We Tortured and We'd Do It Again

Lara Jakes Jordan writes for the Associated Press: "Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators Tuesday after the Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that the tactic was used on three terror suspects. . . .

"Human Rights Watch, which has been calling on the government to outlaw waterboarding as a form of illegal torture, called Hayden's testimony 'an explicit admission of criminal activity.'

"Joanne Mariner, the group's counterterrorism director, said Hayden's testimony 'gives the lie' to the administration's claims that the CIA has not used torture. 'Waterboarding is torture, and torture is a crime,' she said.

"Critics say waterboarding has been outlawed under the U.N.'s Convention Against Torture, which prohibits treatment resulting in long-term physical or mental damage. They also say it should be recognized as banned under the U.S. 2006 Military Commissions Act, which prohibits treatment of terror suspects that is described as 'cruel, inhuman and degrading.' The act, however, does not explicitly prohibit waterboarding by name."

Walter Pincus writes in The Washington Post: "After the hearing, Hayden told reporters that the information obtained from those detainees amounted to a quarter of all the human intelligence the CIA gained about the terrorist organization between 2002 and 2006.

"'We would not have done it if it were not that valuable,' Hayden said."

Randall Mikkelsen writes for Reuters: "From the time of their capture in 2002 and 2003 until they were delivered to Guantanamo Bay prison in 2006, the two suspects accounted for one-fourth of the human intelligence reports on al Qaeda, Hayden said.

"Some analysts have questioned Mohammed's credibility under interrogation. But Hayden said most of the information was reliable and helped lead to other al Qaeda suspects."

Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times: "The C.I.A. is the only agency permitted under law to use interrogation methods more aggressive than those used by the American military. Senate Democrats sought to use the hearing to exploit divisions about those techniques.

"Both Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers that their agencies had successfully obtained valuable intelligence from terrorism suspects without using what Mr. Mueller called the 'coercive' methods of the C.I.A.

"But General Hayden bristled when asked about Congressional attempts to mandate that C.I.A. interrogators be required to use the more limited set of interrogation methods contained in the Army Field Manual, which is used by military interrogators.

"'It would make no more sense to apply the Army's field manual to C.I.A.,' General Hayden said, 'than it would to take the Army Field Manual on grooming and apply it to my agency, or the Army Field Manual on recruiting and apply it to my agency. Or, for that matter, the Army Field Manual on sexual orientation and apply it to my agency.'"