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Last Updated: Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 19:23 GMT

CIA admits waterboarding inmates

The CIA has for the first time publicly admitted
using the controversial method of
"waterboarding" on terror suspects.
CIA director Michael Hayden told Congress however
that it had only been used on three people, and not
at all for the past five years.
He said the technique had been used on high-profile
al-Qaeda detainees including Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed.
Mr Hayden was speaking as National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell presented
his annual threat assessment.
Waterboarding is an interrogation technique in which the detainee is put in fear of
drowning.
Some critics describe it as torture and Congress has been debating banning its use
by the CIA.
President Bush has threatened to veto such a bill.
Mr Hayden said the CIA had also used waterboarding against two other top al-Qaeda
suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Catastrophe fears
He told Congress: "We used it against these three detainees because of the
circumstances at the time.
"There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were
inevitable. And we had limited knowledge about al-Qaeda and its workings.
"Those two realities have changed."
In his report, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell focussed attention on al-
Qaeda and its leadership based in the border area between Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
"Al-Qaeda remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States, both here at
home and abroad," he said.