Intelligence Chief Couches Reference to Waterboarding as 'Torture'

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Source: Washington Post

The nation's intelligence chief says that waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him, or if someone under interrogation was taking water into his lungs.

But Mike McConnell declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.

"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," the director of national intelligence told the New Yorker in this week's issue, released today.

(snip)
"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/12/AR2008011202286.html

[Norrin Radd]

1. What an evil bastard.

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2. McConnell weighs in on waterboarding

The nation's intelligence chief says waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs.

But Mike McConnell, in a magazine interview, declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.

"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," McConnell told The New Yorker, which published a 16,000-word article Sunday on the director of national intelligence.

(snip)
A spokesman for McConnell said he does not dispute the quotes attributed to him in the story by Lawrence Wright, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for "The Looming Towers", a book on al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080113/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terrorist_interrogation

Water-boarding 'would be torture'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7185648.stm

[gratuitous]

3. Damn, I hate the media

"Well gee, if Mr. McConnell won't categorically say it's torture, there's no way we're going to contradict him." When it comes to subjects like this, the media say they can't divide someone's intents or motives (like, you know, avoiding a war crimes trial at The Hague), but they know for certain and absolutely what drives every protest against these monstrous methods: Merely a desire to embarrass the administration by a bunch of Bush-haters, and nothing more than that.