by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Human rights groups denounce it and condemn it as cruel and inhuman torture. The technique has been banned for use by the U.S. military, but the CIA regards it as a valuable tool in the war against terrorism.
This month, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have banned its use by the CIA and said he believes it has averted terrorist attacks on America.
To say it’s a controversial issue is an understatement.
It’s “waterboarding,” during which a person being interrogated is made to believe he or she is drowning. It involves securing a person to a board, usually with the feet slightly higher than the head, placing a cloth over the face and then pouring water onto the cloth.
According to CIA sources quoted on ABC News in 2005, “the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.”
The same sources also said CIA officers who subjected themselves to waterboarding lasted an average of 14 seconds. They added al-Qaida’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, impressed his interrogators when he was able to withstand the treatment for more than two minutes before “begging to confess.”
In his weekly radio address following the veto, Bush said there is evidence waterboarding headed off terrorist plots to attack a U.S. Marines camp in Djibouti and the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, as well as plans to fly passenger planes into a Los Angeles office tower and London’s Heathrow Airport and city buildings.
“Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland,” said Bush.
The presidential veto allowed waterboarding to remain in the CIA’s operational inventory, but can only be used with the consent of the president and attorney general on a case-by-case basis.
“I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack,” said Bush.