Waterboarding is a harsh method of interrogation and punishment. It is widely regarded as illegal torture and as cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.
The word waterboarding only came into common use in the early 2000’s. However, the practice dates back at least as far as the 1400’s, during the religious persecutions in Europe called the Spanish Inquisition . Following World War II (1939-1945), Japanese military personnel were criminally prosecuted for waterboarding, which was considered a war crime . Nevertheless, waterboarding has continued to be carried out in secret locations, sometimes called black sites, around the world. Governments and organizations may use waterboarding against alleged criminals, dissidents, political enemies, or terrorist suspects. Dissidents are people who disagree with those who hold power.
Waterboarding has a number of forms. It involves flooding a person’s breathing passages (nose and mouth) with water to produce a sensation of drowning and to cause panic. The individual is usually immobilized, face up, with the head tilted downward. Water is then poured onto the nose and mouth. The exact methods vary. American interrogators, for example, used a modern version of waterboarding on some detainees at black sites in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. This version involved placing a cloth or plastic wrap over or in a detainee’s mouth, then pouring the water on the wrap, forcing the person to inhale water involuntarily.
The effects of waterboarding are dramatic and severe. The inhalation of water causes a gag reflex from which the victim experiences a feeling of drowning and feels that death is imminent. A gag reflex is a contraction of the back of the throat. Waterboarding sometimes has no permanent physical aftereffects, though it may cause lung or brain damage and injury resulting from struggling against restraints. It may also cause post-traumatic stress disorder or other long-term psychological consequences. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological illness in which a person repeatedly remembers, relives, or dreams about a terrible experience.
Waterboarding became a major political and legal issue in the United States in the early 2000’s. At that time, it was revealed that U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel used waterboarding during the George W. Bush administration’s “war on terror,” with the approval of government lawyers, following the September 11 attacks. The Bush administration argued that such “enhanced interrogation techniques” are justified if the CIA has credible information on an imminent terrorist attack or the whereabouts of known terrorists, and that an individual possesses such information.
Torture is specifically prohibited by the Geneva Conventions , as well as by international law and the law of virtually all nations. The conventions provide for the humane treatment of civilians, prisoners, and wounded people during wartime. Violations are considered war crimes. However, some U.S. officials argued that the protections under the Geneva Conventions do not apply to people associated with terrorist groups. They also argued that waterboarding is not torture.
The legal opinions that approved the practice of waterboarding in the early 2000’s have since been rejected and withdrawn. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the practice as illegal torture and forbade its use. Obama signed an order banning the CIA’s torture technique when he took office in 2009.
The issue of waterboarding has sparked powerful debate. Some proponents, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney , argued that it produced valuable information. Many others, including U.S. Senator John McCain , however, questioned not only the legality and morality of the practice, but also the quality of the information, if any, that it may produce.
In 2014, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a detailed report criticizing the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. The report said the torture methods failed to produce any useful information in preventing imminent terrorist attacks or locating al-Qa`ida leader Osama bin Laden or other terrorists.
