House spokesman Tony Fratto refused comment yesterday on waterboarding and McConnell's remarks.

"We don't talk about interrogation techniques. And we are not going to respond to every little thing that shows up in the press," he said. "We think McConnell is doing an incredible job heading up the intelligence community, reforming it and making it incredibly effective in being able to provide the president the best intelligence on threats to the nation. We think it's vitally important he and the intelligence community have all the tools they need."

[A CIA spokesman yesterday noted McConnell's acknowledgement in the article that the agency's detention and interrogation program had saved lives and provided information that could not have been obtained through other means.

"What he is quoted as saying is a very strong endorsement of the value of the CIA's detention and interrogation program," spokesman Mark Mansfield said in a statement. "It also is worth noting that DNI McConnell is quoted as saying the United States does not torture."]

CIA interrogators were given permission by the White House in 2002 to waterboard three prisoners deemed resistant to conventional techniques. The CIA has not used the technique since 2003; CIA Director Michael V. Hayden prohibited it in 2006.

Last summer, President Bush issued an executive order allowing the CIA to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" that go beyond what is allowed in the 2006 Army Field Manual. Waterboarding is among those techniques.

Wright disclosed in his article that the government has eavesdropped on his telephone conversations with at least two sources: a relative of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-ranking leader; and a lawyer of several men interviewed for "The Looming Towers."It is unclear under what authorities those intercepts were conducted.

"It may be troublesome; it may not be," McConnell told Wright. "You don't know."

Retired Military Leaders Speak Out Against Torture

These retired officers are speaking out to bring detainee treatment back into line with the Geneva Conventions and ensure that torture is never again a part of U.S. policy.