Text 2997, 101 rader
Skriven 2006-10-26 09:05:00 av ROSS SAUER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Torture
===============
Well, Go Cheney Yourself finally admitted it.
Bush's goons *DO* torture.
  
Posted on Wed, Oct. 25, 2006  

Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding

By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers

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. 

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. 
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. 

© 2006 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources.

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