I'm coming very late to this, but if Monday's report from The Washington Post about the use of sleep deprivation, noise bombardment, and forced nudity on Abu Zubayda prior to Justice Department authorization on Aug. 1, 2002, is accurate, laws were certainly broken, and those involved may be vulnerable to prosecution. There have been a number of conflicting reports about Eric Holder's willingness to pursue prosecutions. Today The New York Times reports that Holder will only be going after lower-level officials, which I think is both morally indefensible and unlikely to be an effective deterrent. Folks join the CIA because they are willing to do whatever is necessary to defend the country. Only by making sure policy-makers don't abuse that commitment can these kinds of mistakes be avoided.
The Post article focuses on the role of the two contractors assigned to develop the "enhanced interrogation" program, Bruce Jessen and James E. Mitchell. The end of the piece suggests that both men were pushed by CIA leadership to go even harder on Zubayda, even after he had been waterboarded 83 times. But most remarkable is what happened after CIA officials arrived and witnessed the procedure for themselves:
"Headquarters was sending daily harangues, cables, e-mails insisting that waterboarding continue for 30 days because another attack was believed to be imminent," the former official said. "Headquarters said it would be on the team's back if an attack happened. They said to the interrogation team, 'You've lost your spine.' "
Mitchell and Jessen now found themselves in the same position as Soufan, Shumate and others.
"It was hard on them, too," the former U.S. official said. "They are psychologists. They didn't enjoy this at all."
The two men threatened to quit if the waterboarding continued and insisted that officials from Langley come to Thailand to watch the procedure, the former official said.
After a CIA delegation arrived, Abu Zubaida was strapped down one more time. As water poured over his cloth-covered mouth, he gasped for breath. "They all watched, and then they all agreed to stop," the former official said.
So hardened intelligence professionals were so affected by the sight of Zubayda being waterboarded that they elected to stop the procedures' use once they saw it in action. But if you believe the cast of National Review, including "Human Rights" advocate Cliff May, waterboarding isn't torture. Maybe they think the CIA, as some of the officials at the Counterterrorism Center reportedly put it, "lost their spine."
-- A. Serwer
