Torture by another name: CIA used 'water dousing' on at least 12 detainees

Interrogators used a technique that elicits a drowning sensation and lowers body temperature on many more detainees than the agency admits to waterboarding

At least a dozen more people were subjected to waterboard-like tactics in CIA custody than the agency has admitted, according to a fresh accounting of the US government’s most discredited form of torture.

The CIA maintains it only subjected three detainees to waterboarding. But agency interrogators subjected at least 12 others to a similar technique, known as “water dousing”, that also created a drowning sensation or chilled a person’s body temperature – sometimes through “immersion” in water, and often without use of a board.

New lawsuits, recently released documents and the Senate’s landmark torture report indicate that at least 13 men in total experienced “water dousing”. Those familiar with their cases and an interrogator cited in the Senate report consider water dousing’s departure from waterboarding to be “a distinction without a difference”.

Senate Intelligence Committee Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

Key Resources

• SSCI Study: Executive Summary
• SSCI Study: Findings and Conclusions
• SSCI Study: Additional Views
• SSCI Study: Minority Views
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Timeline of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
• Key Dates Related to the Study
• Feinstein Floor Statement
• Transmittal Letter of the Full SSCI Study to President Obama
• Letter to President Obama Proposing Reforms to Prevent Future Use of Torture
• Corrections to Appendix 2

Floor Speeches

• Speech on Release of Intelligence Committee's Detention and Interrogation Study, December 2014
• Speech on CIA’s Unauthorized Access into Intelligence Committee Computers, March 2014