ABC News' Brian Ross, Richard Esposito, and Martha Raddatz
report: emphasis added (via
Hot Air)
The controversial interrogation technique known as water-boarding, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex, has been banned by CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden, current and former CIA officials tell ABCNews.com.
...
The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed.
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As a result of the decision, officials say, the most extreme techniques left available to CIA interrogators would be what is termed "longtime standing," which includes exhaustion and sleep deprivation with prisoners forced to stand, handcuffed with their feet shackled to the floor.
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It is believed that water-boarding was used on fewer than five "high-value" terrorist subjects, and had not been used for three to four years.
If this ABC News report is accurate, the CIA no longer uses "water-boarding" when interrogating suspected terrorists; this technique, last used more than three years ago, has been used on less than five "high value" captured terrorists.
I wonder how many people accusing the Bush Administration of torture will acknowledge that this technique has been used on less than five prisoners?
And if they do, how will they then justify all the hyperbolic rhetoric about the "war criminals" in the Bush Administration, etc.?
It will be interesting to see how such folks square what they've written in the past with this latest information.
I guess some of us will have to start reading Andrew Sullivan again....