12 to 16 Bottles, Not 5

A number of you were discussing the report–from Lawrence Wilkerson and Robert Windrem–that we used water bottles when waterboarding.

In administering the Bush White House’s most infamous “enhanced interrogation” procedure, waterboarding, CIA questioners employed a civilized tool for a brutal task—bottled water, sometimes straight from the fridge.

[snip]

A leading Bush administration official, retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff  to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says that the numbers associated with CIA waterboarding sessions—such as 183 times for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 83 times for al Qaeda training camp commander Abu Zubaydah—may even reflect the number of water bottles expended.

Windrem did a bit of fast math to figure out how many water bottles would have been used.

A one-pint water bottle takes about seven seconds to empty, so four or five bottles would take empty in 30 or 40 seconds, the time prescribed by the Justice Department memo approving the process. (Larger two-liter bottles might have been more efficient. Each takes a full 30 seconds to empty.)

At the risk being pedantic, I wanted to suggest this might not be the correct math. Windrem’s using the description of waterboarding included in the Bybee Two memo. But we know from the May 30, 2005 memo that waterboarding, in practice, used more water than described in the Bybee Two memo.

"[T]he waterboard technique  … was different from the technique described in the DoJ opinion and used in the SERE training. The difference was the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school and in the DoJ opinion, the subject’s airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency Interrogator …  applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose. One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the Agency’s use of the technique is different from that used in SERE training because it is "for real–and is more poignant and convincing.") [my emphasis] 

And a document submitted by JPRA in support of the Bybee Two memo (and described in the SASC report) gave a description of waterboarding that more closely resembled waterboarding as it was eventually practiced than it did the SERE technique it purportedly described (or the description that got into the Bybee Memo). It described the volume of water used as up to 1.5 gallons.

JPRA’s description of the waterboarding technique provided in that first attachment was inconsistent in key respects from the U.S. Navy SERE school’s description of waterboarding. According to the Navy SERE school’s operating instructions, for example, while administering the technique, the Navy limited the amount of water poured on a student’s face to two pints. However, the JPRA attachment said that "up to 1.5 gallons of water" may be poured onto a "subject’s face."

Given that this may have been the instruction interrogators were using (and that we’ve had reports of waterboarding lasting far more than 40 seconds), it seems we might be talking about up to 16 bottles per waterboarding session: 1.5 gallon or 6 quarts or 12 pints or 16 12-ounce bottles.

Again, I don’t mean to be pedantic, but with this math, we’d get much closer to matching the "pour" numbers of 183 and 83 to the number of waterboarding sessions that have been reported.

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29 replies
  1. scribe says:

    And, to think: Dusty Foggo was in charge of buying the bottled water (among other things) for overseas CIA stations (esp in the region of the MidEast and Europe, like Iraq and possibly the black sites in Poland and Rumania) and had a crony set up a new contractor company (Archer Logistics) for that purpose.

    And they overpaid.

    You think that company’s records indicate how many bottles of water they shipped (or purchased locally*)?

    * Remember, KSM figured out he was in Poland b/c the bottled water had Polish-language labelling.

  2. Leen says:

    “15 bottles per waterboading session” Jesus

    wonder if they put directions for waterboarding on the govt’s water bottles? advertisement on bottle

    So much water in this bottle you may never be thirsty again (because you may be dead)

  3. acquarius74 says:

    I’ve commented on this before, but again there is a photo showing the interrogator pouring water on a mid-eastern detainee from a square, plastic gallon jug like those in which we buy milk. I’ll search for the pic and give link later.

  4. BoxTurtle says:

    More proof that we tortured, as if any was needed. *sigh*

    Ya know, if I could find out the brand of bottled water used, I could work up an advertising campaign that would be completely tasteless and still sell a million bottles.

    Boxturtle (For every bottle you buy, we’ll donate a bottle to the CIA!)

    • james says:

      The thing is Boxturtle Halliburton/KBR beat you to it.

      The disgusting thing about all of this is that Cheney’s company had the contract to provide the “troops” with bottled water in country. There was a bit of a scandal because the water the troops got was tainted yet KBR was still paid for it.

      Maybe they just collected the water they used in the waterboarding and rebottled it to give to the troops.

      You know how these people like to support the troops: spoiled food, tainted water, and a dose of electrocution to top it all off.

      Why haven’t these contracts been cancelled? You wanna provide a stimulus and creat jobs Obama? Throw Halliburton out on its ass and give the contracts to start-up businesses run by the kids who hawk water bottles at Lollapalooza.

  5. TheraP says:

    A comment of cheney’s earlier this week keeps ringing in my mind. He described the waterboarding as “well done.” Now, isn’t that weird? Unless he had access to watching it. How would he “know” it was “well done”?

    I wish somebody would have followed up on that (with a question, at the time). Because to me it has the ring of something he observed and critiqued. Mind you, how else would you know it was “well done”?

