waterboarded

The bestselling author offered his unorthodox investigative method in a Time magazine interview during a discussion about the media's coverage of celebrity news.

"I said something to the 'Nightline' guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation," King recounted to Time. "Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George."

"I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture," King continued
Stephen King likes to start the conversation and so the horror author began asking questions before TIME's Gilbert Cruz could take a seat to interview him in New York City. But Cruz soon took over. Excerpts:

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STEPHEN KING: So who's going to be TIME Person of the Year?
TIME: I really don't know, there's a very small group of people who make that decision.

I was thinking, I think it should be Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
Really?
Yeah. You know, I just filmed a segment for Nightline, about [the movie version of his novella] The Mist, and one of the things I said to them was, you know, "You guys are just covering ― what do they call it ― the scream of the peacock, and you're missing the whole fox hunt." Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear. And yet you get this coverage of who's gonna get custody of Britney's kids? Whether or not Lindsay drank at her twenty-first birthday party, and all this other shit.
You know, this morning, the two big stories on CNN are Kanye West's mother, who died, apparently, after having some plastic surgery. The other big thing that's going on is whether or not this cop [Drew Peterson] killed his... wife. And meanwhile, you've got Pakistan in the midst of a real crisis, where these people have nuclear weapons that we helped them develop. You've got a guy in charge, who's basically declared himself the military strongman and is being supported by the Bush administration, whose raison d'etre for going into Iraq was to spread democracy in the world.
So you've got these things going on, which seem to me to be very substantive, that could affect all of us, and instead, you see a lot of this back-fence gossip. So I said something to the Nightline guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture. And then the guy from Nightline said, "Well, obviously you've not been watching World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson." But I do ― I watch 'em all!

You might be one of the few people who does.
We're news junkies in my house.

Do you actually think Britney and Lindsay should be on our cover?
Yeah, I do.

Sort of a, 'This is what the media's actually interested it, so let's just put it out there' thing?
I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics ― trying to play a serious part in the world ― to a culture that's really entertainment-based. I mean, I know people who can tell you who won the last four seasons on American Idol and they don't know who their f------ Representatives are.

But you've been well in the public eye for decades now. Is it pretty blatant how much worse it's gotten?
It's worse every year. And the guy says to me ― the Nightline guy ― I didn't get the guy's name. Granted, I haven't been feeling real well and it was a long day of interviews. But he said to me, "If we didn't cover cultural things, we wouldn't be covering you and The Mist, and promoting the movie." And I'm like, "Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural." They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word. In fact, if I had to pick somebody, some celebrity who has had some impact this year, some sort of echo in the larger American life, I would say Hannah Montana. That whole issue of online ticket sales and scalping fascinates me. There are [legitimate] issues there about the Internet, so that actually does seem to have some cultural significance.
But Britney? Britney Spears is just trailer trash. That's all. I mean, I don't mean to be pejorative. But you observe her behavior for the past five years and you say, "Here's a lady who can't take care of her kids, she can't take care of herself, she has no retirement fund, everything that she gets runs right through her hands." And yet, you know and I know that if you go to those sites that tell you what the most blogged-about things on the Internet are, it's Britney, it's Lindsay. So I think it would be terrific [to have them as TIME Persons of the Year]. There would be such a scream from the American reading public, sure. But at the same time, it's time for somebody to discuss the difference between real news and fake news.

True, in terms of Britney Spears, she's still fairly young. When you were young, fame sort of screwed you up a bit, didn't it?
The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous. Her sales have gone down with almost every album, bigger and bigger jumps, so that nobody really cares about her music anymore. They care about the tabloid headlines and whether or not she's wearing panties. I mean, is this an issue that the American public needs to turn its brainpower on? Britney Spears' lingerie, or lack thereof?

I'll pass your suggestion along. So you're a news junkie?
I got hooked by my wife. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be surprised, being that I'm around John Mellancamp a lot ― he and I are doing this play. But it's the news 24-7. Always on.

What's this play?
It's called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. It's a musical.

What's the plan with that?
Hopefully we'll open out of town next year. Maybe in Atlanta, if they have any water left.

