In a Nov. 11 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid wrote:
Congress itself has never declared waterboarding to be a form of torture. Perhaps that is because it is not. It makes a terrorist uncomfortable and feel like drowning, but it does not subject him to permanent physical or psychological harm. What’s more, the technique reportedly worked in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, admitted mastermind of 9/11, who confessed to other ongoing plots to kill Americans that were apparently stopped.
In fact, there is evidence that waterboarding does, in fact, result in “permanent physical or psychological harm.” Further, as we’ve noted, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s waterboarding produced results that were “debatable,” and author Ron Suskind adds that what U.S. interrogators got out of Mohammed after waterboarding were “things that professional interrogators say could have been gotten otherwise.”