WASHINGTON - CIA Director Michael Hayden cast doubt on the legality of waterboarding on Thursday, a day after the White House said the harsh interrogation tactic has saved U.S. lives and could be used in the future.
CIA director says legality of waterboarding is in doubt
The Justice Department won't investigate whether U.S. agents broke the law when they used it.
February 8, 2008 at 1:56AM
Hayden told the House Intelligence Committee that he officially prohibited CIA operatives from using waterboarding in 2006 in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision and new laws on the treatment of U.S. detainees.
He said the agency has not used waterboarding for "just a few weeks short" of five years.
"It is not included in the current program, and in my own view, the view of my lawyers and the Department of Justice, it is not certain that that technique would be considered to be lawful under current statute," Hayden said.
Though now legally questionable, Hayden said waterboarding was legal in 2002 and 2003, a time period when the technique was used to interrogate Al-Qaida detainees. "All the techniques that we've used have been deemed to be lawful," he said.
Hayden's comments came just hours after Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in a separate House hearing, said the Justice Department would not investigate whether U.S. interrogators broke the law when waterboarding accused terrorists following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Georgia Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson said he was "deeply troubled" by Mukasey's statement. If the Justice Department won't investigate, then Congress should consider how to appoint an independent prosecutor to conduct an inquiry, he said. "How did we reach the point where terrorism has climbed into our own tool box for extracting information?"
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His political views differed from a transgender classmate’s, but they forged a bond that lasted a decade — until Vance seemed to pivot, politically and personally.
