Inhumane Interrogation

This is utterly crazy. I can't believe that they did this... I can't believe that they could have been so cruel, when they were supposed to be civillised people.

I am glad that President Obama has stopped all further such methods from being used. I just hope this doesn't spark off any retaliation from Al Qaeda...

Refer to the article below:

WASHINGTON — Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogators used waterboarding — the neardrowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture — 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported. The agency waterboarded Sept 11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times and another terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, 83 times, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Khalid Sheikh had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing CIA officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and nature of the interrogation methods was not previously known. The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.

A footnote to another 2005 memo released last Thursday said waterboarding was used more frequently and with a greater volume of water than CIA rules permitted. The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a yearlong, closed-door investigation of the CIA interrogation programme, in part to assess the claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment was necessary to get information, in part to assess claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment, including slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in standing positions for days and confining them in small boxes, was necessary to get information.

CIA officials had opposed the release of the memo, which was one of four secret legal memos on interrogation that President Barack Obama ordered released last Thursday. Mr Obama said last week that officers who had used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods with the approval of the Justice Department would not be prosecuted. He has repeatedly suggested that he opposes Congressional proposals for a “truth commission” to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programmes.

An NYT article last Saturday said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. 

It said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding. He revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said. It appears to be supported by a footnote to the Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been “unnecessary” in his case.

AFP, The New York Times

To view the full article on NY Times: Click here

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