Posted on 12/12/2007 6:37:32 AM PST by UKrepublican
'Waterboarding broke al Qaeda captive in 35 seconds,' says former CIA agent defending torture
Use of the interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" was approved by the White House and gets results, a former CIA agent admitted yesterday.
The technique - which simulates drowning - was used against Al Qaeda captives with success, John Kiriakou told a U.S. TV network.
The one-time CIA interrogator is the first to speak out about the "torture" methods that have earned President George Bush's administration worldwide condemnation.
The White House has denied torture is used on terror suspects, but Mr Kiriakou said waterboarding "broke" one stubbornly silent Al Qaeda recruiter after just 35 seconds.
Waterboarding involves wrapping plastic or fabric around a detainee's face then pouring water over the top until it is forced up the nose and down the throat to simulate drowning.
Suspects are told they will die if they do not talk.
And although the technique is supposed to be low-risk, critics say it can result in long-lasting psychological damage, injury to the lungs and even, in extreme cases, death.
Mr Kiriakou told the ABC network that he had fought an "intellectual battle" in his mind over the use of waterboarding, and had concluded that it is justified as it saves lives by preventing terror attacks. "This isn't something done willy-nilly," he added. "This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department."
Mr Kiriakou told how waterboarding was used on Zayn Abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking Al Qaeda member captured after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Abu Zubaida was seized in a gun battle in Pakistan in the spring of 2002. For weeks he refused to talk and remained ideologically zealous, defiant and unco-operative. Then he was flown to a secret CIA prison - believed to be in Afghanistan - and strapped to a board with his feet in the air.
Cellophane was wrapped around the Al Qaeda man's face and water was forced up his nose and into his throat to make him think he was drowning.
The suspect lasted only 35 seconds before he broke.
"It was like flipping a switch," said Mr Kiriakou.
"From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.
"Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get.
"I struggle with it.
"At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do."
Mr Kiriakou said he did not interrogate Abu Zubaida, but learned the details from colleagues.
His account came as the U.S. Congress began questioning CIA director Michael Hayden yesterday about why the agency destroyed at least two videotapes of controversial interrogations.
Many senators believe it was done to hide evidence of illegal torture that could have been used against CIA agents in a war crimes tribunal.
General Hayden, speaking to the closed-doors Congress hearing yesterday was expected to say that CIA lawyers ruled that the interrogations were legal and the tapes were destroyed in 2005 to protect the identities of CIA employees who appear on them.
The torture scandal is likely to become a major issue in next year's presidential election.
Abu Zubaida - who says he was coerced into making false confessions - was eventually moved to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he is now held in solitary confinement.
He is likely to be tried next year on terrorism charges and the CIA expects that he will spend the rest of his life in custody.
Mr Kiriakou, a 14-year veteran of the CIA who worked in both the analysis and operations divisions, left in 2004 and works as a consultant for a private Washington-based firm.
A main aspect of liberalism is their inability to make distinctions. Spanking = child abuse; marriage, jobs, etc= slavery; a drawing of a gun = a gun; dodgeball= violence, etc etc. Discomfort = torture is just another example.
I still blame the left for emasculating our foreign policy, especially in the conduct of war with overwhelming force -
the left whines about “unfair” or “war crimes” when overwhelming force causes enough collateral damage to achieve the effects necessary to end a war quickly.
It is? Why?
Once again you know better?
“Torture” in quotes in the article. Torture with no quotes in title. Typical
"Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation."
Gaudium et Spes 80
Seriously, this is part of the lib word games. Misconstrue things by calling them something they are not. No matter that they are not. Some idiots will believe just because it is said.
If waterboarding is torture, put me down as voting for torture.
vaudine
Fortunately for me, I am advocating waterboarding terrorists, not doing evil.
To not prove George Bush is right, I think many liberals wouild sacrifice their families!
Agreed. The Bush administration did not do a good job of cleaning the State Department and the CIA of its left wingers and elitists (or do I repeat myself?). These leaks could have been prevented had they done a better job. Choosing Colin Powell, a Rockefeller Republican, to run the State Department in the first Bush Administration, was a horrendous mistake. John Bolton would have been a superior choice.
We relied on firepower in the main to defeat the Germans and the Japanese in World War II. Had Fallujah been turned to rubble the day after the locals killed and mutilated the bodies of the American contractors, and we entirely sealed the borders with Iran and Syria, among other actions, the so-called insurgency would have died as quickly as the Nazi "Werewolf" resistance was crushed in occupied Germany.
Of course it works. And I’ll tell you something, once the jihadists kill a large number of Americans in the next strike — and with Pelosi and Reid running interference for them it’s an absolute certainty — then people are going to be a lot less squeamish about a lot more drastic measures than waterboarding. And the leftist liars who run the media will only have themselves to blame.
It was also approved by Congressional committee members, many of them the same democrats who squeal about it today.
The attacks on Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacks on military targets - not indiscriminate attacks undertaken solely to target civilians.
If the intent of such attacks had been solely to destroy large cities of extensive area and their populations, in both Japan and Germany there were larger cities with larger populations that were quite vulnerable and open to attack, but were not chosen.
Suspects are told they will die if they do not talk. And although the technique is supposed to be low-risk, critics say it can result in long-lasting psychological damage, injury to the lungs and even, in extreme cases, death.
Well excuuuuuuse me 'critics'.
If you think Waterboarding is 'torture' I suggest you listen to a Yoko Ono record. In ten seconds you'll be begging to be Waterboarded and after 20 seconds you'll beg to capped in the head.
(Studies have found that no living person has ever been able to withstand listening to Yoko Ono 'sing' for more than 30 seconds)
Congress might want to think about supporting our troops in defeating the terrorists in Iraq instead of the “human rights” those terrorists ought to enjoy. A novel idea, don’t you think?
One life for many is a price that may need to be paid.
Wearing a woman's panties on my head?
Most leftists complained louder about the panties on the head than the BEheading of that journalist.
That is absolutely the best summation of the situation at hand.
HATS OFF TO YOU, SIR ! ! !
Another anti-Bush scenario in the works.
Now, let's see who hired him and when and what kind of functions he attends.
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