Confessed terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed--because he was subjected to water-boarding. Quote: "Water-boarding has been denounced as "torture" by human rights groups and many U.S. officials, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who likened it to a mock execution.
But what if that one episode of water-boarding KSM had not occurred? It is a question at the center of the debate over the harshest technique in the CIA's repertoire that has raged for three years now, a time frame, intelligence officials note, in which the technique has not been used.
Would the agency have eventually worn KSM down?"
We can't be sure. Torture is nothing we want to take lightly. But in this day and age, and given the kind of terrorists we're dealing with, it doesn't seem all that sensible to take its use completely off the table.
