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Bottled Waterboarding
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Among some increasing detailed descriptions of how the CIA waterboarded detainees, The Daily Beast's Robert Windrem uncovers a highly ironic detail for a highly brutal procedure: the use of meticulously-kept bottled water.
In administering the Bush White House’s most infamous “enhanced interrogation” procedure, waterboarding, CIA questioners employed a civilized tool for a brutal task—bottled water, sometimes straight from the fridge.
Current and former intelligence officials and testimony of two suspects themselves reveal this detail, one of many that help clarify how detainees underwent this procedure.
A leading Bush administration official, retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says that the numbers associated with CIA waterboarding sessions—such as 183 times for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 83 times for al Qaeda training camp commander Abu Zubaydah—may even reflect the number of water bottles expended.
“They were counting the water bottles,” retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told me. “Four or five bottles were used each time. That’s the agency. They had to keep a record.”
“Water bottle...they were counting the water bottles,” Wilkerson told me. “Four or five bottles were used each time. That’s the agency. They had to keep a record.”
Wilkerson says he learned of the use of water bottles from agency officials and from the report on detainee abuse by the International Red Cross Committee.
In August 2002, then-Assistant Attorney General (now federal appeals court judge) Jay S. Bybee laid out the clinical procedure for waterboarding, including a description that the “water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout.”
Instead, interrogators used bottles. In fact, a former senior U.S. intelligence official earnestly explained to me that each “waterboarding” episode was nothing more than a “pour” from a water bottle. A one-pint water bottle takes about seven seconds to empty, so four or five bottles would take empty in 30 or 40 seconds, the time prescribed by the Justice Department memo approving the process. (Larger two-liter bottles might have been more efficient. Each takes a full 30 seconds to empty.)
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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Robert Windrem is a Senior Reserach Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security. For three decades, he worked as a producer for NBC News. During that time, he focused on issues of international security, strategic policy, intelligence and terrorism. He is the winner of more than 40 national journalism awards for his work in print, television, and online journalism, including a Columbia-duPont Award, mostly for his work on international security issues.
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Robert Windrem is a Senior Reserach Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security. For three decades, he worked as a producer for NBC News. During that time, he focused on issues of international security, strategic policy, intelligence and terrorism. He is the winner of more than 40 national journalism awards for his work in print, television, and online journalism, including a Columbia-duPont Award, mostly for his work on international security issues.
exploora
I just hope the kids don't try this at home.
Hawnzz
As vile as this all is... I had a moment of "gallows humor" when I started to laugh. Bottled water to waterboard... lol
Justrunwithit
You know, water boarding or any form of "coercive interrogation" is wrong, but these are not exactly the sympathetic subjects to talk to about it. I mean, given who these guys are, would you rather be interrogated by the CIA, or them on their "home field"? People in the west don't have the first iota of a clue what real torture looks like.
Banjo1
Tap water won't make them talk? These guys are tough. Or maybe discriminating is a better word.
Persons of the Left: Let the tears now flow! Pay particular attention in your comments to how this creates new enemies. I always get a kick out of that one, but then I'm easily amused.
Josh-Narins
How much harder would you fight in a hopeless situation if you knew/thought you'd be tortured?
How soon might you stop killing and wounding the people coming for you if you thought they'd treat you humanely.
I know these wiley terrorists are too much for many Republicans, but during that little WWII scuffle (much smaller threat than al-Qaeda, I know) we had nearly a half million surrendered Nazis in America.
motrbotr
Oh please. Go build yourself a Utopia on some other planet. These nutbags have been beheading and blowing them selves up and hanging people from bridges a lot longer than since we have been over there. You thing they wont cut of an americans head with a dull kitchen knife? They have been doing since we have been there and before so that fact alone negates your stupid logic. Sorry to be harsh but the whole "You be nice to me and i will be nice to you " doesnt work with fanatical lunitcs. It only makes you look weak and ignorant. And then they pounce. As in 9/11.
TheRealist1
"motrbotr..... You thing they wont cut of an americans head with a dull kitchen knife? They have been doing since we have been there and before so that fact alone negates your stupid logic. Sorry to be harsh but the whole "You be nice to me and i will be nice to you " doesnt work with fanatical lunitcs. It only makes you look weak and ignorant. And then they pounce. As in 9/11."