When next year?
My guess it probably like June or July. We're at the point where we've got the director. The music's set. The book's set. We're fairly set. At least until audiences turn up. If they turn up their noses then things change. We're supposed to be, maybe in Atlanta, maybe in Boston, I've heard talk about California. But we've got to open out of town and see if people like what we've got.

What's the gist of the story?
[Mellencamp] had bought a place in Indiana by a lake, and he said that the person had told him the place was haunted. Well, you hear that ― when you buy a place that's been around for a while in the woods, people are going to say it's haunted. [Apparently], there was some kind of tragedy that involved two brothers and a girl in the fifties ― one of the brothers shot the other one apparently in some kind of a drunken game. Killed him. So the other brother and the girl jumped in the car to take the kid to the hospital, because they thought maybe they could save him. They ran into a tree and they were both killed. So apparently the ghosts haunted the place. So John asked me, "Do you think we could turn this into a play?"
In a way, he came to me at the right time. He's been doing what he does for a long time, and I've been doing what I do for a long time. John has tried things, he's tried to keep the music fresh, he's continued to release new music, [to] try different things and different formats. And he wanted to graze, to try this idea of doing dramatic music. I've always been up for something that was a little different ― just keep turning the earth over, so you don't dig yourself a rut and furnish it, you know what I mean? That's how we got together.

So you expanded that little snippet of a story?
Yeah. That's my job, to take something like that, which is fairly generic, and make a story out of it that's unique. I [wrote a little and Mellencamp did some music] and then I went to him and said, "We've reached a decision point here. Neither of us knows s--- about theater. The only thing I know is that, at this point, it either becomes like Andrew Lloyd Webber ― and everybody sings everything ― or it can be like My Fair Lady, where people actually talk in between the singing. They go blah blah blah and then [he sings] "I could have danced all night." And then they blah blah blah some more.

Well, if it opens in New York, I'll check it out.
It probably will. We're a bit radioactive, because it has a subtext about homosexuality and it's set in the fifties so they bandy about a lot of pejorative words that were common coinage back then. But, Tennessee Williams got away with it.

Alright, I have to ask you some questions about The Mist.
Of course you do.

Short questions. First one...
And short answers!

This is the third movie you've done with Frank Darabont, the third movie he's directed based on your work.
Well, actually, there are four. The way I met him was, he did a short film of [my story] "The Woman in the Room." That was back when he was in his early twenties and he was trying to break into movies. Like [The Shawshank Redemption], which he did next, it didn't have so much as a smidge of the supernatural in it.

Are you guys film soulmates? Does he just do your stuff better than other people?
He does it really well, though there are other people who have done my work and I've been pleased with the results. But the only person that I can say that has come back for seconds and has really done me proud other than Frank would be Rob Reiner, who did Stand by Me and then came back and did Misery. And Frank will say, "I have the world's smallest specialty. I only do prison movies written by Stephen King." And he's been going on about how proud he is that he made The Mist and broke out of that mold. But I told him, "Frank, it's still a story about people in prison. They're just in prison in a supermarket!"

Is he going to do more of your stuff? There are tons more stories out there that haven't been made into movies.
Frank has the option on a short story called "The Monkey."

The one that was on the cover of the old Skeleton Crew paperback?
Right. And he'd like to do The Long Walk, which is one of the Bachman books [written by King under a pseudonym]. But The Long Walk is so downbeat, it makes The Mist look like Young Frankenstein.

Part of The Mist is this subtext about how fear makes people irrational. How do you think that's playing out in the world today?
Well, it's always there. What The Mist reminds me of is a big, exciting version of a episode like "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." In that episode, these aliens did an experiment to see what fear did to human beings. [In The Mist], there really are monsters and they show up on Main Street in this little town. Granted, the situation is unreal, but an audience can say, "Here's a good, harmless place where I can actually test drive what I would do in a disaster." Particularly if the disaster was just totally inexplicable. But in the real world, if disaster strikes us, it seems to me that it's always inexplicable.

There have been so many movies and TV miniseries made from your stories and, not to be disrespectful, but some of them are stinkers. Sleepwalkers, Sometimes They Come Back and its various sequels, etc... How do you maintain quality control? Do you even try?
I'd go crazy. I don't try to maintain quality control. Except I try to get good people involved. The thing is, when you put together a script, a director, and all the other variables, you never really know what's going to come out. And so you start with the idea that it's like a baseball game ― you put the best team you can on the field, and you know that, more times than not, you're gonna win.
And in my case, more of the movies than not ― if we except things like Return to Salem's Lot, Children of the Corn 4, The Children of the Corn Meet the Leprechaun or whatever it is ― if you do that, then most times you're going to have something that's interesting anyway. That doesn't mean you're going to have the occasional thing that's just a train wreck like Dreamcatcher, because that happens, right?

Why do you think filmmakers are so fond of your work?
It's visual. I grew up at the movies. I went to movies before I wrote. My first editor Bill Thompson used to laugh and say "Steve King has a movie projector in his head." Filmmakers react to that. They see, because they're visual creatures themselves, and they say, "Gee, I'd love to do that." In some cases they run their heads into the noose, because it's easier to make it up in your mind than it is on the screen.

You retired there for a while but then came back with a few books. What are you working on now?
When I said to that lady from the L. A. Times I might retire, I was still recovering from the accident that I was in [where King was struck by a car], I was in a lot of pain, and I was under the pressure of finishing The Dark Tower. At that point, retirement looked good. When the pain went away and The Dark Tower finished up, retirement started to look bad.
I have a book that's coming out in January called Duma Key, and there's the musical. I'm like Travis McGee, I can take my retirement in chunks.

Are you enjoying it?
I have a good time. I came in last night, after the premiere [of The Mist] and I kinda said to myself, "This is not a bad life." They give you the keys to the playground and they say, "That's your job for now on, you play for the rest of us. You're the designated kid. Make up stories," so what's not to like? Well, sometimes there's stuff. Lot of interviews, sometimes it gets you down, but, mostly it's good.

Waterboarding
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Painting of waterboarding at Cambodia's Tuol Sleng Prison, by former inmate Vann Nath.Waterboarding is a torture technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face[1] to force the inhalation of water into the lungs.[2] Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex,[3] and can make the subject believe death is imminent. Waterboarding's use as a method of torture or means to support interrogation is based on its ability to cause extreme mental distress while possibly creating no lasting physical damage to the subject. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last long after the procedure.[4] Although waterboarding in cases can leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the real risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries as a result of struggling against restraints (including broken bones), and even death.[5]

Numerous experts have described this technique as torture.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Some nations have also criminally prosecuted individuals for performing waterboarding, including the United States.[13]

The practice garnered renewed attention and notoriety in September 2006, when further reports claim that the Bush administration had authorized the use of waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners of the United States. ABC News reported that current and former CIA officers stated that "there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the 'enhanced' interrogation techniques, including water boarding."[14] According to Republican United States Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, waterboarding is "torture", "no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank" and can damage the subject's psyche "in ways that may never heal."[15] Waterboarding has become an issue in the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be the next U.S. Attorney General. In his Senate confirmation hearing, Mukasey refused to say if he considered waterboarding a form of torture, claiming he did not know the details of how waterboarding was conducted. Several Senators have indicated they will not vote for him without an affirmative answer.[16]

Contents
1 Technique
1.1 Effectiveness as an interrogation technique
2 Mental and physical effects
3 Historical uses
3.1 Spanish Inquisition
3.2 Colonial Times
3.3 World War II
3.4 Algerian War
3.5 Vietnam War
3.6 Khmer Rouge
4 Contemporary use
4.1 United States
4.1.1 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
5 Legality
5.1 International law
5.2 United States
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 See also



Technique
The waterboarding technique was characterized in 2005 by former CIA director Porter J. Goss as a "professional interrogation technique."[17] According to press accounts, a cloth or plastic wrap is placed over or in the person's mouth, and water is poured on to the person's head. As far as the details of this technique, press accounts differ - one article describes "dripping water into a wet cloth over a suspect's face",[18] another states that "cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him."[19]

Two televised segments, one from Fox News and one from Current TV, demonstrate a waterboarding technique that may be the subject of these press descriptions.[20][21] In the videos, each correspondent is held against a board by the interrogators. In the Current TV segment, a rag is then forced into the correspondent's mouth, and several pitchers of water are poured onto the rag. The interrogators periodically remove the rag, and the correspondent is seen to gasp for breath.

