Waterboarding

Let's Talk About Waterboarding

... conclusions were simply wrong. A report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility issued in February 2010 firmly repudiated the memos' legal reasoning. It found specifically that, in drafting the memos, Yoo had "violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective and candid legal advice.". An Ongoing Investigation. Despite the crumbling of torture's legal facade, investigations into the crime of torture have made little progress. Durham, the special prosecutor who had been assigned to the CIA videotape-destruction case by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, is now looking into CIA crimes against detainees as well. In August 2009, when Attorney General Eric Holder released a CIA Inspector General report documenting CIA abuses, he appointed Durham to carry out a preliminary investigation of those abuses. The focus of the review is not, however, on the techniques that President Bush authorized. Instead, it looks into so-called "unauthorized" interrogation ...

President Trump On Waterboarding

... of the debates that you would bring back waterboarding -. TRUMP: Yeah. MUIR: - And a hell of a lot worse. Were your words. TRUMP: I would do, what I would do - I want to keep our country safe, I want to keep our country safe. MUIR: What does that mean. TRUMP: When they're shooting - when they're chopping off the heads of our people, and other people. When they're chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East - when ISIS is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times, would I feel strongly about waterboarding? As far as I'm concerned, we have to fight fire with fire. Now, with that being said, I'm going with Gen. Mattis, I'm going with my secretary, because I think Pompeo is gonna be phenomenal. I'm going to go with what they say. But I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked them the question. Does it work? Does ...

Cia Pick Pompeo Defies Trump, Says He Won't Waterboard

... Field Manual. "Moreover, I can't imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect or then president," he said, adding that any changes to the manual would have to come through Congress. President-elect Donald Trump during the campaign said he would bring back waterboarding. Asked about the skepticism by Trump's opponents as to the legitimacy of the election and political division, Pompeo told the committee: "I have no doubt that the discourse that's been taking place is something that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin would look at and say, 'Wow, that was among the objectives that I had.". Copy this code to your website or blog. Earlier in the hearing, Pompeo said he believed a recent report from the intelligence community concluding that Russia tried to help Republican President-elect Donald Trump by "discrediting" his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, was "sound.". If confirmed as CIA director, he added, "I will continue to pursue foreign intelligence with vigor no matter where the facts lead.". A Rocky Start. As Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's ranking Democrat, was making his opening remarks, the power went out, ...

The Wall, Vote Fraud Probe, Waterboarding

... within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally. But do I feel it works? Absolutely.". A 2005 law authored by Sen. John Mc Cain, R-Ariz., who was tortured as a POW in North Vietnam, banned the use of torture in military interrogations. The Bush administration got around that by employing "enhanced interrogation techniques" that its lawyers said stopped short of torture. Mc Cain and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., tightened the ban in a 2015 law that specified only those techniques listed in the Army Field Manual. At his confirmation hearing for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama affirmed that waterboarding is illegal. The new CIA director, Mike Pompeo, assured senators that he won't attempt to reinstate techniques not listed in the Army Field Manual and testified that "I can't imagine I would be asked that by the president-elect.". Mc Cain expressed confidence on Wednesday that the ban is legally airtight, and that Congress won't reverse it for Trump. This Day in ...

Trump Says He'll 'rely' On Cabinet On Whether To Resurrect Waterboarding

... one of the debates that you would bring about waterboarding and hell of lot worse higher what is what I would do I want to keep our country's. I want to keep our country's what does that mean shooting when they're chopping off the heads of our people and other people. When they're chopping off heads of people because they happen to be a Christian Middle East when crisis is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times. Would I feel strongly in waterboarding. As far as I'm concerned we have to fight fire with right now. That being said. I'm going we general matters I'm going with my secretary because I think pump it's going to be phenomenal. I'm gonna go with what they say. But I have spoken as recently. Is. 24 hours ago. With people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked him the question. Does it work does torture work. Idiots who was yes absolutely you're now the president do you want waterboarding. I don't want people to chop off the citizens or anybody's heads in the Middle East okay. Because there Christian or was local or anything else I don't want look now they chapel muff and put them on camera they send them along with ...

