waterboarding.org tells Boing Boing,
The recent White House release of Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos
removes speculation by providing the first authoritative description
of the waterboarding procedure used by CIA interrogators.New details
include using saline instead of plain water as a safety precaution in
the case the subject swallows so much water that it causes
hyponatremia – electrolyte disturbances from sodium depletion in the
bloodstream.The CIA waterboarding program originated with instructors from SERE, a
training program which prepares American soldiers to resist torture.
The official procedures exceeded the original so much in duration,
frequency, and severity that Inspector General concluded that "the
SERE waterboard experience is so so different from the subsequent
Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant".The formerly top secret
memos describe procedures where Zbu Zubaydah was waterboarded at least
83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded
183 times in March 2003, exceeding even the OLC's own guidelines.
OLC Memos Define Official Waterboarding Procedure (waterboarding.org). This is part one of a multiple-part series, and this first installment covers basic
facts: what it actually is, how they actually did it. Part two will be an analysis of their legal opinion on how the OLC's documented procedure avoids the legal definition of torture.
