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Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA
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ShareNovember 02, 2007 1:25 PM
For all the debate over waterboarding, it has been used on only three al Qaeda figures, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.
As ABC News first reported in September, waterboarding has not been used since 2003 and has been specifically prohibited since Gen. Michael Hayden took over as CIA director.
Officials told ABC News on Sept. 14 that the controversial interrogation technique, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex as shown in the above demonstration, had been banned by the CIA director at the recommendation of his deputy, Steve Kappes.
Hayden sought and received approval from the White House to remove waterboarding from the list of approved interrogation techniques first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002.
The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed by the CIA.
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One U.S. intelligence official said, "It would be wrong to assume that the program of the past moved into the future unchanged."
A CIA spokesman said, as a matter of policy, he would decline to comment on interrogation techniques, "which have been and continue to be lawful," he said.
The practice of waterboarding has been branded as "torture" by human rights groups and a number of leading U.S. officials, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., because it amounted to a "mock execution."
It has been at the center of the debate that threatens to derail the confirmation of President George Bush's attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey.
As a result of Hayden's decision, officials say, the most extreme technique left available to CIA interrogators would be what is termed "longtime standing," which includes exhaustion and sleep deprivation with prisoners forced to stand handcuffed, with their feet shackled to the floor.
The most effective use of waterboarding, according to current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots against the United States.
A senior CIA official said KSM later admitted it was only because of the waterboarding that he talked.
Ultimately, KSM took responsibility for the 9/ll attacks and virtually all other al Qaeda terror strikes, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
"KSM lasted the longest under waterboarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again," said a former CIA official familiar with KSM's case.
ABC News first reported on waterboarding in November 2005 as part of a George Polk Award-winning series of reports on the agency and its practices. In that report, CIA sources outlined for ABC News a list of harsh interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration in a "Presidential Finding," which authorized the use of the techniques on a narrow range of "high-value" targets.
The CIA sources described the list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:
1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. The Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Longtime Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Waterboarding (as demonstrated in the picture above): The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the waterboarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in.
Contacted after the completion of the ABC News investigation, CIA officials would neither confirm nor deny the accounts. They simply declined to comment.
Do you have a tip for Brian Ross and the Investigative Team?
November 2, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (81)
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Somebody's nose is growing.
Posted by: fletch | Nov 2, 2007 1:51:25 PM
This is not an exclusive. This was on NBC News site in Sept.
Posted by: Mark | Nov 2, 2007 1:58:25 PM
Okay now al Qaeda knows what to expect. Great. Why is it that we worry so much about how the enemy is treated and not so much about how the enemy treats our prisoners? Doesn't anybody remember the beheadings?
Posted by: Boatsun | Nov 2, 2007 1:59:27 PM
water boarding does not seem to be torture to me. the enemy cuts your head off, cuts limbs off to everyone. the enemy kills women, children and our troops with no regard. we do have regard for life. our goal is information, not lets see how we can torture the enemy. now to hear this has happened to only 3 of the thousands of enemy combatants! big deal.
Posted by: MarinesCallmeDoc | Nov 2, 2007 2:00:57 PM
SO -- this is only a simulation... based on what... this picture is only meant to inflame...... since you really don’t know what the conditions were or what really took placed when they were using this technique on these scum bags.... ABC needs to stop using fake pictures... So now the enemy knows some of our techniques for getting them to spill their guts..... so they can train against them...... It's great how our own media helps out the enemy....
Posted by: FidoNY55 | Nov 2, 2007 2:01:06 PM
That is three times more than I tolerate as a proud American. We can NEVER become the enemy. The ends never justify the means if it requires us to ignore our oath to the Constitution.
Posted by: Brent | Nov 2, 2007 2:09:41 PM
I don't know much about torture, but I have to wonder if it waterboarding works in 14 seconds wouldn't you want to use it? How long do the others forms of torture take before you get information. Also if we haven't used it since 2003 why do we need to know specifically if Michael Mukasey agrees with using it or not?
Posted by: texan | Nov 2, 2007 2:15:17 PM
That makes it alright then. The CIA have only used int three times on Senior Al Qaeda figures.
How many prisoners has it been used on by the people the CIA outsource torture to. Egypt, Jordan, Poland, etc etc etc.
Posted by: Chris | Nov 2, 2007 2:19:53 PM
Why is it that we worry so much about how the enemy is treated and not so much about how the enemy treats our prisoners?
