They Added a Tracheotomy Kit to the Torture Chamber

[FourScore]

This is a very interesting diary. Read/skim it all the way through.It's worth it.

EXCERPT:

The August 1, 2002 "2002 Techniques Memo"
This memo was written by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee. It provides cover for CIA enhanced interrogation techniques. It was released on 4/16/09 in response to an ACLU FOI request. Based upon information presented to the OLC by the CIA's John Rizzo, waterboarding was described as harmless:

As we understand it, when the waterboard is used, the subject's body responds as if the subject were drowning -- even though the subject may be well aware that he is in fact not drowning. You have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical harm.

In keeping with the premise that waterboarding was safe, and defending why the waterboard is not torture, Bybee wrote:

As we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, "pain and suffering" as used in Section 2340 is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts of "pain" as distinguished from "suffering".... The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view, inflict "severe pain and suffering"."

Thus, the central defense of waterboarding was that it did not cause actual physical harm. It is somewhat unclear, if the waterboard is so safe, why the waterboard would require "monitor by personnel with medical training and extensive SERE school experience with this procedure who will ensure the subject’s mental and physical safety." Nonetheless, the "2002 Techniques Memo" central tenet was that waterboarding is HARMLESS...

The May 10, 2005 "2005 Bradbury Memo"
This memo was written by Stephen Bradbury. It provides revised analysis of CIA enhanced interrogation techniques. It was released on 4/16/09 in response to an ACLU FOI request.

Importantly, this memo replaced the 2002 Yoo/Bybee memos, which were withdrawn by Jack Goldsmith following the leak of the "2002 Torture Definition Memo" in May 2004. We are now learning that there was serious debate about the morality and utility of waterboarding within the intelligence services and the State Department, and an internal CIA probe by the inspector general raised numerous questions about the "enhanced interrogation techniques". Specifically, it is clear that waterboarding was anything but harmless. As cited in the "2005 Bradbury memo", the CIA inspector general noted that the original approval of waterboarding was based upon inadequate safety evaluation by qualified medical officers:

See IG Report at 21 n26 (" was neither consulted nor involved in the analysis of the risk and benefits of , nor provided with the OTS report cited in the OLC opinion ."). Since that time, based on comments from OMS, additional constraints have been imposed on the use of the techniques.

Evaluating the new constraints placed on waterboarding in the "2005 Bradbury memo" reveals a MAJOR change. "Harmless" waterboarding now required that a physician be present in the room in which the detainee is waterboarded to prevent death. Furthermore, they now included a tracheotomy kit in the room where "harmless" waterboarding was conducted:

...a detainee could suffer spasms of the larynx that would prevent him from breathing even when the application of water is stopped and the detainee is returned to an upright position. In the event of such spasms, a qualified physician would immediately intervene to address the problem, and, if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy.... we are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present- although not visible to the detainee- during any application of the waterboard.

A tracheotomy is a surgery in which a physician cuts into a patient's neck, slicing through the skin and into the airway (trachea, see below). Then a tube is inserted into the hole to provide an airway to the lungs.


Thus after waterboarding Zubaydah and KSM 266 times by March 2003, it apparently became clear to the CIA that in the hands of the interrogators working for the CIA, waterboarding was not the "harmless" procedure it was originally described to be. In fact, waterboarding was considered to be so dangerous by the CIA's own doctors, that they mandated a physician with an emergency tracheotomy kit be in the room while the waterboarding took place.

Failure to perform a tracheotomy in the presence of airway-obstructing laryngospasm can result in loss of oxygen severe enough to cause brain damage and death. The memos do not indicate whether or not any of the waterboarded detainees required a tracheotomy. However, a heavily censored footnote on page 15 of the "2005 Bradbury Memo" discusses what appears to be a near-death episode that must have happened with Zubaydah or Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the only detainees known to undergo "extensive waterboarding" by the CIA. This event may be the basis of the change in waterboarding protocols:

In our limited experience, extensive use of the waterboard can introduce new risks. Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness. An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately and the interrogator should deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water. If this fails to restore normal breathing, aggressive medical intervention is required. Any subject who has reached this degree of compromise is not...(censored hereafter).

MORE AT:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/24/723455/-They-Added-a-Tracheotomy-Kit-to-the-Torture-Chamber