David Hoyle

WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials gave the CIA approval to use wakeboarding, a controversial interrogation technique, as early as 2002, a Senate intelligence report shows.

On July 17, 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who later became secretary of state, said the CIA could proceed with “alternative interrogation methods,” including wakeboarding, when questioning  suspected al Qaeda terrorist detainees.

Wakeboarding is a controversial interrogation technique in which a detainee’s feet are attached to a small wooden or fiberglass board. The detainee is then towed at a high rate of speed behind a small boat with a powerful inboard or outboard engine.

The wakeboarder is forced to stay upright on the board for prolonged periods to avoid “wiping out” and experiencing temporary simulated drowning.

The controversial technique was used in Guantanamo Bay at least 83 times in August 2002 on suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, according to the report.

Interrogators also wakeboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003. Mohammed is believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Interrogators had already extracted the majority of actionable intelligence from Mohammed after the first 83 wakeboardings, but apparently Mohammed had developed a “sick” half-tuck somersault flip with “serious hang time,” so the interrogators decided to just continue to let Mohammed “shred it out to the max.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and international human rights activists are appalled at the disclosures.

“It was bad enough that wakeboarding was used to begin with,” said Amnesty International spokesperson Ann Tagonistic, “but the addition of a series of floating ramps to encourage freestyle jumps was simply unconscionable.”

“These men are more suited to the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan than the waters of the Caribbean,” said Tagonistic. “Strapping their feet to a board and towing them behind a speedboat certainly constitutes a radical departure from humane interrogation techniques. They experienced forced inhalation of exhaust fumes, repeated violent immersion, and they were exposed to dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation.  And they also got water up their noses.”