CIA Used Waterboarding 266 Times
A footnote in one of the newly declassified torture memos has revealed that CIA interrogators used waterboarding far more than had been previously reported. In August 2002, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah eighty-three times. The CIA also used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In 2007, a former CIA officer publicly claimed that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only thirty-five seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

Rahm Emanuel: Bush Officials, CIA Interrogators Will Not Be Prosecuted
Meanwhile, on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the Obama administration opposes any effort to prosecute CIA interrogators who engaged in torture, as well Bush administration officials who authorized the use of torture. Rahm made the comment in an interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Rahm Emanuel: “He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided. They shouldn’t be prosecuted.”

George Stephanopolous: “But what about those who devised the policy?”

Rahm Emanuel: “Yeah, but those who devised the policy, he believes that they were—should not be prosecuted either. And it’s not the place that we go—as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement—not the letter, the statement—in that second paragraph, ‘This is not a time for retribution. It’s time for reflection. It is not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and in a sense of anger and retribution.’”

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Says Obama Violating International Law
The UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, has said President Obama is in violation of international law for declining to prosecute CIA agents who used torture. Nowak said the US is bound by the UN Convention Against Torture, which requires prosecution in all cases in which there is evidence of torture.