We worry about how we treat our prisoners because we are civilized country, sir, or we used to be before George Jr. took office.
PS: Our torture of prisoners is widely known -- they have wall murals all over Iran of the Abu Ghraib photos, and don't think that they aren't remembered when one of our boys gets captured.
Dear Marines: if you support torture, as you say you do, you are just another terrorist and deserve to be treated as one.
Posted by: Rex Galella | Nov 2, 2007 2:22:11 PM
I hope that we all remember the fact that we are a civilized nation. Regardless what those jackals do, we should never stoop to their level. The Geneva Convention was put it place to remind us of the horrors of war and what mankind is capable of.
Don't discard our principals.
Posted by: H. L. | Nov 2, 2007 2:22:45 PM
Don't forget this is just CIA interrogation. Suspects were flown by the CIA to third parties in other countries where nobody knows what horrors were committed.
Posted by: Tom | Nov 2, 2007 2:23:44 PM
Nope, no one in the Media remembers the beheadings and torture of American Soldiers - now or in the past. The media refuses to embellish them like they have these so called torture techniques the US uses (they are actually defined as interrogation methods - yet the media likes to make them more course by referencing them in a ugly manner). It does not grab headlines nor the population the media wants to solicit. The Taliban beheaded many in the Pakistan Army last week and there was only one sentence about it from many of the major news sources. Apparently its "In Vogue" to belittle the US with biased reporting. Ask Brian Ross why he does this, you won't get an answer.
Posted by: Rin Tin Tin | Nov 2, 2007 2:25:02 PM
But,but, John McCain made a statement that we never do this stuff...who's lying?
Posted by: Rick_VT | Nov 2, 2007 2:26:01 PM
I took the oath of office twice. Let's see: support, protect, defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic; don't sell the office; bear true faith and allegiance. Hmm, nothin' in there about no aggressive interrogation!
Dunk 'em!
Posted by: Chris | Nov 2, 2007 2:27:16 PM
As a Proud American also, who served his country. I say water boarding is ok.. if there is 220 volts hooked to them.. These are people who kill men, women and children without any remorse.. They hi jack airplanes and fly them into buildings, the kid nap people and force then to drive a vehicle full of explosives into a crown to be detonated.. I think that any Enhanced Interrogation Techniques should be used. Much worst then those on this list. And to all those bleeding hearts out there who disagree, Please go to Iraq and interrogate those who were captured and see what kinda of intelligence you get using hugs and kisses.. Did you forget that this is a war and the intelligence we get may save Americans lives?
Posted by: Dan Fisher | Nov 2, 2007 2:30:47 PM
If you approve of waterboarding for terror suspects, why don't we allow our local police to do it?
Think of all the confessions they'd get, just like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to almost every crime since the Lindberg kidnapping! Think of all the money we'd save in court costs with 100% guilty pleas.
Posted by: Dennis M | Nov 2, 2007 2:32:18 PM
Impeach Bush as a war criminal. This is a criminal act from local to the world level of authority. It was never legal except inside a corrupt circle. This is the act of war criminals. This has put the USA on the level of terrorists. HOW DARE YOU! How dare you take the country I love for its prior virtue and flush it away for all of us? HOW DARE YOU! To get a confession under torture? It was not worth the integrity of a nation. Bush you bargained away the soul of America.
Posted by: DF | Nov 2, 2007 2:37:40 PM
Try training against being in a 50 degree cell getting doused with cold water when you live in a country that is a hot desert. Or even standing... eventually you give out on either of those.
Those are techniques that would seem to get the job done.
The next AG needs to not only be against torture but also willing to investigate Nixon... I mean GW :)
Posted by: Mike | Nov 2, 2007 2:42:42 PM
Can anyone explain why beheadings or other atrocities done by others has anything to do with this debate? Are you saying that its OK for us to torture because others do? And for those who don't think waterboarding is torture, why did we prosecute Japanese officers for war crimes for waterboarding in WWII? And why does John McCain (former POW) call it torture? Suffocating someone until they believe they are drowning isn't torture? Why not just attach electrodes to their genitals and shock them, or isn't that torture either? It's about who we are, not who they are.
Posted by: D | Nov 2, 2007 2:43:59 PM
Maybe Scooter Libby could have benefited from some waterboarding
Posted by: richy_cheney | Nov 2, 2007 2:45:35 PM
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