Say Anything Blog

And the last time was in 2003, given that it has been specifically forbidden by current CIA Director Michael Hayden.

Officials told ABC News on Sept. 14 that the controversial interrogation technique, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex as shown in the above demonstration, had been banned by the CIA director at the recommendation of his deputy, Steve Kappes.

Hayden sought and received approval from the White House to remove waterboarding from the list of approved interrogation techniques first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002.

The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed by the CIA. . . .

As a result of Hayden’s decision, officials say, the most extreme technique 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.

The most effective use of waterboarding, according to current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots against the United States.

A senior CIA official said KSM later admitted it was only because of the waterboarding that he talked.

In summary, we’re not waterboarding anyone currently.  We haven’t waterboarded anyone since 2003, which is a decision the President made at the prompting of his CIA director.  Yet for the last four years, Democrats have talked about waterboarding endlessly despite the fact that they themselves could at any time end the practice.

So why is this even an issue?  If we’re not doing it, and the Democrat majority in Congress could end it at any time if we were, why all the fuss still?  I think it has something to do with the fact that the left cares more about waterboarding as a rhetorical weapon against the President and Republicans than they do about the actual use of the tactic.

And hovering above all this is the fact that in one of the three instances when we did waterboard a high-level terrorist detainee…it worked beautifully.  The guy spilled his guts, giving us information that stopped no fewer than 29 terror plots and likely saved thousands of lives.