U.S. to prohibit "water-boarding"

GENEVA — The U.S. Army will prohibit "water-boarding" — the controversial practice of submerging a prisoner's head in water in an effort to make him talk — when it issues its new interrogation manual, the State Department's legal adviser told the U.N. Committee Against Torture on Monday.

John Bellinger said banning water-boarding wasn't an admission that U.S. interrogators had used the technique on detainees during anti-terrorism efforts.

But the Army's decision to outlaw the technique raised concerns about how widely it has been used and why the Army felt it needed to mention it in the manual. Previous versions of the manual hadn't listed it, either as an approved technique or a banned one.

"That they've specifically dealt with it — even while saying that doesn't mean it was happening previously — raises questions," said Jamil Dakwar, a field attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who has been monitoring the U.N. committee's hearing into U.S. adherence to the U.N.'s Convention on Torture.

Water-boarding was among several harsh interrogation techniques reportedly sanctioned by a Justice Department memo written in August 2002. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in December 2002 approved the use of techniques that induced the sensation of drowning among 17 practices implemented at the prison at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Rumsfeld rescinded his approval of those techniques six weeks later after Defense Department attorneys objected, and U.S. officials have said that detainees have been treated humanely.

But reports that CIA interrogators were using the technique have persisted.

The water-boarding ban would extend to the CIA and other U.S. agencies that may be holding terrorism suspects. Last fall, over the objections of the White House, Congress passed legislation that requires all U.S. agencies to use only interrogation techniques that are in the Army's field manual.

Bellinger responded to about 30 questions Monday, the final day in the committee's review of whether the United States was adhering to the U.N. Convention on Torture. The committee's report is expected to be completed May 19.

Committee members also expressed concern that the United States was using the rules of war to detain suspects without providing a definition of where the war was being fought and how long it would last.

Committee member Fernando Marino Menendez of Spain noted that by detaining people as enemy combatants the United States can hold them without due process.

"Will it ever come to an end, or is the end only up to circumstances?" he asked.

"Obviously, the conflict will go on for a very long time," Bellinger responded.

Human-rights observers predicted that the Bush administration will face broad criticism from the U.N. body.

The U.S., recognizing the significance of the hearing, sent an unusually large delegation of 29 senior officials to the meeting.