It is YOUR logic that is of the "stupid" variety.
The use of torture was to try to extract important info from the terrorists. Your logic leads one to believe the torture was just payback for the gruesome actions of the terrorists. I doubt, or at least i hope, this was not the case.
I'm sure Cheney, himself, would insist you keep those opinions to yourself. You are not doing his cause any favors by expressing them and besides, he is now backtracking on his own convoluted logic in order to save face.
My advise to you is to write your thoughts and musings in a notebook and then burn it. That way, only you and your God know of your stupidity.
roger37
You two idiots just wait until our troops start coming home after being waterboarded, and then we'll hear what they have to say. In the meantime, quit giving our enemies reasons to waterboard our kids.
roger37
If you support torture such as waterboarding, you are a subhuman troll. If you had any balls you would try it out yourself, just like Mancow.
lawrenceb5
Cheney probably didn't even give a directive to recylcle or to use the cheaper Poland Springs over the Evian. War Criminal!
lassie09
A disgrace.
jackee
I'll save my tears in a bucket over this sad treatment and they can use it for the next round.
oldpunk
Ironic that Cheney wants the documents released & he was the one who got the law past that prevents it.
Plantagenet
The irony is that Obama promised complete transparency and now Obama is refusing to declassify and release the documents on torture that Cheney is requesting.
LucienA
Nope the irony is that since Cheney got the laws passed that prevent release Obama would have to make himself look soft on National Security to actually comply with Cheney's request...
smitisan
I don't think Cheney's quite finished forging those documents yet. I've seen no indication yet that Obama has even seen them himself, so something somewhere is holding them up for somebody. For sure Obama would look a lot less soft if he released them and they did in fact support what Cheney's saying. The fact that he released them would be completely overlooked in the howls and cheers from the Cheney crowd.
jbeckner
is this a serious article? I know it's not serious journalism but is the writer serious? What kind of bottled water? Maybe it wasn't torture after all. S. Pellegrino?
Plantagenet
Next they'll tell us that cloth used to cover the victim's face during waterboarding had to be a French designer scarf.
socialworklady
This article = must feed The Beast
Banjo1
I know Canada is a boring, formerly second-rate country that has fallen somewhat more into in utter consequence, but aren't there some political questions involving the degree of socialism that should be embraced that would be enhanced by fag-hag opining? I'm serious. (Cue the repressed hillbilly homosexual comments).
oldpunk
Is the name banjo because of the theme music from Deliverance that plays in the background of your comments?
roger37
Banjo, are you still in the closet?
chuygonza
Bottled water? Not only were they torturing detainees, but they were harming the environment at the same time. Tisk tisk. Also, for some reason, I didn't feel sorry for Zubaydah and Abdelrahim Hussein Abdul Nashiri. I understand that we must be civil, and that detainees that may potentially be innocent were harmed, but waterboarding is the mildest of things these men deserve.
koyaanisqatsi
In the middle of the night, when you alone and it's quiet, think about someone coming to waterboard you. It is the least that a vile person such as you deserves.
chuygonza
Please, we all claim that we don't agree with torture, but as soon as we see it done by Jack Baur on 24, we applaud it and hope that he gets away with it, for the sake of saving lives. I may be vile, but you think about someone in your life getting brutally murdered, and believe me, the mildest thing you will want to do to that person is waterboarding. I will gladly hand you the water and cloths.
dwurry
Sorry,
This article is a pack of lies.
The CIA keeps records? You could fill the library of congress with what the CIA has done "off the record."
mattbenzor
THE VICE DICTATOR is now throwing the CIA under the bush I mean bus he is caught in his own lie's each time he speaks.Even the generals are against the vice dictator's denial that what he and Bush and freemason secret society agenda has been up too for the last 8 years was evil and not american Iraq is a freemason secret society war not american these tyrants have hijacked our counrty they claim to be christian but there far from that.They lie to gain power there powermongers and the anti-christ John Hagee calls them in his book "YES" Mr.Hagee the evangelic mega church pastor.jerusalem countdown page 116 #4 on the list.But what gets me is Mr.Hagee will endorse the tyrants for president mr.cheney is going change history alright for the first vice dictator every in american history
deegeezee
Sir, you're about to be waterboarded.
Flat or sparkling?
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