Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 TIMES in ONE MONTH

[Holly_Hobby]

Emptywheel:

I've put this detail in a series of posts, but it really deserves a full post. According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

On page 37 of the OLC memo, in a passage discussing the differences between SERE techniques and the torture used with detainees, the memo explains:

"The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91."

Note, the information comes from the CIA IG report which, in the case of Abu Zubaydah, is based on having viewed the torture tapes as well as other materials. So this is presumably a number that was once backed up by video evidence.

The same OLC memo passage explains how the CIA might manage to waterboard these men so many times in one month each (though even with these chilling numbers, the CIA's math doesn't add up).

...

http://digg.com/d1p41N

[joshcryer]

1. Yes, I don't quite grasp why so many people here are passive about this particular...

...observation. 183 times. 5 TIMES A DAY. For a MONTH.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Dwelling on such enormities of moral turpitude just make one feel more powerless

than ever; or feel it more obtrusively. It's like reading more than the headlines of some the newspaper articles.

[babylonsister]

6. Who's passive? Just because you didn't see the numerous

threads around here about this doesn't mean they're not there. From early this morning, and there are others.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5488017&mesg_id=5488017
What kind of sadist thinks the 184th episode of torture will do the trick?

[joshcryer]

7. Oh there was a lot of outrage over the fact that they said they weren't going to prosecute.

Little about how bad the torture really was. No I didn't see your thread, I admit, but that's because, I believe, it wasn't that big of a deal. If it's a big deal here then it gets a lot more attention than a few dozen replies, there are a few dozen topics about it.

[Holly_Hobby]

9. I apologize I missed your thread

I looked through the entire first page of this forum and didn't see it.

[joshcryer]

10. Don't apologize, I was going to make a similar post (after reading Krugman). I didn't see it either.

And I searched the first few pages (though granted their topic wasn't exactly clear).

[babylonsister]

13. Don't apologize. Obviously lots of people didn't

see it. I'm glad some topics are repeated. "Some". :D

[LooseWilly]

21. 5 times per day?

Actually, March has 31 days... and division comes up with 5.90322581 times per day.

If that were a number on your Federal Taxes, it would actually round up to 6 times per day... for a 31 day month.
For a February, that would be bad enough... but for a March that's an extra 18 times or so...
Ahh... to be able to commit 6 war crimes a day and then go out and whistle as I walk down the street... content that I have health care and won't be having to watch prison cable tv... it must be nice.

[Mira]

2. Jeezus Christ. That's six times a day. That's every four hours around the clock for

one month.
That's more than Cheney can masturbate, without his first name falling off.

I want to cry.
Edited to say K&R

[tabatha]

3. Obviously it does not work

if they had to do it 183 times.

[joshcryer]

4. Damn, you're right, 6 times a day, not 5.

Wow. I wonder how much sleep deprivation he had to undergo.

[midnight armadillo]

15. And an extra one on Sunday for Jesus

30 days * 6 = 180. Plus the extra on 3 Sundays.

Was the guy still sane after this much abuse?

Just joking about the Jesus connection.

[Clio the Leo]

8. shhhh! ..... our enemies might be reading this....

.... and might use your post to better prepare themselves. (ha!)

It'll be like that scene from The Princess Bride when Westly spent years building up a tolerance for Iocane powder.

[islandgirl808]

11. what were they hoping to get out of him

if they had to do it that many times?????

[joshcryer]

12. I'd bet experimenting under the guise of "information extraction."

Because that sounds like an awful lot of water boarding. Obviously ineffective to anyone who is rational.

[RollWithIt]

17. Those kind of numbers indicate punishment, not information extration...

I.E., we know you planned 9/11 and killed 3000 Americans. Here's your reward.

You don't torture someone like that trying to garner information. You do it because you hate the person and don't give a shit. Just trying to grasp the mindset.

[justgamma]

14. I've always wanted to ask the torturers

at what point in a torture session do you come to the conclusion that the one being tortured may not know anything?

[tblue37]

18. They do it because they like to. Playground for sadists. nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

16. Havent you heard....we dont look back in Amerika any longer.

[BigBearJohn]

19. Nothing here. Move along. Keep your eyes forward.

Repeat after me:

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[nsd]

20. This would be a more effective argument against torture if it involved someone other than KSM.

He was the self-professed mastermind of 9/11. It's hard to muster any sympathy for that guy.

[LooseWilly]

22. Hmm... what other "National Villains" have we tortured?

McVeigh? Milosevich? Yamamoto?...
Is that now a Presidential Power? Deciding who we can torture? Is there work going on to put that into the Constitution?...

Just because you can't muster sympathy for the asshole, doesn't really justify torturing him. If it did... then I think there would be some US Bank CEOs in Guantanamo right now... having pork chops shoved up their asses while videos were posted to YouTube.

Hmm, on the other hand... maybe you're right. Maybe ruining the lives of a couple of thousand Americans should be grounds for torture. It'll be better than American Idol. A bio of a CEO will run... and America will vote. As long as at least 2/3 of the votes don't vote no... then the featured CEO should be sent to a black ops prison... maybe Bagram... for a full regiment of 6x/day torture. At the end of a month of that... we can execute them.

Imagine the Pay Per View proceeds... it might even fund the TARP...