[Dialogue] Cheney Confirms That Detainees Were Subjected to Water-Boarding

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Thursday, October 26, 2006 by the McClatchy Newspapers
<http://www.realcities.com/>  

Cheney Confirms That Detainees Were Subjected to Water-Boarding 

by Jonathan S. Landay

 

WASHINGTON - 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. 

The U.S. Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts and many
experts on the laws of war, however, consider water-boarding cruel, inhumane
and degrading treatment that's banned by U.S. law and by international
treaties that prohibit torture. Some intelligence professionals argue that
it often provides false or misleading information because many subjects will
tell their interrogators what they think they want to hear to make the
water-boarding stop. 

Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina have said that a law Bush signed last month
prohibits water-boarding. The three are the sponsors of the Military
Commissions Act, which authorized the administration to continue its
interrogations of enemy combatants. 

Graham, a military lawyer who serves in the Air Force Reserve, reaffirmed
that view in an interview last week with McClatchy Newspapers. 

"Water-boarding, in my opinion, would cause extreme physical and
psychological pain and suffering, and it very much could run afoul of the
War Crimes Act," he said, referring to a 1996 law. "It could very much open
people up to prosecution under the War Crimes Act, as well as be a violation
of the Detainees Treatment Act." 

A revised U.S. Army Field Manual published last month bans water-boarding as
"cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." 

"There is a disconnect between the president and the vice president and on
the other side leading proponents from their own party and leading experts
on the laws of war," said Neal Sonnett, the chairman of the American Bar
Association's Task Force on Enemy Combatants. 

The radio interview Tuesday was the first time that a senior Bush
administration official has confirmed that U.S. interrogators used
water-boarding against important al-Qaida suspects, including Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, the alleged chief architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Mohammad was captured in Pakistan on March 1, 2003, and turned over to the
CIA. 

Water-boarding means holding a person's head under water or pouring water on
cloth or cellophane placed over the nose and mouth to simulate drowning
until the subject agrees to talk or confess. 

Lee Ann McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, denied that Cheney confirmed that
U.S. interrogators used water-boarding or endorsed the technique. 

"What the vice president was referring to was an interrogation program
without torture," she said. "The vice president never goes into what may or
may not be techniques or methods of questioning." 

In the interview on Tuesday, Scott Hennen of WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D., told
Cheney that listeners had asked him to "let the vice president know that if
it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves
American lives." 

"Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you
agree?" Hennen said. 

"I do agree," Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview
released Wednesday. "And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with
respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able
to secure the nation." 

Cheney added that Mohammed had provided "enormously valuable information
about how many (al-Qaida members) there are, about how they plan, what their
training processes are and so forth. We've learned a lot. We need to be able
to continue that." 

"Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?"
asked Hennen. 

"It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being
the vice president `for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're
involved in," Cheney replied. "We live up to our obligations in
international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is,
you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we
need to be able to do that." 

The interview transcript was posted on the White House Web site.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061024-7.html> Interview
of the Vice President by Scott Hennen, WDAY. 

CIA spokeswoman Michelle Neff said, "While we do not discuss specific
interrogation methods, the techniques we use have been reviewed by the
Department of Justice and are in keeping with our laws and treaty
obligations. We neither conduct nor condone torture." 

McClatchy correspondents James Rosen and Marisa Taylor contributed to this
report. 

C Copyright 2006 McClatchy Newspapers

###

 

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