US Has Used Waterboarding in Past: Ex-Spy Chief
WASHINGTON - Former US spy chief John Negroponte admitted that the United States has used a controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding but does not anymore, according to a published interview Monday.
Negroponte, who currently serves as deputy secretary of state, told the National Journal that the country has made improvements and that it has been years since interrogators used the simulated drowning technique, often described as torture.
“We’ve taken steps to address the issue of interrogations, for instance, and waterboarding has not been used in years,” Negroponte told the magazine.
“It wasn’t used when I was director of national intelligence, not even for a few years before that.”
Negroponte, a career diplomat, was named by President George W. Bush to be director of national intelligence in February 2005, a position he held until 2007.
The CIA has been embroiled in a controversy over the destruction of videotapes that allegedly showed the use of torture during Al-Qaeda interrogations.
The top US law enforcer, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, this month announced a criminal investigation into the matter after the CIA chief in December admitted that the agency had destroyed tapes of harsh interrogations of two Al-Qaeda suspects in the months after the 9/11 attacks.
The tapes reportedly showed the two suspects undergoing waterboarding, and were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005 to protect the identity of agency operatives, CIA chief Michael Hayden said.
The White House has insisted that the United States does not torture anyone, but refuses to confirm what tactics might have been used to prise information out of reluctant detainees.
© 2008 Agence France Presse
Yes, we know. Why do you think the US has so bad a name in the rest of the world?
Negroponte Rap Sheet
From 1971 to 1973, Negroponte was the officer-in-charge for Vietnam at the National Security Council (NSC) under Henry Kissinger, having worked as a “political affairs officer” (read: CIA) at the US Embassy in Saigon starting as early as 1964. He was involved in the CIA’s Phoenix program, which assassinated some 40,000 Vietnamese “subversives.”
Negroponte was appointed in 1981 through 1985 by President Ronald Reagan to head up the U.S, Embassy in Honduras, where he stayed quite busy through 1985. In 1981 President Reagan authorized paramilitary operations against the leftist government of Nicaragua. Negroponte played a key role in establishing that country as a base of operations for the CIA’s “Contra” terrorist army then attempting to destabilize Nicaragua. US military aid to Honduras jumped from $3.9 million to $77.4 million. Much of this went to facilitate the crushing of popular movements through a covert “low intensity” war. Hundreds of Hondurans and Nicaraguans deemed “subversives” including women, children and members of the clergy were kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed by Battalion 3-16, a secret army intelligence unit trained and supported by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. Covert operations were paid for in part through the sale of cocaine smuggled and sold in the US. Members of the Battalion were conscripted by the CIA for such sensitive missions as training the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua and even mining Nicaragua’s harbors. Negroponte worked closely with Contra Generals to train in psychological warfare, sabotage, torture and kidnapping. The unit used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations, kept prisoners naked–and, when no longer useful, killed them brutally, and buried them in unmarked clandestine graves. Women were raped, often in front of their families. The Pentagon utilized the same strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador. Faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the US government funded or supported ‘nationalist’ forces that included death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually, the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success, despite the deaths of innocent civilians.
On April 20, 2004, Bush nominated Negroponte as ambassador to Iraq, stating that, “he has done a really good job of speaking for the United States to the world about our intentions to spread freedom and peace.” Calling him “a man of enormous experience and skill” By the first weeks of January 2005, Negroponte was said to be overseeing the formation of death squads in Iraq, prompting media reports about a “Salvador option.”
Negroponte’s strategy called for sending Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi death squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers–even across the border into Syria, carrying out assassinations or so-called “snatch” operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation.
From “World War IV Report”
http://www.ww4report.com/negropontedeathsquad
In between sessions, they don’t torture any more, but they used to.
Some of us only eat during meals and snacks. In between times we not only fast, but we fast as vegetarians.
What a pretty picture of Senor Negroponte, indeed. The Spanish had their “Cabeza de Vaca”, Bush has his “Cabeza de Huevo.”
abe-you know the real history well, this scum is near the top of the list when it comes to war criminals. I would like to see henry kissinger detained if he steps foot anywhere in Europe, because those governments know what these guys did. It sickens me when i see his kind of trash on tv still giving foreign affairs advice; and the reporters that are practically gushing with pride at having the opportunity to interview such “great men”
JUST ANOTHER WAR CRIMINAL!!
His dealings in Latin America were dispicable. I feared he was bringing the “El Salvador” option to Iraq (as they call it) when he was sent there. No doubt American officials supported militias and Iraqi government supported groups who targeted Iraqi citizens who opposed the occupation and any other policies that would lead Negroponte and his goons to make people no longer be a problem. Human rights and labor activists certainly were on their unofficial and highly classified lists.
Thus spake Ambassador Death Squad.
Thank you “abe w goodman”, for reminding those who may have been too young, or who’s memories were beginning to fade, of what a detestable piece of sh*t Negroponte is (and why is it that it is always the Republicans that give us evil, corrupt murderous little sh*ts such as him?). Personally, I think that hanging is too good for that prick, but if they were to bury him in Arlington I would make certain to piss on his grave, the next time that I visited the place.
Years ago, I read an interview with a “detainee” who had been tortured in Honduras. He was blindfolded, but he recognized Negroponte’s voice in the room while he was being tortured. I’m sure Bush wishes he could sit in on these “sessions”. He has to content himself with “conversations” with interrogators, one of whom reported Bush has talked with him many times.
