The al Qaeda mastermind, known as KSM, stubbornly held out for about two minutes -- far longer than any of the other "high-value" terror targets who were subjected to the technique, the harshest from a list of six techniques approved for use by the CIA and Bush administration lawyers, sources said.
"Then he started talking, and he never stopped," this former officer said. KSM was never water-boarded again, and in hours and hours of conversation with his interrogators, often over a cup of tea, he poured out his soul and the murderous deeds he committed.
More: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/how-the-cia-bro.html
This makes me wonder if the numbers, 83 for Zubaydah and 183 for KSM are actually the number of seconds the waterboarding session lasted.
I remember that story too. That Kalid Sheik Muhammad held out a long time during water boarding but once was all it took. All the captives would talk to avoid getting water boarded again
As I said above, that’s what I thought.
You are probably right it’s seconds.
Either that or they were going too easy on him, certainly
his training would have been in how to deal with this
for as long as possible.