April 19, 2009: Former CIA Director Refuses to Confirm Waterboarding of Terror Suspects

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden refuses to confirm information from a recently released CIA memo that shows alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times in a single month (see April 16, 2009). Even though the memo has been released to the public, Hayden says he believes that information is still classified. Hayden says he opposed the release of the memo and three others recently released by the White House. Even though President Obama has said that the US will never use waterboarding and other “harsh interrogation techniques” again, Hayden says: “At the tactical level, what we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an al-Qaeda terrorist. That’s very valuable information. Now, it doesn’t mean we would always go to the outer limits, but it describes the box within which Americans will not go beyond. To me, that’s very useful for our enemies, even if as a policy matter, this president at this time had decided not to use one, any, or all of those techniques. It reveals the outer limits. That’s very important.” Hayden also disputes reports that suspected terrorist Abu Zubaida revealed nothing new after being tortured; he says that after Zubaida was subjected to waterboarding and other unspecified “techniques,” he revealed information leading to the capture of suspected terrorist Ramzi bin al-Shibh. [New York Times, 4/19/2009; Think Progress, 4/19/2009] Days later, former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan will reveal information that disputes Hayden’s claims (see Late March through Early June, 2002 and April 22, 2009).