Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/congress-renews-debate-over-waterboarding Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Questions stirred anew this week on the legality of waterboarding, a controversial interrogation tactic, after new Congressional hearings examining its use on terrorist suspects. After a recap of the hearings, analysts Mark Shields and David Brook weigh the debate. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Waterboarding, several high-ranking members of the Bush administration this week gave differing views on that interrogation technique. NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman has that. KWAME HOLMAN: Before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, CIA Director Michael Hayden became the first Bush administration official to confirm publicly the CIA had subjected three senior al-Qaida prisoners to waterboarding following the 9/11 attacks.Waterboarding has been described as controlled drowning, an interrogation technique many consider to be torture. GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, CIA Director: The CIA has not used waterboarding for almost five years. We used it against these three high-value detainees because of the circumstances of the time. Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent. KWAME HOLMAN: Later, Senator Dianne Feinstein asked the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, to explain remarks he made to the New Yorker magazine concerning waterboarding.SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), California: I gather that you felt that, for yourself, if used, waterboarding would, in fact, constitute torture. Is that correct?VICE ADM. MIKE MCCONNELL (Ret.), Director of National Intelligence: No, ma'am, it's not correct. The question is, is waterboarding a legal technique? And everything I know, based on the appropriate authority to make that judgment, it is a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances. You have to know the circumstances to be able to make the judgment.