CIA Waterboarded Gitmo Detainee 183 Times in a Month

Turns out the body never gets used to simulated drowning

(NEWSER) - Like many other forms of torture, waterboarding doesn’t get any easier with repeated exposure. After multiple sessions of the simulated drowning technique, accused al-Qaeda plotters Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah would at best have been able to slightly modify their response, explains Brian Palmer in Slate. The experience still would have been continually painful and stressful. More»

Officials gave green light for array of painful interrogation techniques

(NEWSER) - The Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales secretly endorsed the use of torture techniques during interrogation by the CIA, the New York Times reports. A classified 2005 legal memorandum authorized the harshest techniques ever used by the CIA, the Times says, including a combination of head-slapping, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, freezing, loud noises and other forms of physical pain. More»

Some who were tortured misled interrogators

(NEWSER) - Some conservatives are arguing that Osama bin Laden's death justifies Bush-era harsh interrogation techniques , but after looking at the trail of evidence, the New York Times concludes that torture played “a small role at most” in finding bin Laden’s courier. The detainee who provided the most crucial information about Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (the nom de guerre the courier apparently used) wasn’t waterboarded. And though the CIA asked for permission to use harsh techniques on him, one official says he was “quite cooperative” and says any rough treatment would have been brief. More»

(NEWSER) - After being waterboarded 183 times and deprived of sleep for a week, self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Kalid Sheikh Mohammed transformed from an avowed enemy of the US into a sort of CIA guest lecturer, the Washington Post reports. Two anonymous sources, looking to build the case that harsh interrogation worked, say that in 2005 and 2006, KSM gave what CIA officers called “terrorism tutorials,” expounding on al-Qaeda’s structure and even reprimanding his “class” for poor note-taking. More»

(NEWSER) - Dick Cheney has long insisted that two CIA documents from 2004 and 2005 would prove the value of torture. But after obtaining them yesterday, the Washington Independent says they do nothing of the kind. The documents actually suggest, albeit murkily, that non-abusive techniques were more effective. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s interrogators got some of their best intelligence not after the 183 times he was waterboarded, but with an old-fashioned trick: He believed another detainee had already given up the same info he shared. More»