CIA Lawyer: Waterboarding Wasn't Torture Then, And Isn't Torture Now
On the detailed list of interrogation techniques
These were techniques that I had never seen before. Reduced to writing they're quite graphic and quite detailed and I have to take responsibility for that because I was determined that the Justice Department, whether they approved them or disapproved of them, would have the most no-holds-barred, almost detached description of some very aggressive maneuvers. So it was I and the rest of the CIA leadership who insisted that each of these techniques be spelled out, that there be no misunderstanding between us and the Department of Justice about how these techniques would be administered.
... [The descriptions were written by] people in the counter terrorism center of the CIA, composed of operatives, analysts, psychologists all focused on the counter terrorism target.
On one technique that was considered to be even worse than waterboarding
As you may have surmised, because my book had to go through pre-publication review at the CIA, I was told that I had to not go into detail about what that one particularly gruesome technique was. I guess what I can say to you is: When I saw what waterboarding was, I had never heard that word before, but this technique I thought was even more chilling and scary than waterboarding — which Lord knows I thought was quite chilling on its own right. It was very rough. ... something that would come out of an Edgar Allan Poe plot line.
... The Justice Department when they called me up they basically said: Look we have the opinion ready on the rest of the techniques but for this particular one we're not sure we can approve it. And with some sense of relief I told the Justice Department: Why don't we just drop it.
“ I'd been around the agency long enough to know that proceeding down this path posed extraordinary peril in the future for the institution and the people who would be involved in the program, including myself.