Does Waterboarding Work? Seven Questions About The Controversial Interrogation Technique

... CIA detainees were waterboarded after 9/11. Abu Zubaydah, an alleged al-Qaeda facilitator, was the first detainee to be waterboarded. In 2002, while being held at the CIA black site in Thailand, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding 83 times. Abd Al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an al-Qaeda operative accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, was waterboarded two times in 2002 at the CIA black site in Thailand. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of being one of the main planners of the 9/11 attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in the course of one month after his capture in 2003. Zubaydah, Nashiri and Mohammed are all currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where Nashiri and Mohammed have been charged with war crimes in military commissions. Did the waterboarding of terrorist suspects lead to actionable intelligence. Opinions on the efficacy of torture vary and are the subject of intense and emotional debate. After an exhaustive study the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded the CIA’s use of torture and other harsh interrogation techniques did not produce ...

Ongoing Lawsuit Threatens Trump's 'worse Than' Waterboarding Plan

... later died as a result of hypothermia while in custody in Afghanistan) — were subjected to various forms of torture ranging from regular beatings, forced rectal feeding, waterboarding, sensory and sleep deprivation,  shackling in painful stress positions and confinement in coffin-like boxes, to even mock executions, according to Vice News , ACUL reports and statements recorded in the case. These aforementioned techniques were developed by Mitchell and Jessen to cause a state of “learned helplessness” in order to break the detainees' wills. A company run by the two psychologists also made $81 million "as private profiteers from torture," Ladin said in an interview with Bloomberg. However, Larry Larsen, a spokesman for Mitchell and Jessen, told Bloomberg that the money the psychologists’ company made had “nothing to do with the plaintiffs’ case,” and was paid by the hour as part of a government contract that “provided up to 100 people, doing a variety of highly sensitive duties, deployed year round to dangerous places, embedded in the CIA, and under the direct command and control of CIA.”. The government is covering the ...

Trump's Cia Pick Said He Was Against Waterboarding. Then He Changed His Tune

... information and called for a "fundamental upgrade to America's surveillance capabilities." He said the country should re-establish its bulk metadata collection program and "[combine] it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.". Wyden asked about the database in the written questions. Pompeo responded that he hadn't "consulted legal experts on a hypothetical database" or studied which third-party information would be available to include in the database. On Saturday, Human Rights Watch urged senators to vote against Pompeo's confirmation, citing concerns about his thoughts on torture and surveillance. "Pompeo's responses to questions about torture and mass surveillance are dangerously ambiguous about whether he would endorse abusive practices and seek to subvert existing legal protections," Maria Mc Farland Sanchez-Moreno, the group's US program co-director, said in a statement. ...

Trump’s Waterboarding Fantasy Hits A Road Bump During Confirmation Hearings

... Trump predicted with his usual bombast that every one of his nominees will be confirmed. Trump was equally certain in March 2016 the military would obey an order to waterboard or torture by other methods, even though it’s illegal. “If I say do it, they’re gonna do it,” Trump said. “That’s what leadership is all about.”. If testimony by some of his nominees this week is an indicator, Trump’s pledge to torture people may, thankfully, be in trouble. Trump can probably count on Rex Tillerson’s support since he would not describe Putin’s actions in Aleppo was a war crime during questioning by Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl.). Rubio to Tillerson "it should not be hard to say Vladimir Putin's army has committed war crimes in Aleppo". — Katy Tur (@Katy Tur NBC) January 11, 2017. Mother Jones reported on the breathtaking exchange after Tillson said he would be “uncomfortable” with labeling Putin a war criminal. Tillerson claimed that he did not have sufficient information to charge Putin with ...

Cia Documents Expose Internal Agency Feud Over Psychologists Leading Interrogation Program

... the agency to adopt interrogation methods widely condemned as torture. A series of internal emails reveal that the CIA’s own medical and psychological personnel expressed deep concern about an arrangement that put two outside contractors in charge of subjecting detainees to brutal measures including waterboarding, then also evaluating whether those methods were working or causing lasting harm. In one of the more prescient warnings, an agency official wrote that “if some untoward outcome is later to be explained, their sole use in this role will be indefensible.” The message was dated June 2003, but seemed to anticipate the controversy that would engulf the agency when the details of the interrogation program were exposed. The files, which also include documents that shed light on the death of a CIA prisoner in Afghanistan, were made public as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the two contract psychologists, James Mitchell and J. Bruce Jessen, by the American ...

Donald Trump Cabinet Nominees Promise To Prohibit The Use Of Waterboarding

... technique. Trump described their conversation in an interview with The New York Times. General Mattis is a strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length and I asked him that question. I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said ― I was surprised ― he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my mind. Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not — it’s not going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think. If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less important, much less important than I thought he would say. The comments by Sessions and Kelly indicate that ...