Negroponte admits use of waterboarding

John Negroponte, the former Director of National Intelligence, admitted the United States used the waterboarding torture technique in 2002 and 2003. Various administration officials have danced around the subject of whether the US government actually waterboarded anyone we took into custody, but none have ever come out and directly confirmed using the interrogation technique.

Negroponte, in an interview published last Friday by the National Journal, had this to say, “We’ve taken steps to address the issue of interrogations, for instance, and waterboarding has not been used in years. It wasn’t used when I was director of national intelligence, nor even for a few years before that.”

That quote says in plain English we did, in fact, waterboard some prisoners. There are worthy debates about what we should, and should not do in the global battle against terrorism and Islamic fanatics. One thing that is fairly certain — waterboarding has historically been seen as torture  with clear precedence in US state and federal courts, as well as international courts on the issue.

By admitting the US authorized and engaged in waterboarding Negroponte basically copped to the Bush administration committing war crimes. One official who has gone on record against our use of waterboarding is John McCain, former POW in Vietnam and GOP presidential candidate.