The Fox News segment mentions five "phases" of which the first three are shown. In the first phase, water is simply poured onto the correspondent's face. The second phase is similar to the Current TV episode. In phase three, plastic wrap is placed over the correspondent's face, and a hole is poked into it over his mouth. Water is poured into his mouth through the hole, causing him to gag. He mentions that it really does cause him to gag; that it could lead to asphyxiation; and that he could stand it for only a few seconds.

CIA officers who subject themselves to the technique last an average of 14 seconds before caving in.[22]

Proponents argue that the technique effectively produces information and is only used as a last resort to obtain critical information. They also argue that there is almost no risk of long-term bodily harm.[23] Opponents argue that this information may not be reliable because a person under such duress may admit to anything.


Effectiveness as an interrogation technique
According to some experts, harsh interrogation techniques lead to false confessions. "'The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,' claims John Sifton of Human Rights Watch."[24] "It is 'bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough,' said former CIA officer Bob Baer."[24] The Independent reports "legal experts said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared to be exaggerating his role for his own self-aggrandizement and may also have deliberately floated false claims to send US investigators on wild goose chases."[25]


Mental and physical effects
In an open letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch claimed that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the US of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.[26]

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,' he said."[4] Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that "Water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia, rapid heart beat and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse."[27]

Proponents of waterboarding have claimed that there is almost no risk of long-term bodily harm from the use of the technique.[28]


Historical uses

Spanish Inquisition
From the article about the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834, with its most active period from 1480-1530), a form of torture similar to waterboarding called toca , along with garrucha (or strappado) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack), was used (though infrequently) during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. Quoting from the article: The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning.[29]


Colonial Times
Agents of the Dutch East India Company used a precursor to waterboarding during the Amboyna massacre in 1623. At that time, it consisted of wrapping cloth around a victim's head, after which the torturers "poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that he could not draw breath but he must suck in all the water."[30] In one case, the torturer applied water three or four times successively until the victim's "body was swollen twice or thrice as big as before, his cheeks like great bladders, and his eyes staring and strutting out beyond his forehead."[31]


World War II
During World War II, Japanese troops, especially the Kempeitai, as well the Gestapo, the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture. The German technique was called the German equivalent of "u-boat". During the Double Tenth Incident, waterboarding consisted of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.[32][33] In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.[34]


Algerian War
The technique was also used during the Algerian War (1954-1962). The French journalist Henri Alleg, who was subjected to waterboarding by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957, is one of only a few people to have described in writing the first-hand experience of being waterboarded. His book The Question, published in 1958 with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre (and subsequently banned in France until the end of the Algerian War in 1962) discusses the experience of being strapped to a plank, having his head wrapped in cloth and positioned beneath a running tap:

" The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. "That's it! He's going to talk," said a voice.
The water stopped running and they took away the rag. I was able to breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and the captain, who, with a cigarette between his lips, was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed.[35]
"

Alleg has stated that the incidence of "accidental" death of prisoners being subjected to waterboarding in Algeria was "very frequent."[36]


Vietnam War
On January 21, 1968, during the Vietnam War, The Washington Post published a controversial photograph of three American soldiers waterboarding a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.photo[37] The article described the practice as "fairly common."[38] The photograph led to the soldier being courtmartialed by a U.S. military court two months later.[39] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum at Ho Chi Minh City.[40]


Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979.


Contemporary use

United States
Many reports say that intelligence officers of the United States used waterboarding to interrogate prisoners captured in its War on Terrorism. In November 2005, ABC News reported that former CIA agents claimed that the CIA engaged in a modern form of waterboarding, along with five other "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", against suspected members of al Qaeda.

