Has President Obama banned waterboarding by all US government agencies, including the CIA?
Yes. He has brought the CIA into line with the US military, which in 2006, in a new army manual on collecting intelligence, banned torture and degrading treatment, including water-boarding, forced nakedness, hooding and sexual humiliation. The manual’s publication followed the scandals at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the passing of the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, which prohibited the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” of detainees. President Bush excluded the CIA from the restrictions imposed on the military. He did so in an executive order in July 2007, which sought to define the American commitment to the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3 prohibition on cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment and torture. The order declared that a CIA “programme of detention and interrogation” complied with the Geneva Conventions. The order listed interrogation methods and practices that are not allowed. These ranged all the way from murder and rape to acts of humiliati
