White House Defends US Waterboarding; U.N. Official, Rights Groups: It's Torture
A day after CIA director Michael Hayden admitted in testimony before Congress that the Bush administration had used the so-called waterboarding technique on three al-Qaida suspects, a White House spokesman says it is a legal interrogation technique that can sometimes be appropriately authorized by the president in the future.
“Every enhanced technique that has been used by the Central Intelligence Agency for this program was brought to the Department of Justice, and they made a determination that its use under specific circumstances and with safeguards was lawful,” said Tony Fratto, a White House deputy spokesman. He also said the president can lawfully authorize future use of waterboarding, depending on the circumstances, according to the Associated Press.
However, a United Nations official characterized the interrogations as torture today, another Associated Press article reports:
“This is absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law,” said Manfred Nowak, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture. He called for the U.S. government to “actually acknowledge that they did something wrong and not continue trying to justify what is unjustifiable.”
Critics say waterboarding is outlawed by international law, including the U.N.’s Convention Against Torture, and is at least questionable under the U.S. 2006 Military Commissions Act, which prohibits “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of terror suspects.
Human Rights Watch called Hayden’s testimony yesterday “an explicit admission of criminal activity,” the news agency notes. And Amnesty International describes the waterboarding as “torture,” saying in a press release after the CIA director’s congressional appearance that “the legal prohibition on torture is absolute, period—there are no exceptions.”
As discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, Hayden testified yesterday that waterboarding had been used by the U.S. on three al-Qaida suspects. However, some former officers in the U.S. military have previously said that waterboarding is not only torture but an ineffective interrogation method.
The technique, which reportedly involves pouring water over the face of a bound suspect whose face is covered by a cloth, not only simulates the experience of drowning. During the “slow-motion suffocation,” the suspect actually “is drowning,” a former Navy instructor says in materials submitted as part of Congressional testimony last year, according to a CBS News article. However, the intent of the interrogation, the former instructor explains, is to stop the process before the suspect dies.
An earlier ABC News article also discusses waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques reportedly used by the CIA.
At least one senior Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, was demanding today that the U.S. Department of Justice open a criminal investigation into the waterboarding described by Hayden, according to the BBC.