On July 20, 2007, U.S. President George W. Bush signed an executive order banning torture during interrogation of terror suspects.[41] While the guidelines for interrogation[42] do not specifically ban waterboarding, the executive order refers to torture as defined by 18 USC 2340, which includes "the threat of imminent death," as well as the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Reaction to the order was mixed, with the CIA satisfied that it "clearly defined" the agency's authorities, but Human Rights Watch saying that answer about what specific techniques had been banned lay in the classified companion document and that "the people in charge of interpreting [that] document don't have a particularly good track record of reasonable legal analysis."[43]

On September 14, 2007, ABC News reported that sometime in 2006 CIA Director Michael Hayden asked for and received permission from "the White House" to ban the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations. The source of information is current and former CIA officials. ABC reported that waterboarding had been authorized by a 2002 Presidential finding.[44]

On November 5, 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that its "sources confirm... that the CIA has only used this interrogation method against three terrorist detainees and not since 2003."[45]


Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Several accounts reported that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded while being interrogated by the CIA. According to the Bush Administration, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed divulged information of tremendous value during his detention. He is said to have helped point the way to the capture of Hambali, the Indonesian terrorist responsible for the 2002 bombings of night clubs in Bali. According to the Bush Administration, he also provided information on an Al Qaeda leader in England.[46]

During a radio interview on October 24, 2006, with Scott Hennen of radio station WDAY, Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to agree with the use of waterboarding.[47] The following are the questions and answers at issue, excerpted from the White House transcript of the interview:

Hennen: "…And I've had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives. Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?"
Cheney: "I do agree. And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided us with enormously valuable information about how many there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth, we've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that."
…
Hennen: "Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?"
Cheney: "Well, it's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."[48]

The White House later denied that Cheney had confirmed the use of waterboarding, saying that U.S. officials do not talk publicly about interrogation techniques because they are classified. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said that Cheney was not referring to waterboarding, but only to a "dunk in the water", prompting one reporter to ask, "So dunk in the water means, what, we have a pool now at Guantanamo and they go swimming?" Tony Snow replied, "You doing stand-up?"[49]

On September 13, 2007 ABC News reported that a former intelligence officer stated that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded in the presence of a female CIA supervisor.[50]

Captured along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a letter from bin Laden[51] which led officials to think that he knew where the Al Qaeda founder was hiding.[52]

According to sources familiar with a private interview of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he claimed to have been waterboarded five times.[46] "A CIA official told ABC News that he had been water-boarded, and had won the admiration of his interrogators because it took him two to two-and-half minutes to start confessing � well beyond the average of 14 seconds observed in others."[53] This is disputed by two former CIA officers who are reportedly friends with one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed interrogators called this bravado, and who claimed that he was waterboarded only once. According to one of the officers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed needed only to be shown the drowning equipment again before he "broke." "Waterboarding works," the former officer said. "Drowning is a baseline fear. So is falling. People dream about it. It's human nature. Suffocation is a very scary thing. When you're waterboarded, you're inverted, so it exacerbates the fear. It's not painful, but it scares the shit out of you." (The former officer was waterboarded himself in a training course.) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he claimed, "didn't resist. He sang right away. He cracked real quick." He said, "A lot of them want to talk. Their egos are unimaginable. (He) was just a little doughboy. He couldn't stand toe to toe and fight it out."[46] After being subjected to waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed involvement in thirty-one terrorist plots.[54]


Legality

International law
All countries that are signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture have agreed they are subjected to the explicit prohibition on torture under any condition, and as such there exists no legal exception under this treaty. (The treaty states "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.") Additionally, signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are bound to Article 5, which states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."


United States
In 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II. Yukio Asano received a sentence of 15 years of hard labor.[13] The charges of Violation of the Laws and Customs of War against Asano also included "beating using hands, fists, club; kicking; burning using cigarettes; strapping on a stretcher head downward."[55]
In its 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. Department of State formally recognized "submersion of the head in water" as torture in its examination of Tunisia's poor human rights record,[56] and critics of waterboarding draw parallels between the two techniques, citing the similar usage of water on the subject.
On September 6, 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense released a revised Army Field Manual entitled Human Intelligence Collector Operations that prohibits the use of waterboarding by U.S. military personnel. The department adopted the manual amid widespread criticism of U.S. handling of prisoners in the War on Terrorism, and prohibits other practices in addition to waterboarding. The revised manual applies only to U.S. military personnel, and as such does not apply to the practices of the CIA.[57] However, under international law, violators of the laws of war are criminally liable under the command responsibility, and could still be prosecuted for war crimes.[58]

