|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
|
April 20th,
2009 - CIA Waterboarded Al-Qaida Suspects 266 Times |
|
CIA Waterboarded al-Qaida Suspects
266 Times Torture technique outlawed by Obama was used extensively on 9/11
plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and alleged terror commander Abu Zubaydah By Matthew Weaver The Guardian April 20, 2009 The CIA waterboarded two
al-Qaida terror suspects a total of 266 times, according to a report that
suggests the use of the torture technique was much more extensive than
previously thought. The documents showed
waterboarding was used 183 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who admitted
planning the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reported today. The US Justice Department
memos released last Thursday showed that waterboarding, which the US now
admits is torture, was used 83 times on the alleged al-Qaida senior commander
Abu Zubaydah, the paper said. A former CIA officer claimed in 2007 that
Zubaydah was subjected to the simulated drowning technique for only 35
seconds. The numbers were removed
from most of the memos over the weekend. But bloggers, including Marcy
Wheeler from empytwheel, discovered that the figure had not been blanked out
from one of the memos. Barack Obama has banned
waterboarding and overturned a Bush administration policy that it did not
amount to torture. The president did not intend
to prosecute Bush administration officials who devised the policies that led
to such interrogations, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said yesterday. Asked on Sunday about the
fate of those officials, Emanuel told ABC's This Week programme that Obama
believed they "should not be prosecuted either and that's not the place
that we go". Michael Hayden, who led the
CIA under Bush, said the public release of the memos would make it harder to
get useful information from suspected terrorists being detained by the US. "I think that teaching
our enemies our outer limits, by taking techniques off the table, we have
made it more difficult in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine, more
difficult for CIA officers to defend the nation," Hayden said on Fox News
Sunday. He disputed an article in
the New York Times on Saturday that said Zubaydah had revealed nothing new
after being waterboarded, saying that he believed that after unspecified
"techniques" were used Zubaydah revealed information that led to
the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh. One of the released memos
was a 2002 justice department briefing memo written by assistant attorney
general Jay Bybee and sent to John Rizzo, the acting general counsel for the
CIA, spelling out in detail how waterboarding should be practised. It
specifically refers to the interrogation of Zubaydah using the water
technique. "In this
procedure," Bybee said, "the individual is bound securely to an
inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The
individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead
and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this
is done the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and the mouth.
Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air
flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds ... this causes an increase
in carbon dioxide level in the individual's blood. "This increase in the
carbon dioxide level stimulates increased efforts to breath. This effect plus
the cloth produces the perception of 'suffocation and incipient panic', ie
the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into
his lungs." After the 20 to 40 seconds,
the cloth is lifted and the individual is allowed three or four full breaths
before the procedure is repeated. The memo went on to say that
"we also understand that a medical expert will be present throughout
this phase and the procedure will be stopped if deemed medically necessary to
prevent severe mental or physical harm to Zubaydah". A footnote to another 2005
justice department memo released last week said waterboarding was used both
more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the CIA rules
permitted. External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/20/waterboarding-alqaida-khalid-sheikh-mohammed |