It’s sad what our country has become. I had an interesting experience yesterday. My car had a dead battery in a parking lot, I had my daughter-in-law and grandkids with me, all very sick with the flu. We were coming back from the doctor and picking up their prescriptions. A man came out of the store and I asked him for a jump. He said he didn’t have battery cables, and I said I do, so he said OK. But as he pulled around to face us, I had the feeling he wanted to just keep on going. Couldn’t say why. When he got out of the car, he told me that my bumper stickers and license plate made him just want to drive off. He told me his father was a vet, he’s a vet, and when I said I respect vets, but not Bush, he said if you don’t respect Bush you don’t respect us. He was very angry with me and couldn’t speak to me, but still, he jumped my car. It wasn’t easy to start, and he could have said “well, I tried”, but he didn’t, he stuck it out, and scraped my corroded poles and tried again. Those little kids in my back seat looked miserable and there was snow on the ground. Maybe that’s why he did it. I don’t know. But he helped me in spite of his fury. I asked my daughter-in-law, who is Black, if someone with a KKK sticker on their car had asked us for help, would she help? She said she was thinking the same thing, and she thought she would if there were kids in the car. So in our country, the “little people” are the real heroes who can rise above themselves. And then we have these liars at the top, who should be in jail or mental hospitals.
You’re funny and clever, Raven.
kathyodat
“Wherever Negroponte Goes…”
Negroponte walks
Destruction licks his foul heels
Negroponte laughs
What Negroponte has admitted to is not news. It is a crime.
despicable
Negroponte is an assassin.
There they go again. Simulating drowning is often described as torture for the simple reason that it IS torture.
Thanks for the Negroponte recap and the car starting story.
As for fasting when not eating, I got Raven beat - I fast as a raw food vegan who doesn’t eat plants. I’m a saint. Except when I’m not. But ignore that. (Works for Bush, why not me?)
Abe W, Goodman, Thanks for reminding folks about a portion of Negroponte’s infamous career.
Raven, I appreciate your sense of humor. I think it’s called Republican Logic or Orwell’s ‘Doublespeak.’
Okay, maybe I’m wrong but where are the protest songs, the marches and rallies, the “Prosecute the criminals, impeach Bush, hang Blackwater and bring the troops home” concerts?
You even call yourselves “progressives” as if you were a small part of the political spectrum instead of the voice of the people. We had conservatives who thought Vietnam was a great idea to get rid of the ‘commies’ and we shamed them. Your opponents must support electoral fraud, invading sovereign nations who are no threat to you, death camps, death squads, torture, murder and devastation. How can they be doing so well?
While I commend this site, no one is putting themselves out. I’ve been told, “we don’t need to do all that 60’s stuff now that we have the internet.” What a joke! You are hidden away and preach to the choir. The youth revolution is marketed with pop music and expensive fashions and a comfortable chair is everything. You whinge about Kucinich standing alone but it never occurs to any of you to share addresses and contact details to organise a march in support of him.
Maybe I’m being unfair expecting people to care so much that they would get out of their chairs and gather to demonstrate that they feel so strongly about the fall of the USA that they’d put physical effort behind their beliefs.
LIstening to Negroponte, the butcher who facilitated and coordinated the death squads in El Salvador, talk about torture is a little like listening to WC Fields talk about public drunkeness. It is an expert opinion of very dubious merit. Such a sorry moral midget deserves a taste of waterboarding himself–maybe then he might be convinced of its inhumanity.
Naked snowboarding is still used however.
Pure psy-op stuff–they simply ADMIT that the US govt TORTURES people. WTF… maybe TPTB just want every last sane person who is paying the least bit of attention to leave the country or shut up so when the economy tanks they won’t have any trouble herding around whoever is left…
Just because there have been murders before, we should tolerate murder now. How would the IRS react to people who said its ok not to pay taxes, because some people have not paid taxes?
Torture is always wrong. PERIOD. Any one who thinks otherwise is WRONG.
A very Black Bridge to hell indeed….we’re sinkin’, folks. So what we gonna DO?
OK, REPEAT AFTER ME: “not only will I read by daily dose of CD, I will also find at least two hours of time this week to get out there in the public eye and manifest some truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Oceania is at war, and has always been at war with Eurasia.”
Well, maybe they don’t use waterboarding now. But I bet that’s it’s only because they found a more effective torture.
This baldheaded molerat is now slinking towards the exit now that the reign of his sort sinks below the event horizon. Sanitizing the deck and trying to cover up his role as Deputy Dr. Death. Is he worried that he may not be able to enjoy that post-retirement cruise in foreign seas? War criminal, anyone? Germany, Belgium, Spain: any principled prosecutors out there?
You have to ask yourself, would you sit next to this guy and eat a meal? Then why would you allow someone like this in your government, he represents the U.S.A. This isn’t new ya know.
I think it has something to do with the water shortage.
No Treefrog, I would not sit at the same table with him. I don’t even like breathing the same air as him. I don’t see how he can eat at all, knowing what he has done.
I’m starting to believe that some people are not human.
counterpunch.org/hassan06042004.html
The power of suggestion.
Lies, all lies.
As if anyone in our country and around the world will fall for anything this butcher has to say. He’s been around too long and I’d like to see him come before the World Court and answer for his crimes against humanity. I wonder if the recent history of Latin America and South America is ever approached in high school. It’s the responsibility of parents to tell the story of this creep, and Nixon and Reagan, and just how horrible the CIA.has been in recent history.