Technique Interrogation 3: Waterboarding

Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive, thus causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage, and death.^[1] Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years.^[2] The term water board torture appears in press reports as early as 1976.^[3] Although a variety of specific techniques are used in waterboarding, the captive's face is usually covered with cloth or some other thin material, and the subject is immobilized on his/her back. Water is then poured onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating the sensation that the captive is drowning.^[4][5][6]
In 2007 it was reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was using waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners and that the Department of Justice had authorized the procedure,^[7][8] even though the United States government hanged Japanese soldiers for waterboarding US prisoners of war in World War II.^[9] The CIA confirms using waterboarding on three Al-Qaeda suspects, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, in 2002 and 2003.^[10][11] During the presidency of George W. Bush, U.S. government officials at various times said they did not believe waterboarding to be a form of torture.^{[12][13][14][15]} To justify its use of waterboarding, the Bush administration issued classified legal opinions that argued for a narrow definition of torture under U.S. law, including the Bybee memo, which it later withdrew.^[16][17][18] In January 2009, President Barack Obama banned the use of waterboarding. In April 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense refused to say whether waterboarding is still used for training (e.g. SERE) purposes.^[19][20]

Waterboarding in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. Painting by former prison inmate Vann Nath at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum