He spilled it after 35 seconds ... and then we waterboarded him 82 more times

With the recently released torture memos making it clear  just how many times we waterboarded Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (83 and 183 respectively), my mind raced back to a vaguely recalled article from a couple years ago. In this article, there was a statistic about how quickly waterboarding had worked to loosen the terrorism suspect's tongue, and I remembered being simultaneously horrified and impressed with the speed at which it worked. A little digging, and I came up found the article.

An AP article that quoted a former CIA agent from December of '07, it was one of the first public confirmations that we had used waterboarding. Interesting, though, is the fact that the former agent claimed Abu Zubaydah was talking "in less than 35 seconds." We now know from the memos that that's at the long-end of a normal waterboarding session. So, if we can believe this agent, they used it once to great effect, and then used it 82 more times. 

So, one of two things is true. 

1. It was really effective and we tortured him 82 more times anyway.

2. It wasn't effective, but we tried it 83 times. 

Which one nauseates you more?

Posted via email from Aught he has to know it with.