Detainee Torture exceeded SERE standards

[ThomWV]

I found text from the CIA Torture Report that I could copy, so here is the section of footnote that compares what was done by CIA Interrogators as compared to what was "approved" by the Department of Justice and used as a training guideline for the SERE program.

"OIG’s review of the videotapes revealed that the waterboard technique employed at was different from the technique as described in the DoJ opinion and used in the SERE training. The difference was in the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed. At the SERE School and in the DoJ opinion, the subject’s airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contest, the Agency interrogator continuously applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose. One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the Agency’s use of the technique differed from that used in SERE training and explained that the Agency’s technique is different because it is “for real” and is more poignant and convincing."

I just wanted to post this for those folks who are mistakenly under the impression that what was done to detainees was no worse that what we do to our own people intraining. The CIA did far worse than we would ever consider doing to our own people.

[merh]

1. There you go - all those who defend the torture because "we do it to our own"

need to have read this.

:argh:

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

and don't forget the CIA "reversed engineered" SERE traning...and applied that to detainees

[Igel]

3. Was it worse?

Not to say waterboarding is acceptable, but the feeling of suffocation is not likely to be any longer or greater in intensity whether you apply 4 ounces or 4 quarts of water. It seems to me that once you panic, everything else is detail.

A friend held me underwater once when I was a kid. I don't remember thinking, "Gee, he's my friend, how poignant" or "this is my parents' pool, how unnerving" or even "it's a clear, sunny day, what a lovely day for a drowning!" or even, "Gee, I can taste the chlorine in the water, this is for real." At the time, friend, not friend; pool, not pool; sunny, not sunny; chlorine, not chlorine -- entirely non-issues. I didn't even think, "Gee, he's not really going to let me drown, is he?" All I wanted was air, and I was scratching and clawing him and the sides of the pool to get air.

Now, afterwards, sure, I was pissed off. But before and after waterboarding isn't really the main part of the torture, is it? It's the actual suffocating that's the torture, right? "We're going to suffocate you" may elicit a bit of fear, but it's really the suffocation that's the main event.

We have a psychologist/interrogator claiming as fact that it was "for real" (whatever that means--regular waterboarding is also 'for real') and "more poignant and convincing". It may have played up the main event, made them think it was going to be real, but once the airflow was cut off ... eh. I'd need convincing that it really made a different to the subject, as the anonymous interviewee claimed.

Perhaps it did. But "perhaps" isn't "obligatorily".

It's PR. Never been partial to such, er, endeavors.

On edit: Now, if the claim was that with more water the suffocation lasted longer, then that claim would be valid, I think. It would be an important point. That's not the claim, is it?

[flakban]

4. Since the board is tilted back at a downward angle, the openings in the nostrils are...

positioned upward. This causes the administered water to be inhaled through the nostrils. The more water administered, the more doused the cloth becomes for the sustained period of application. In simpler terms, if more water is used for prolonged periods the process becomes a genuine episode of drowning since gravity pulls a greater volume of water from the more highly saturated cloth into the subject's nose and on into his lungs.

Fear factors aside, simply blocking a subject's air passages with a wet cloth may not be a pleasant experience for the subject. But when the volume of water pouring onto someone's tilted-back face is increased, at some point the process becomes a session of induced drowning.

[ThomWV]

5. Well, to see for yourself you'll have to read the report - but to give you a short answer, yes.

You see this part that I quoted above is a footnote to a greater description of the methods used. Basically they used more water and poured it in a way as to make the sensation of drowning more perfect - closer to actually drowning the guy you might say. Also, in the part footnoted it speaks to the frequency and duration of episodes. Here my memory is not clear as to detail but it was clearly a case of water-boarding having been administered for longer periods by multiples and more times by a number of episodes that staggers the imagination.