Interrogation broke UN pact, CIA report warned

[Eugene]

Interrogation broke UN pact, CIA report warned

· 2004 internal document embarrasses
· White House 'Drowning' technique singled out as key concern

Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 10, 2005
The Guardian

The CIA's inspector general warned last year that interrogation
procedures approved by the Bush administration could violate the UN
convention against torture, it emerged yesterday.

The leaking of the inspector general's classified report represented
an embarrassment for President George Bush, only a few days after he
emphatically declared: "We do not torture." It also comes at a sensitive
time when the vice-president, Dick Cheney, is lobbying to have the CIA
exempted from legislation establishing stricter interrogation rules.

According to the New York Times, the 2004 report by the inspector
general at the time, John Helgerson, expressed particular concern
over an approved technique known as "waterboarding", which involves
strapping a detainee to a board and submerging him until he believes
he is drowning. Reports suggest the method was used on some top
al-Qaida prisoners, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the
masterminds of the September 11 attacks, who is being detained in a
secret location outside the US.

<snip>

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1638857,00.html

BushCo lies again!

[Martin Eden]

1. Waterboarding isn't torture

It's a fun contest for the prisoners, in which the one who comes closest to actually drowning gets to wear panties on his head. This was traditional fun at the frat house where Bush partied, and he was kind enough to suggest it as recreation at the gulag.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Sounds like fun--anything like snowboarding?

Cause snowboarding is BIG fun. If I like snowboarding would I like waterboarding too?

[Martin Eden]

4. Only if ...

... you plunge headfirst into a snowbank and your friends don't pull you out until you almost suffocate.

I've heard that near-death experience is exhilarating, spiritual, and potentially transformative.

Sure, waterboarding is fun (especially for the one fortunate enough to wear the panties crown) but let us not forget it has more substantive benefits as well.

[Brooklyn Michael]

5. Michael Hutchence of INXS thought the same thing

....only things worked out not-so-well for him.

[acmejack]

2. It would be more newsworthy if * and co. were actually truthful!

[lovuian]

6. Bush is making the underlings so his dirty work and not

supporting them...

[damntexdem]

7. Poor Dubya: being crucified on a cross of embarrassment!

He must have it so much tougher than the inmates of Gitmo and of the various CIA concentration camps around the world!

[UpInArms]

8. I'm sure Babs the Hag would think that this is all working

out rather well for those people - you know, them being foreign and such.

:eyes: