If it weren’t so emblematic of the news media in general, these paragraphs from a CNN story would be funny,
Meanwhile, a source told CNN that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld never approved a controversial interrogation technique called “water boarding.” That source had told CNN the opposite Monday.
The senior defense official who provided the original information to CNN now says Rumsfeld only approved “mild, noninjurious physical contact” with a high-level al Qaeda detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and specifically did not approve a request to use water boarding.
How stupid does CNN think its readers/viewers are?
Okay, so on Monday CNN runs a story saying that Rumsfeld personally approved the general use of water boarding for prisoners at Guantanamo. One day later, CNN’s story is that the source lied to them on Monday, but should be believed on Tuesday that Rumsfeld only approved water boarding for a single prisoner. That, by the way, wasn’t news — the Washington Post reported earlier this month that Rumsfeld approved using a number of more severe interrogation tactics on Mohamed al Qahtani who the government believes was to have been the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks.
Like most (all?) anonymous sources, this Pentagon official had an agenda and was basically using CNN for his or her own purposes. CNN and other news media are happy to go along, even when it leads to embarassing backtracking like this.
It’s interesting to note that despite all of the talk about the judicial review of the legality of torture, etc., that ultimately the working group that Rumsfeld chaired approved only seven interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo that weren’t already part of standard U.S. military doctrine. According to the Washington Post,
Seven of those approved techniques are not included in U.S. military doctrine, and are listed as: “change of scenery up; change of scenery down; dietary manipulation; environmental manipulation; sleep adjustment (reversal) ; isolation for 30 days”; and a technique known as “false flag,” or deceiving a detainee into believing he is being interrogated by someone from another country.
Most of those tactics require interrogators notifying their commanders ahead of time that they plan to use them.
Source:
Guantanamo List Details Approved Interrogation Methods. Dana Priest and Bradley Graham, Washington Post, June 10, 2004.