CIA Bans Water-Boarding in Terror Interrogations

[sabra]

Source: ABC News Blotter

The controversial interrogation technique known as water-boarding, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex, has been banned by CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden, current and former CIA officials tell ABCNews.com. (Image above is an ABC News graphic.)

The officials say Hayden made the decision at the recommendation of his deputy, Steve Kappes, and received approval from the White House to remove water-boarding from the list of approved interrogation techniques first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002.

The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed.

One U.S. intelligence official said, "It would be wrong to assume that the program of the past moved into the future unchanged."



Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/cia-bans-water-.html

[Sequoia]

1. Cheney must be turning over in his grave...I mean.... bunker

Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning.

Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview.

Cheney's comments, in a White House interview on Tuesday with a conservative radio talk show host, appeared to reflect the Bush administration's view that the president has the constitutional power to do whatever he deems necessary to fight terrorism.

http://nobloodforhubris.blogspot.com/2006/10/cheney-admits-torture.html

It's about time CIA.

[stillcool]

2. How about the Pentagon?

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2005/0123ssb.htm
Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld’s Domain
By Barton Gellman*
Washington Post
January 23, 2005

The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.

Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new unit has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places they declined to name. According to an early planning memorandum to Rumsfeld from Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the intelligence initiative is on "emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia." Myers and his staff declined to be interviewed.

The Strategic Support Branch was created to provide Rumsfeld with independent tools for the "full spectrum of humint operations," according to an internal account of its origin and mission. Human intelligence operations, a term used in counterpoint to technical means such as satellite photography, range from interrogation of prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to the peacetime recruitment of foreign spies. A recent Pentagon memo states that recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose links to the U.S. government would be embarrassing if disclosed.

[Solly Mack]

3. and I'm supposed to believe them because?

and they are allowed to just walk away free and clear for doing it "in the past"?

"first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002" <~~ didn't make it legal or any less a violation of international (and federal) law

[EFerrari]

12. They all quit smokiing, too!

:sarcasm:

[Xipe Totec]

4. To be replaced by what?

That's the big question; that's the big lie.

They're not saying "Oh, we won't torture". They're saying "We won't torture using this particular method".

[YankeyMCC]

5. self del

wrong spot

[rodeodance]

6. abc eve, news did a good segment on this tonight.

[lovuian]

7. I guess nobody wants to be charged a War Criminal

since its Torture and since Bush is looking like he will be a War Criminal soon

[woodsprite]

8. I need to read more, but does anybody think this is odd

coming out the day we say goodbye to Gonzo?

[defendandprotect]

9. Wow!! Are we lucky, or what-?? No Water-boarding -- !!! . . . .

We hope . . . . !!!!

I think they're trying to make Bushco regime sound a little sander --
It may only be PR, but I think they're trying to do that.
They may be legitimately thinking that Cheney is whacked --
or they may just be thinking that Bush is in jeopardy of being impeached -- ??
But Gates/Fallon may be holding more of the cards--???

[MichiganVote]

10. Returning to lynching are they?

[anitar1]

11. Do I believe this ? No. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

13. U.S. intelligence officials sure have a funny way of speaking...

"It would be wrong to assume that the program of the past moved into the future unchanged."

How's that for slippy-slidey? Starts off with advice about someone's assumptions, in an odd negative way of saying things ("it would be wrong to assume that..."), then we really get into the curved universe, warped space-time and Q-logic, with "the program" vaguely located in the "past" moving on slippy-slidey time itself "into the future," where we should not assume that it will remain unchanged.

Christ.

My conclusion: They really got the goods on Rumsfeld. Torture for fun and profit. That's why he's gone. And they're trying to distance themselves from his chambers of horrors, before it all starts leaking out.

[truthisfreedom]

14. We must NEVER stop investigating every aspect of this criminal organization.

NEVER. I don't give a sh*t what happens. We must NEVER stop investigating every aspect of bushco, because we have a responsibility to root out the last of the rot in this country's politics.