Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic

Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Quest to Form Torture Policy

Daniel Levin, former acting assistant attorney general

ABC News reports:

A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004, became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.

Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.

Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded water boarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way, and with close supervision. And, sources tell ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines on its use.

Bush Administration Blocked Critic

The administration at the time was reeling from an August 2002 memo by Jay Bybee, then the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, which laid out possible justifications for torture. In June 2004, Levin's predecessor at the office, Jack Goldsmith, officially withdrew the Bybee memo, finding it deeply flawed.

When Levin took over from Goldsmith, he went to work on a memo that would effectively replace the Bybee memo as the administration's legal position on torture. It was during this time that he underwent waterboarding.

In December of 2004 Levin released the new memo. He said "torture is abhorrent" but he went on to say in a footnote that the memo was not declaring the administration's previous opinions illegal. The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo.

But Levin never finished a second memo imposing tighter controls on the specific interrogation techniques. Sources say he was forced out of the Justice Department when Gonzales became attorney general.

Critics decry waterboarding as torture, should never be used

According to Retired Rear Admiral John Hutson, "There is no question this is torture -- this is a technique by which an individual is strapped to a board, elevated by his feet and either dunked into water or water poured over his face over a towel or a blanket."

The legal justification of waterboarding has come to the forefront in the debate swirling around Michael B. Mukasey's nomination as attorney general.

While Democrats are pressing him to declare waterboarding illegal, he has refused to do so. He calls it personally "repellant" but he is unwilling to declare it illegal until he is able to see the classified information regarding the technique and its current use.