white house lawyer who okayed waterboarding

by Rosemarie Rosenbaum Published 1 year ago Updated 1 year ago 8 min read

In what was known as the Bybee memo, Yoo asserted that executive authority during wartime allows waterboarding and other forms of torture, which were euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation techniques". Yoo's memos narrowly defined torture and American habeas corpus obligations.

Who has challenged the legality of waterboarding?

Professors such as Wilson R. Huhn have also challenged the legality of waterboarding. In May 2008, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens voluntarily underwent waterboarding and concluded that it was torture. He also noted that he suffered ongoing psychological effects from the ordeal.

What did President Obama do about waterboarding?

In January 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13491, which banned the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in interrogations of detainees by any government agency. In April 2009, President Obama stated that he considered waterboarding to be torture.

What law school did they use on the waterboard?

Washington University School of Law. Archived from the original on 27 April 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2009. ^ "On the Waterboard". Vanity Fair. August 2008. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Retrieved 17 April 2009. ^ a b Nizza, Mike (2 July 2008). "A Window Into Waterboarding". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2009.

Is waterboarding a war crime?

However, the United States has a historical record of regarding waterboarding as a war crime, and has prosecuted individuals for such practice in the past.

What is the White House's position on waterboarding?

The White House position on the issue is in some ways consistent with its long-standing efforts to expand executive power and resist attempts by Congress to rein in the president’s authority. Still, the decision to reignite the debate over waterboarding struck many in Washington as peculiar. The White House had previously argued ...

When did the CIA use waterboarding?

Hayden testified publicly for the first time that the agency had used waterboarding on Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003.

What laws have been passed to prevent harsh interrogation?

Congress has passed two laws -- the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005 and the Military Commissions Act in 2006 -- that ban the use of harsh interrogation methods and require all U.S. agencies to comply with the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions in their treatment of detainees.

Is waterboarding torture?

In a recent GOP presidential debate, McCain said it was inconceivable that “anyone could believe that [waterboarding is] not torture.

Did the Bush administration ban the CIA?

Two laws passed by Congress in recent years -- as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees -- were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA’s use of the extreme interrogation method.

Who sponsored the 2006 Military Commissions Act?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the Republican sponsors of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that at the time the bill was passed he was assured by the Bush administration that the law would specifically prohibit waterboarding.

Did Fratto say anything out?

Fratto said the nation’s top intelligence officials “didn’t rule anything out” during congressional testimony Tuesday on CIA interrogation methods, and he indicated that Bush might consider reauthorizing waterboarding or other harsh techniques in extreme cases, such as when there is “belief that an attack might be imminent.”.

When did Obama stop waterboarding?

Why is waterboarding banned in the military?

By 2002, many branches of the military had backed away from waterboarding trainees, at least in part "because it hurt morale", and in November 2007 the practice was banned by the Department of Defense because it "provided no instructional or training benefit to the student". John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Bush stated that the United States has subjected 20,000 of its troops to waterboarding as part of SERE training prior to deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Jerald Ogrisseg, former head of Psychological Services for the Air Force SERE School has stated in testimony before the U.S. Senate's Committee on Armed Services that there are fundamental differences between SERE training and what occurs in real world settings. Dr. Ogrisseg further states that his experience is limited to SERE training, but that he did not believe waterboarding to be productive in either setting.

How long does waterboarding last?

Adverse physical effects can last for months, and psychological effects for years.

What is waterboarding torture?

Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on his/her back ...

Where was waterboarding used?

The Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979. The practice was perfected by Duch 's lieutenants Mam Nai and Tang Sin Hean and documented in a painting by former inmate Vann Nath, which is on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

How long did it take for Abu Zubaydah to break?

According to a previous account by former CIA officer John Kiriakou, Abu Zubaydah broke after just 35 seconds of waterboarding, which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning.

How effective is waterboarding?

Waterboarding's effectiveness as a technique for reliably obtaining truthful, useful intelligence has not been established. In May 2003, a senior CIA interrogator told the CIA's Office of Inspector General that the EIT then being used by the CIA was modeled after U.S. resistance training to prepare servicemen for "physical torture" by North Vietnamese. This torture, including waterboarding, was intended to extract "confessions for propaganda purposes" from U.S. airman "who possessed little actionable intelligence." If the CIA wanted to obtain useful information rather than false confessions, he said, the CIA needed "a different working model for interrogating terrorists." Nonetheless, with the active support of former Vice President Dick Cheney, the CIA embraced the EIT approach proposed by two psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, neither of whom had interrogation experience. While Cheney continues to maintain that waterboarding has "produced phenomenal results" including tracking down Osama bin Laden, the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that "the CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees." There was no proof, according to the 6,700-page report, that information obtained through waterboarding prevented any attacks or saved any lives, or that information obtained from the detainees was not or could not have been obtained through conventional interrogation methods.

What did John Yoo say about the Supreme Court?

John Yoo told the Guardian he has been talking to White House officials about his view that a recent supreme court ruling on immigration would allow Trump to issue executive orders on whether to apply existing federal laws. “If the court really believes what it just did, then it just handed President Trump a great deal of power, too,” Yoo, ...

How long does it take for the President to enforce the Administrative Procedure Act?

In a telephone interview, he added: “According to the supreme court, the president can now choose to under-enforce the law in certain areas and it can’t be undone by his successor unless that successor goes through this onerous thing called the Administrative Procedure Act, which usually takes one to two years.”.

What is the book Defender in Chief about?

In a book titled Defender in Chief, due to be published next week, John Yoo argues that Donald Trump is restoring the powers of the presidency envisioned by the framers of the US constitution. Photograph: Melissa Golden/Getty Images.

Overview

Classification as torture

Waterboarding is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts, politicians, war veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, and human rights organizations. David Miliband, then United Kingdom Foreign Secretary, described it as torture on 19 July 2008, and stated "the UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture". Arguments have been put forward in the United States that it might not be torture in all cases, or that it is unclear. The U.S. State De…

Etymology

While the technique has been used in various forms for centuries, the term water board was recorded first in a 1976 UPI report: "A Navy spokesman admitted use of the 'water board' torture ... to 'convince each trainee that he won't be able to physically resist what an enemy would do to him.'" The verb-noun waterboarding dates from 2004. Techniques using forcible drowning to extract information had hitherto been referred to as "water torture", "water treatment", "water cure" …

Technique

The practice of waterboarding has differed. During the Algerian War of Independence and Marcos' dictatorship in the Philippines, waterboarding involved forcing the victim to swallow or inhale water. Other forms of waterboarding prevent water from entering the lungs. The United States Army's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training occasionally included waterbo…

Mental and physical effects

Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue Hospital/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. In an interview for The New Yorker, he argued that "it was indeed torture. 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience', he said". Keller also g…

Historical uses

A form of torture similar to waterboarding is called toca, and more recently "Spanish water torture", to differentiate it from the better known Chinese water torture, along with garrucha (or strappado) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack). This was used infrequently during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. "The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introd…

Contemporary use

In 1983, San Jacinto County, Texas sheriff, James Parker, and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water into the towel until the prisone…

Effectiveness

Waterboarding and other forms of water torture have historically been used for 1) punishing, 2) forcing confessions for use in trials, 3) eliciting false confessions for political purposes, and 4) obtaining factual intelligence for military purposes.
Its use principally for obtaining confessions rather than as punishment dates back to the 15th century and the Spanish Inquisition. It was also in use for the same purpose, albeit illegally, by U.…