President Donald Trump says he believes torture works

Obama contended operation of the facility, where the Central Intelligence Agency used so-called “enhanced interrogation” in questioning suspects until Obama banned it, served as a recruiting tool for Islamic State terrorists. I don’t want – look, you are old enough to have seen a time that was much different.

USA -allied South Vietnamese forces also did so more than half a century later.

The CIA has confirmed it waterboarded three Al-Qaeda suspects. If America uses it, dictators around the world will claim justification to do likewise. The French utilized variants of it in Algeria; so did the British, in mandate Palestine.

Would-be terrorists will feel emboldened by signs that major countries like the US are resorting to torture. “But the law is the law”, McCain, a former prisoner of war, said in a statement Wednesday.

The effect of the flowing water simulates the effect of drowning so that in essence the subject feels like they will die.

In 2008, the late writer Christopher Hitchens famously submitted to waterboarding for a Vanity Fair article, in which he wrote “If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture”.

“I’m going to go with what they say”, Mr Trump told ABC.

It won’t help “keep America safe”, more likely the opposite.

The Senate voted overwhelming to ban torture across the USA government in 2015, codifying a ban President Barack Obama issued by executive order shortly after he was sworn in in 2009. In the current political context, though, argument about the practice turns not only on its morality, but its efficacy.

The report said that the “use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of obtaining accurate information or gaining detainee cooperation”.

Several of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations have expressed an intention not to bring back waterboarding and other forms harsh interrogation, but Trump himself said he would not be opposed to using either to protect the country.

Whether torture works in forcing terrorists to divulge information remains a contentious question, even after 10 years of debate.

He added: “Do I feel it works?” But given that like nearly all Republicans they enthusiastically signed on with the Bush administration’s torture program, I wouldn’t expect them to stand up against Trump in some kind of profile in courage if he should get his wish on torture. The new CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, is seemingly cooperative to the president’s plan, stating that he wants to change the military policy for interrogation techniques so they can go beyond what is prescribed by the Army Field Guide.

Eight years later, a draft executive order, reportedly from the Trump White House, could revive now prohibited interrogation methods, which include waterboarding, and secret, “black site” prisons.

Senator John McCain, who was subject to intensive torture including rope bindings and repeated beatings during his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in northern Vietnam, has unequivocally told Trump that the U.S. is “not bringing back torture”.

And the draft executive order makes sure to say that any interrogations must be within the boundaries of the law. “But the law is the law”. He spoke to Courthouse News on Thursday about the leaked executive order, the illegality of torture and the state of morale at the agency. “My understanding is this was written by somebody who worked on the transition before”. That would be another step toward reopening secret prisons outside of the normal wartime rules established by the Geneva Conventions, although statutory obstacles would remain.