Self-proclaimed waterboarding fan Dick Cheney called it a no-brainer in a 2006 radio interview: Terror suspects should get a “a dunk in the water.” But recently released internal documents reveal the controversial “enhanced interrogation” practice was far more brutal on detainees than Cheney’s description sounds, and was administered with meticulous cruelty.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

“This is revolting and it is deeply disturbing,” said Dr. Scott Allen, co-director of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at Brown University who has reviewed all of the documents for Physicians for Human Rights. “The so-called science here is a total departure from any ethics or any legitimate purpose. They are saying, ‘This is how risky and harmful the procedure is, but we are still going to do it.’ It just sounds like lunacy,” he said. “This fine-tuning of torture is unethical, incompetent and a disgrace to medicine.”

It is doubtful anyone will ever be held accountable for these, or other, crimes (no ‘change’ there then).

Meanwhile, we will continue to cover up crimes committed by the US, and to try and deflect attention from the acts of torture in which we wilfully participated. Jack Straw denies all knowledge despite evidence showing otherwise. David Miliband had to be humiliated by the courts while trying to cover up torture. And now Eliza Manningham-Bullshitter, former head of MI5, denies all knowledge saying the Americans hid the evidence from the UK — which shows he was either unfit for the job (CIA planes passed through the UK and used British facilities) or too stupid to use a search engine (in which case she would also have been unfit for her former job).

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President Karzai has paid “blood money” to the families of nine children killed in a brutal night raid after Nato admitted that they were gunned down by mistake.

US-led forces had originally claimed that the victims were part of a terrorist cell making improvised explosive devices but an investigation by The Times found that Nato now believes the victims, aged 12-18, were killed in an operation based on faulty intelligence.

The President paid relatives Afs100,000 (£1,300) for each of the victims — eight students from one family, a 12-year-old shepherd boy who was the family’s guest and a farmer from a neighbouring compound.

Silence from the usual quarters.

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An Australian man who was held in the Guantanamo Bay US detention camp has won the right to sue his government for complicity in his alleged treatment.

Mamdouh Habib says Australian officials were present at torture sessions he was subjected to while in detention.

A Federal Court said he was free to sue after rejecting Canberra’s claim that an Australian judge could not rule on the actions of foreign officials.

Mr Habib was released from Guantanamo without charge in 2005.

He is seeking compensation from the Australian government over its alleged involvement.

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But it seems perfectly ok for boorish bigots like Bruce Anderson to openly fantasise about torturing someone’s wife and children; or perfectly ok for warmongering bastards like Nick Cohen to pretend to debate the ethics of torture.

Enlightenment, anyone?

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Justin McKeating points out that New Labour’s attempts to cover up torture is nothing new.

And we should not be surprised at all that William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, is keen to “draw a line under this episode”, when clearly this is not one incident, but a repeated pattern. No doubt, when the Tories get into power (as they are likely to in the forthcoming General Election) they don’t want to be asked the same uncomfortable questions. (Not forgetting these are the same Tories who also voted for an illegal war, and would happily go to war against Iran.)

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