    • Rayne says:

      “Well-done”, in CEO-speak, might not have anything to do with torture technique but results of torture.

      We’re in Iraq. Halliburton/KBR and a raftload of military-industrial complex players made a ton of money.

      To the man who still has deferred income from Halliburton, this may be the equivalent of “well-done.”

  6. radiofreewill says:

    I’m going to guess that each day, during March of 2003, the Coalition Casualty Report would come in, and Mitchell, or someone like him, would magic-marker the names of each lost Servicemember onto a 1 pint Water Bottle – sometimes it was one or two a day, and other times it could be 12 or 16 for a day – and store it with KSM’s ‘medicine’ in the fridge.

    Since Mitchell and his Crew weren’t skilled in either Interrogations or Linguistics or Cultural Knowledge, one can only conclude, imvho, that their role was to be there as the instruments of Bush’s Torture – the administer-ers of Bush’s Punishment.

    When it comes right down to it – and ianapsych – even after the ‘intelligence value’ of a ‘detainee’ has been ascertained – a Sadist will still want to Punish the ‘evil’, the ’sin’, the ‘foulness’ of the ‘Other’ by wringing the screams out of them – by projecting an inner, highly sexualized fantasy of Total Control in a Twisted Application of ‘Justice’ onto the blank screen of a living human being.

    If the ‘detainee’ also happens to start babbling like a teleprompter reader about Iraq-al Qaeda connections, or WMDs or HVDs – well, then, we all just ‘knew’ those bastards were ‘hiding’ something all along, didn’t we?

    It works, see, and we wouldn’t have had that ‘knowledge’ unless we went the extra mile and Waterboarded the Hell out of ‘them’ – if we hadn’t wrung ‘them’ out – according to Bush’s ‘Justice.’

    So, assuming Bush wouldn’t shut-down his ’successful’ Torture Program – the one that consistently delivered the right ‘justifications’ for Bush’s Ideological Agenda Power Moves – instead, choosing to continue to ‘use’ the Torture Program, but keep it ‘hidden’ from sight –

    What, then, for example, are the chances that ‘intelligence’ generated via Bush’s Torture was somehow involved in the Syrian ‘Reactor’ Strike?

    Is there a pattern – and, if so, how wide-ranging is it – of Bush Torturing to Advance his Ideology by Whipping-up the ‘truth’ to ‘Justify’ his Actions?

  7. JimWhite says:

    Hmmm. Does potable saline come in bottles? Page 31 of the Bradbury May 30, 2005 memo:

    With the waterboard, the interrogators use potable saline rather than plain water so that detainees will not suffer from hyponatremia and to minimize the risk of pneumonia.

    I guess since Wilkerson and Windrem are discussing Zubaydah, they are talking about events prior to the policy in the Bradbury memo. The question is, when did they make the change away from bottled water? Did they make that change at the same time as the change for how much water/how many times of waterboarding the prisoner could be subject to? Is the May 30, 2005 memo an after the fact correction to present the illusion that what actually happened is what was authorized?

    • klynn says:

      Hmmm. Does potable saline come in bottles? Page 31 of the Bradbury May 30, 2005 memo:

      With the waterboard, the interrogators use potable saline rather than plain water so that detainees will not suffer from hyponatremia and to minimize the risk of pneumonia.

      For JimWhite a link you might find interesting to read. That paper I linked to, Army Medical Aspects of Harsh Environments V1, was ready and publish by December 2001. Amazing. And, it has been pulled from the Library of Congress.

      Also:

      Enjoy this Google search:

      arginine vasopressin (AVP) dysregulation induced hypotermia Jessen Mitchell

      Odds are, they has to switch because of AVP.

      And thus, we are brought back to the Comey “combined torture” comment.

      • klynn says:

        That Google search should be:

        arginine vasopressin (AVP) dysregulation induced hypothermia Jessen Mitchell

        • JimWhite says:

          Thanks, that looks a different set of Jessen and Mitchell from what I can see in the Google results (first initials don’t match our torture boys), but I can’t get to that passage in searching the downloaded pdf of the book.

          • klynn says:

            They are different but what was suggested in the threads one day as we listed studies in physiology and extreme conditions as well as multiple exposure issues, there seems to be a “collection” of individuals with those last names which spikes the question irt operatives.

  8. JohnnyTable70 says:

    Did I hear this correctly, we made sure that we waterboarded detainees WITH bottled water but our troops in Iraq have gotten sick because KBR subcontractors couldn’t properly install water filtration systems?

  9. maryo2 says:

    so that detainees will not suffer from hyponatremia and to minimize the risk of pneumonia

    Certainly implies that before May 30, 2005 somebody died of hyponatremia and somebody got pneumonia. Wiki says that “Hyponatremia is most often a complication of other medical illnesses in which either fluids rich in sodium are lost (for example because of diarrhea or vomiting), or excess water accumulates in the body at a higher rate than it can be excreted.”

