American Torture

By Rachel Oppenheimer

Thursday, the Justice Department released four memos that lay out the interrogation methods authorized by the Bush administration. “We've enhanced America's image abroad,” said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in response to criticism that the release undermined national security. The memos exposed the authorization of interrogators to keep detainees naked, in painful standing positions, and in cold cells for long periods of time. Guards deprived prisoners of solid food, slapped them, deprived them of sleep, and threatened their families.

The memos also revealed that CIA interrogators used waterboarding on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the 9/11 attacks, 183 times. They used the technique 83 times on another Al Qaeda suspect. One footnote from a memo actually describes wateboarding as falling within the Bush administration's definition of torture. Another footnote says that waterboarding “was used with greater frequency” and “intensity” than advised, to the extent that medical personnel could not confirm the safety of the detainees.

Bush secretly signed off on waterboarding and trapping prisoners with insects while publicly condemning the use of torture.

President Obama banned the use of waterboarding, overturning a Bush administration policy that did not consider it torture.

On Sunday, former CIA Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden said the Obama administration's release of interrogation memos would limit the agency's ability to pursue terrorists in the future. “I think that teaching our enemies our outer limits, by taking techniques off the table, we have made it more difficult in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine, more difficult for CIA officers to defend the nation." From 2002 to 2005, the CIA used harsh techniques – like waterboarding – on detainees before Hayden became director.

President Obama defended his choice and said that the intelligence officials who followed the memos' guidance will not be prosecuted. However, he did not say the same for former administration officials who designed the legal justification for their illegal actions. On Thursday night at UCLA, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “I think if we say that people are immune because of the policy, then it raises the question of how that policy was shaped.” Might prosecution be the next step to enhancing our damaged image abroad?