Is waterboarding torture?

Here’s the answer.

Waterboarding Is Torture, Says Ex-Navy Instructor

A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress yesterday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture and that such a method was never intended for use by U.S. interrogators because it is a relic of abusive totalitarian governments.

Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.

"In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn’t know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat," Nance testified yesterday at a House oversight hearing on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques. "It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured."

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At a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing yesterday, Nance and Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, a senior intelligence officer with decades of experience, said waterboarding is an ineffective tool for gathering information. Nance said that waterboarding sets off a fear of impending death and that people will say anything to get out of it.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) contended at the hearing that sometimes severe techniques need to be used in emergencies and against the nation’s top enemies, such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks’ alleged architect, who was subjected to waterboarding in CIA custody. Franks said that Mohammed experienced just 90 seconds of waterboarding and gave up important information about al-Qaeda.

Nance disputed Franks’s assessment, saying that Mohammed probably knew how to resist and gave up information that would appear to be a "gold mine" to his interrogators but instead was "trash" for him and al-Qaeda.

If Mohammed faced waterboarding for 90 seconds, Nance said, about 1.2 gallons of water was poured down his nose and throat while he was strapped to a board. Nance said the SERE school used a board modeled after one from Southeast Asia, though it had leather straps instead of metal clamps.