Look Who's Trying Out Waterboarding

Mukasey warns he'll stonewall on questions about legality

(NEWSER) - A high-noon face off is looming today between Attorney General Michael Mukasey and the Senate Judiciary Committee over waterboarding, the simulated drowning interrogation technique that many consider torture. Committee chair Patrick Leahy said Mukasey faces "serious questions" on the issue at today's hearing. But Mukasey has warned Leahy in a letter that he will not tell the Senate whether or not waterboarding is illegal. More»

Psychologists first known waterboarders in secret prisons

(NEWSER) - The CIA secretly agreed to pay at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who designed interrogations and repeatedly waterboarded detainees, say former US officials. Whereas CIA agents generally receive agency-paid insurance for potential legal bills, psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the first individuals to have been confirmed as having carried out waterboarding sessions, wanted extra coverage as public citizens. So the CIA agreed to pay Mitchell and Jessen’s firm’s legal fees directly. More»

Speaker puts herself at center of storm over Bush policies

(NEWSER) - Whether by accident or design, Nancy Pelosi has turned the debate on the Bush administration's anti-terror program into a high-stakes game of brinksmanship, Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post. Pelosi's declaration yesterday that the CIA lied to Congress amounts to "a declaration of war," Balz writes, setting the stage for a long battle certain to claim political casualties. More»

Operation's architects lacked training in conducting interrogations, say CIS records

(NEWSER) - Two US psychologists with no training in conducting interrogations boasted of earning $1000 a day designing and helping to implement use of waterboarding techniques on CIA detainees, reports ABC News. Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, are considered the architects of the interrogation operation that Barack Obama has labeled torture. More»

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama made a dangerous mistake in yesterday releasing Justice Department memos about interrogation techniques from 2005, say former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden. By releasing the details of these methods, Obama is eliminating a crucial intelligence tool—not just for his own administration but forever, the two argue in an outraged Wall Street Journal op ed. They'll be ruined for future presidents, as well, because our enemies will know their precise limits. More»