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.
You have to take into account that the left is only protesting because a republican is in office and waterboarding would be silently conducted on a daily basis. If a rat were president they would be solidly behind him/her God forbid a rat ever gets the presdency again.
They do not care the slightest about you or I or any other Americans,eg, our troops, as long as they think they can gain some political advantage.
If you ask me the rats are the real terrorists and terrorist enablers.
Thanks. Now I starting to understand.
Actually in this case evil would be doing nothing while terrorists kill possibly thousands of innocent people.
Not so. If you insist on a nakedly consequentialist calculus, the evil of committing torture is known, while the good of saving the innocent is only prospective. Not a good trade.
This is just one additional reason human beings are not capable of bringing good out of evil.
As I pointed out above, nothing about the reduction of Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki was indiscriminate - they were military targets in a war which had been declared by the governments of Japan and Germany on the United States, and the the United States' actions were measured and restrained responses to Germany's V-2 rocket attacks on purely civilian targets in the territory of a US ally and the unprovoked attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor as well as the atrocities committed against the civilian population of the Philippines.
To compare Al-Qaeda's unprovoked attack on a purely civilian target located in a nation that was not currently enagged in hostilities with the homelands or even the countries of residence of the bombers to the US' prosecution of war in Wordl War II is an embarrassing exercise in special pleading and moral equivalence.
If not evil, why do you limit it to (you assume, though the question is rarely ajudicated) terrorists? Why not on drug dealers or car thieves or shoplifters? Why not (its being not evil, after all) on your own children?
Then, being a Catholic, you could go to Mass immediately afterwards and present yourself for Holy Communion.
So you then find some way to believe that sacrificing perhaps thousands of innocents is moral because people sworn to kill as many of as possible and have done so are you know are planning more attacks should be protected?
I think you have your priorites exactly backwards.
Would you waterboard a terrorist who had information that your city and everyone in it was to be nuked in a few hours?
Lovely.
Most likely staffed by former IRS agents.
Hey, listening to Hillary or Bill Clinton on my TV is TORTURE - we need to STOP IT NOW!
Little slip-up by the mediot "reporter." They are SECRET videotapes! Oh well, at least he got in "controversial interrogations."
I'm relishing that Clintonian "solely". Neatly done.
Of course the nature of an indiscriminate attack is its indifference to targeting.
The historical record is quite clear that civilian terror was a conscious aim of those behind the aerial bombardment. You know this.
Wow.
Because it is a measure to be used to extract information from recalcitrant individuals, information that could prevent mass killings.
While the illegal distribution of narcotics, the theft of cars and the boosting of merchandise are all very distressing, they do not automatically result in the consequences to human life that, say, a explosive backpack on the London Underground or the hijacking of a terrorist aircraft does.
Quite simply, your other examples are not accompanied by justifiable urgency.
Why not (its being not evil, after all) on your own children?
It is not evil to shoot someone who is trying to kill you - but just because shooting someone is not an inherently evil act does not mean that I would ever want to shoot one of my children.
Pouring someone a shot of vodka is not an inherently evil act either, but I would not pour my five year old a shot of vodka, regardless.
The flaw in your reasoning is pretty obvious: not all actions have the same moral import in all circumstances. Only a very few human activities are inherently evil.
Then, being a Catholic, you could go to Mass immediately afterwards and present yourself for Holy Communion.
If I needed to inconvenience someone in order to save someone else's life, there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to assist at Mass afterwards.
Those civilians were part of the enemy force we would have had to fight if the war continued.
You must not ignore relavant facts.
The Japanese populace was preparing to fight to the death.
Agreed. Anyone willing to kill, or possessing knowledge of those willing to kill, US citizens automatically lose their rights in my book. Seems like waterboarding is fairly benign compared to what they do and plan to do. Nuke ‘em ‘til they glow, then shoot ‘em in the dark.
You'll notice that even this old man who has gone soft like many do in old age, never calls waterboarding "torture." The author slants and distorts to make it seem like that is the case.
I notice you have not answered my question.
Does that mean that you would sacrifice your family and everyone in your city to not appear evil in a method of extracting information from an evil enemy combatant determined to kill others by the thousands or millions?
Could you go to your church(if you are still alive and your church is still there) with clear conscience knowing that you could have prevented mass killing?
Making common cause with you by mocking the Church.
Then they spat in his face and struck Him, while some slapped Him, saying, "Prophesy for us, Messiah: who is it that struck you?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.