Cold water on waterboarding

WASHINGTON - A former FBI interrogator who questioned al-Qaeda prisoners testified yesterday that the Bush administration incorrectly declared success from extreme techniques such as waterboarding, when those methods actually were slow, unreliable, and led an important witness to stop talking.

Ali Soufan, testifying to a Senate panel from behind a screen, said his team's nonthreatening interrogation approach elicited crucial information from al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, including intelligence on Jose Padilla, who was convicted of supporting an al-Qaeda cell.

Soufan said his team had to step aside when CIA contractors took over. They began using harsh methods that caused Zubaydah to "shut down," Soufan said, and his team had to be called back.

Another witness, Philip Zelikow, a top adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told of arguing that the harsh interrogations violated the Constitution.

In early 2006, Zelikow said, he circulated his own analysis, which dissented from the Justice Department view that the methods were legal under U.S. and international law.

"I later heard the memo was not considered appropriate for further discussion and that copies of my memo should be collected and destroyed," he said. "That particular request, passed along informally, did not seem proper and I ignored it."

Zelikow and Soufan appeared before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee holding the first hearing on extreme interrogation methods since the Obama administration last month released Bush administration legal opinions authorizing them.

Memos by the Bush Justice Department contended that extreme tsctics such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation were legal under U.S. and international law. Democrats said they amounted to torture.

President Obama has said he wants to avoid partisan hearings over the issue, but the hearing turned partisan in its opening seconds.

Subcommittee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) promised to unravel "our country's descent into torture" and vowed to expose "a bodyguard of lies" by the Bush administration.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) asked whether "we would have this hearing if we were attacked this afternoon." Graham called the hearing a "political stunt."

He also joined in the frequent Republican criticism that members of Congress had been briefed on the interrogation program and raised no protest at the time.

He said former Vice President Dick Cheney had suggested valuable information was obtained from the methods. "I would like the committee to get that information," Graham said.

Soufan countered that his personal experience showed that the harsh interrogation techniques did not work even when there was not a lot of time to prevent an attack.

"Waiting 180 hours as part of the sleep-deprivation stage is time we cannot afford to wait in a ticking-bomb scenario," he said.

He said "many of the claims" by the Bush administration were inaccurate or half-truths.

The administration said Zubaydah was not cooperating before Aug. 1, 2002, when waterboarding was approved. "The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating him" before that date, Soufan said.

The administration credited waterboarding for Zubaydah's information that led to the capture of Padilla, who received a 17-year, four-month sentence. Padilla was arrested in May 2002, months before waterboarding was authorized, Soufan said.

Meanwhile, a potential witness, U.S. Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, declined to testify on the memos he approved while at the Justice Department that concluded the interrogation program was legal.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.) announced the refusal at the hearing but gave no details. Bybee now serves on the California-based Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.