Memo Says Prisoner Was Waterboarded 183 Times

[bigtree]

April 19, 2009

Waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, was used by C.I.A. interrogators 183 times on one prisoner from Al Qaeda and 83 times on another, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, had told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that the first prisoner questioned in the C.I.A.’s secret overseas detention program in 2002, Abu Zubaydah, had undergone waterboarding for only 35 second before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

But the May 30, 2005 memo, quoting a 2004 investigation by the C.I.A. inspector general, says that C.I.A. officers used the waterboard at least 83 times during August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah. During March 2003, the memo says, the waterboard was used 183 times against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the admitted planner of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged with more than 100 different harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and halting his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method used so many times was not previously known.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=print

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Nobody Could Have Known It Was Torture

Everyone thought it was a weekly spa treatment. They are all shocked to find out that it's torture.

[grantcart]

2. It was so effective they got everything they needed the first time

and they just wanted to practice their technique the next 182 times.

[stillcool]

3. Hah! Those legal limits are a trip...

Now I know how our tax laws are written.

[originalpckelly]

4. You mean a CIA officer lied to us?

Ooops, a FORMER CIA officer.

Hey, who wants to modified limited hangout with me later?

[bullimiami]

5. ::the waterboard was used 183 times against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the admitted planner of""

It took 183 times to get the confessions they wanted? Did he confess to being a witch? to flying? to stealing childrens souls and being in league with the devil?

he would have if they wanted him too. and signed his name to it.

[bigtree]

7. only 83 times against Abu Zubaydah

He told them "everything he knew in 35 seconds, according to former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou . . . then he told them everything they told him they knew . . .

Zubaydah, who, according to journalist Ron Suskind, was mentally ill and a complete fantasist, "began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901211_pf.html)

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090420-Obama-releases-CIA-torture-memo.html

[Jeep789]

6. Assholes

This just make me sick.

[bigtree]

8. .