    The tortured people probably had diarrhea, vomiting AND excess water accumulation.

  10. maryo2 says:

    Ooh, and wiki says “Correcting the salt and fluid balance needs to occur in a controlled fashion, as too rapid correction can lead to severe complications such as heart failure or central pontine myelinolysis.”

    And just wait until you hear what a symptom of central pontine myelinolysis is. Symptoms: The patient may experience locked-in syndrome where cognitive function is intact, but all muscles are paralyzed with the exception of eye blinking.

    I have to imagine that there were experimental attempts to achieve this state. Cheney/Mitchell/Haynes couldn’t resist. No way.

  11. freepatriot says:

    I hope these people NEVER LEARN that they should keep their mouths shut around you, ew

    God’s gift to stupid people is that they don’t know they are stupid

    so some of them are left wondering how you figure all of this stuff out

    but I got a question:

    using logic and deduction to thwart children, stupid people, and war criminals is “Pedantic” ???

    my hobby is pedanticism, whodathunkit …

  12. maryo2 says:

    I do not know if this is related. I apologize if it is not.

    In trying to find what company could have gotten a Pentagon contract just in time to have their product used to drown people (which is not necessarily the company’s fault, but I wonder if there was money laundering taking place through the contract process given the Jack Abramoff, Mitchell Wade, Dusty Foggo angle).

    So maybe this is nothing, but …
    Nestle owns 10 brands of bottled water including Ozarka and Poland Springs. Since 2001, Nestle Waters own a bottled water company called Dar Nature in Poland. Nestles campaign contributions by year are:
    1998 – $96,165
    1999 – $73,875
    2000 – $72,700
    2001 – $39,797
    2002 – $85,797
    2003 – $49,300

    The year 2002 saw a 115% increase in political contributions over the previous year, and the amount was 16% above the average over the six year period for which figures were given.
    http://projects.publicintegrit…..=480708874

    Information from the Nestle Waters web site places them in interesting places at interesting times:

    “A new development phase begins in 1998: on the one hand, the acquisition of Italy’s leading bottled water producer, known by the name of its prestigious S. Pellegrino brand; on the other hand, the launch in Pakistan of the first multi-site bottled water under the Nestlé brand, Nestlé Pure Life, a safe, healthy, easily transportable, pleasant tasting water for the whole family at a reasonable price.

    Nestlé Pure Life is established today in 21 countries across Asia, Middle-East, Africa, North America and Latin America. It is Nestlé Waters’ leading brand in volume.

    The year 2000 experienced accelerated development in Home & Office Delivery. Within a few months, thanks to targeted acquisitions such as Al Manhal in Saudi Arabia, Dar Natury in Poland, Nestlé Waters jumps to the lead of this new sector in Europe and the Middle East, thus expanding its North American leadership”
    http://www.nestle-waters.com/e…..Leadership

    In October 2002, Dar Nature started selling water in smaller bottles, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who saw email address ending in .pl on a water bottle) was captured on March 1, 2003:

    “In October 2002 we began the implementation of the first supply of water in small bottles with a capacity to our customers.”
    http://translate.google.com/tr…..US284US284

  13. brantl says:

    I don’t see anybody mentioning this, but refrigerated water going into your sinuses is going to hurt like a bitch. Think of it as an ice cream headache that you can’t stop, while drowning.

    • EvilDrPuma says:

      Yeah, it’s just what the doctor ordered…a way to make waterboarding worse. These people were real bastards.

    • MarkH says:

      Of course they had to report on the water-boarding because absolutely nobody would believe they were torturing someone by giving them an icecream headache. Even torturers wouldn’t believe that.

  14. DeanOR says:

    “The difference was the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed.”
    Need I point out that there is nothing “simulated” about suffocation?

  15. Dismayed says:

    It really doesn’t matter if they used one bottle, 100 bottles, or a garden hose. It’s still torture. Once the line is crossed the degree does not matter. I think it best if the left avoids this entire diversionary topic. If we’re talking about how many bottles they use it reduces it to parody. That’s what they want. They waterboarded. It’s torture. We hung Japanese for it. The purps should be prosecuted. Waterborded – torture – the end.

    And waterboarding is the least of it. When do we stop letting these fascist fucks direct the narrative. Water bottles, come on.

    • Mithras61 says:

      Indeed. Its more of the “it worked (got us valuable intel), so it was okay” stuff. It doesn’t matter if it worked. It doesn’t matter if the torturers exceeded the “allowed” number of pints of water. What matters is this:

      1. They waterboarded prisoners.
      2. Waterboarding prisoners is torture (by numerous definitions!).
      3. Torture is illegal under U.S. and International Law.

      Anything beyond or aside from that is irrelevant and/or a distraction.

  16. JGabriel says:

    One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the Agency’s use of the technique is different from that used in SERE training because it is “for real–and is more poignant and convincing.”)

    Poignant?

    Jesus.

    .

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