Memo: Two al Qaeda leaders waterboarded 266 times

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- CIA interrogators used waterboarding at least 266 times on two top al Qaeda suspects, according to a Bush-era Justice Department memo released by the Obama administration..

The controversial technique that simulates drowning -- and which President Obama calls torture -- was used at least 83 times in August 2002 on suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, according to the memo.

Interrogators also waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003. Mohammed is believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Obama released the memo Thursday, saying that "exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release."

The memo, dated May 30, 2005, was from then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury to John Rizzo, who was acting general counsel for the CIA.

It paints a different picture from the one described by former CIA officer John Kiriakou. In a December 2007 interview with CNN, Kiriakou said Zubaydah had been waterboarded for "about 30 seconds..." and agreed to cooperate with interrogators the following day.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Michael Hayden, who directed the CIA from 2006 to 2009, was asked about the number of times Mohammed was waterboarded.
 
Hayden denounced the release of the memos and did not comment on the number, saying it was his understanding that the frequency of waterboarding was among the operational details that had not been declassified... .

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I'd like to personally supervise George W. Bush's waterboarding for 266 times.

No, I'll take that back. 

I'll go easy on George. 

We could do him only 133 times and Dick Cheney the other 133 times.

They have besmirched the reputation of my nation by lying, cheating, waging unjustified wars, murdering millions, and visiting unspeakable cruelties on human beings in my name as an American.

They should be tried before a war crimes commission and each sentenced to life in prison without parole.

D. Grant Haynes