The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged waterboarding

Top CIA Operative: ‘I Don’t Think We’ve Suffered at All’ From Waterboarding Ban

By | 04.02.10 | 3:05 pm

Marc Theissen, get set to attack your next target — Michael Sulick, head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service.

Via Jeff Stein, Sulick, a longtime CIA operative, told a gathering at his alma mater that the loss of torture techniques hasn’t hindered intelligence work:

Rove ‘Proud’ of Waterboarding

By | 03.12.10 | 10:06 am

Compassionate conservatism at work. One wonders if George W. Bush’s presidential library will feature an interactive waterboarding exhibit.

How CIA Officials Actually Waterboarded People

By | 03.09.10 | 1:15 pm

A few years ago, a pal of mine named Malcolm Nance testified to a congressional panel about how he was waterboarded. Nance used to instruct Naval Special Forces in how to resist torture, and part of their instruction was, inevitably, to undergo it themselves. Since the CIA’s contract psychologists essentially More…

Sessions to Mueller: Why Didn’t We Torture Abdulmutallab?

By | 01.20.10 | 2:49 pm

It’s quite a spectacle to watch members of Congress — all of whom have sworn an oath to support the U.S. Constitution — brag about their disdain for the right to due process, which is guaranteed by the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment (even for foreign nationals suspected of crimes in the More…

58 Percent of U.S. Voters Want to Waterboard Failed Christmas Bomber

By | 12.31.09 | 11:56 am

Don’t expect any charitable feelings around the holidays. According to a new Rasmussen national telephone survey, 58 percent of U.S. voters say they’d support using waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques to extract information from the failed Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bomber.

Just 30 percent oppose using such More…

Can the Death Penalty for Terrorists Fuel Violence?

By | 11.25.09 | 8:25 am

When Attorney General Eric Holder announced earlier this month that the suspected plotters of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would be tried in civilian court, he also promised to seek the death penalty for all of them. But the heated debate that followed over the supposed dangers of trying “the More…

FBI Interrogators Argued in 2002 That ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Techniques Were Illegal and Ineffective

By | 11.08.09 | 2:03 pm

As former Vice President Dick Cheney and some Republican lawmakers continue to debate whether torture works and was a legitimate interrogation technique during the Bush administration, it’s almost jaw-dropping to read some of the memos that were written by the real experts on interrogation techniques in the U.S. government, warning More…

Declassified Docs Reveal Pentagon Ignored FBI’s Warnings on Abusive Interrogations

By | 11.07.09 | 7:05 pm

The Justice Department released more documents — or, at least, less-redacted documents — late Friday to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the government’s obligation in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

These latest documents provide a glimpse of the early struggles between the FBI and the More…

9/11 Masterminds Could Face Trial in Federal Court

By | 10.21.09 | 6:00 am

As the Obama administration nears its deadline for deciding where to try the men suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks, there are strong indications that those trials could take place in federal courts in the United States. That’s prompting fervent opposition from Republicans, who say the 9/11 More…

DOJ Advice on Sleep Deprivation Varied Widely

By | 09.03.09 | 9:07 am

iron shackles
Among the many revelations in the CIA inspector general’s report released last week is this curious fact: the CIA did not have a coherent or consistent policy about the use and legality of sleep deprivation as an interrogation tactic. And it was More…