References
^ Katherine Eban. Rorschach and Awe, Vanity Fair, July 17, 2007. "It was terrifying," military psychologist Bryce Lefever is quoted as saying, "...you're strapped to an inclined gurney and you're in four-point restraint, your head is almost immobilized, and they pour water between your nose and your mouth, so if you're likely to breathe, you're going to get a lot of water. You go into an oxygen panic."
^ Waterboarding is torture - I did it myself, says US advisor ("The practice involves strapping the person being interrogated on to a board as pints of water are forced into his lungs through a cloth covering his face while the victim's mouth is forced open. Its effect, according to Mr Nance, is a process of slow-motion suffocation.")
^ CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described, ABC News, November 18, 2005. "Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt."
^ a b "Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation, and he argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said." Mayer, Jane (February 7 2005). "Outsourcing Torture". The New Yorker.
^ Open Letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by Human Rights Watch
^ In April 2006, in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, more than 100 U.S. law professors stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and is a criminal felony punishable under the U.S. federal criminal code.
^ According to Republican United States Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, waterboarding is "torture, no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank" and can damage the subject's psyche "in ways that may never heal." Torture's Terrible Toll, Newsweek, November 21, 2005.
^ In its 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. Department of State formally recognizes "submersion of the head in water" as torture in its examination of Tunisia's poor human rights record.U.S. Department of State (2005). "Tunisia". Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
^ A former senior official in the directorate of operations is quoted (in full) as saying: "'Of course it was torture. Try it and you'll see.'" Another "former higher-up in the directorate of operations" said "'Yes, it's torture'". At pp. 225-26, in Stephen Grey (2006). Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program. New York City: St. Martin's Press.
^ Benjamin Davis. Endgame on Torture: Time to Call the Bluff. "Waterboarding has been torture for at least 500 years. All of us know that torture is going on."
^ Carter says U.S. tortures prisoners, CNN, October 10, 2007. "The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday. 'I don't think it. I know it,' Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer."
^ Michael Cooper and Marc Santora. McCain Rebukes Giuliani on Waterboarding Remark, New York Times, October 26, 2007. Speaking about Waterboarding, John McCain stated in a telephone interview "They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture."
^ a b Pincus, Walter, "Waterboarding Historically Controversial; In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation" Washington Post, October 5, 2006, pg. A17. viewed October 5, 2006
^ "History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding" ABC News, November 29, 2005
^ Torture's Terrible Toll, Newsweek, November 21, 2005
^ Attorney General Pick Facing New Resistance, New York Times, October 26, 2007
^ Human Rights Watch, CIA Whitewashing Torture: Statements by Goss Contradict U.S. Law and Practice, November 21, 2005.
^ Michael Hirsh, John Barry and Daniel Klaidman "A Tortured Debate," Newsweek, June 21, 2004. "'water-boarding,' or dripping water into a wet cloth over a suspect's face, which can feel like drowning"
^ Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, "CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described," ABC News, Nov. 8, 2005. The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
^ "Waterboarding: Historically Controversial." FOX News segment by Steve Harrigan, 11:52am November 6 2006. Transcript and video at
^ Scott, George Ryley, The History of Torture Throughout the Ages, p.172, Columbia University Press (2003) ISBN 0-7103-0837-X
^ From A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruel and Barbarous Proceedings against the English at Amboyna (1624), cited in Milton, Giles, Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History (Spectre, 1999, 328); spellings have been modernized. Also cited with variations in Keay, John, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (HarperCollins, 1993, 49); and Kerrigan, Michael, The Instruments of Torture (Spellmount, 2001, 85). See also excerpts from A memento for Holland (1652) at Blogging the Renaissance
^ Ibid, cited in Milton 328-9, Keay 49 and Kerrigan 85. Spellings have been modernized.
^ Sidhu, H. The Bamboo Fortress: True Singapore War Stories (Native, 1991, 113), a paraphrase of