What is water boarding? In October 2007, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey drew criticism for his refusal to characterize water boarding, a controversial interrogation technique considered by many to be illegal, as torture.
Michael Mukasey, response to Congress prompted several senators on the committee to declare that they would oppose Mukasey's nomination as Attorney General unless he denounces water boarding as a form of torture. Nevertheless, Mukasey was confirmed and served under President Bush.
Water boarding has been around for centuries. It was a common interrogation technique during the Italian Inquisition of the 1500s and was used perhaps most famously in Cambodian prisons.
Is waterboarding effective?
The ongoing debate over the ethics and usefulness of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding received new fuel on Sunday night, with a New York Times report that two Al Qaeda suspects were subject to the method, which simulates drowning, a combined 266 times.
"You get a ton of information, but headquarters says, 'There must be more,' " recalled one intelligence officer who was involved in the case. As described in the footnote to the memo, the use of repeated waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah was ordered "at the direction of C.I.A. headquarters," and officials were dispatched from headquarters "to watch the last waterboard session."
The thing you could not do in torture was injure the body or cause death. That was — and still is what makes waterboarding such an attractive interrogation technique. It causes great physical and mental suffering, yet leaves no marks on the body.
Does This Make Water Boarding Torture?
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