1115.org

(1)
Michael Mukasey can go on being coy about it for as long as he likes, or till Congress tires of it, whichever comes first.

But it’s pretty much official, now — waterboarding is not torture. Or maybe I should put that more delicately: despite whatever beliefs we may have professed in the past, waterboarding is no longer regarded by the government of the United States of America as torture.

The first hint came two weeks ago, when former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, in the course of trying to explain what good guys we are, confirmed that the U.S. has indeed used waterboarding in the recent past.

Then yesterday, current CIA Director Michael Hayden went ahead and acknowledged multiple instances of waterboarding:

The CIA used a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding on three suspects captured after the September 11 attacks, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress on Tuesday.

“Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees,” Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was the first time a U.S. official publicly specified the number of people subjected to waterboarding and named them.
[...]
Those subjected to waterboarding were suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hayden said at the hearing on threats to the United States.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly come as news (the fact that we waterboarded these three threats to the fabric of the universe). But now we have it officially confirmed, on the record, by a current and ranking member of the administration’s waterboarding hierarchy.

No current or former administration member or spokesman has ever waffled on Bush’s famous “this government does not torture people”. (One is, of course, tempted to ask: “If not people, then whom, Mr. President?, but that would be so rude.)

So, the declared facts are:
— We do not torture people.
— We do waterboard.

Ergo, waterboarding is not torture. That actually qualifies for a Q.E.D., I believe.

(2)
Hayden had some other interesting things to tell Congress yesterday. Although waterboarding has not been used in five years, he actually pines to waterboard again. It shouldn’t matter that the U.S. Army Field Manual bans waterboarding. CIA interrogators, apparently, make better waterboarders. For that matter, CIA detainees make better waterboardees. A match made in heaven, really.

He told the committee he opposed limiting the CIA to using interrogation techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual, which bans waterboarding. CIA interrogators are better trained, and the agency works with a narrower range of suspects in its interrogations, he said.

There was also a pretty shameful admission by FBI Director Robert Mueller:

The CIA is the only U.S. agency that uses harsh interrogation techniques, National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell told the hearing. The entire military adheres to the Army Field Manual and FBI Director Robert Mueller told the hearing his agency does not use coercive techniques.

Why is the FBI wasting our tax dollars? Why can’t their agents and interrogators be better trained? I sure as hell hope somebody in Congress is planning to ask Mueller the tough questions.

(3)
Both Michael Mukasey and Mitch McConnell have previously been reported as saying that waterboarding would be torture if done to them. Mukasey said it in response to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s questioning on January 30. McConnell said that in a New Yorker interview published in mid-January.

McConnell, you’ll be glad to hear, moved away from that position yesterday:

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today, McConnell backed away from his previous statement, claiming that he had been taken “out of context.” McConnell said that he made his comment during a discussion about “being a water safety instructor” and how “some people” — like himself — “have difficulty putting their head under water”…

Which puts the ball in Mukasey’s court.