WASHINGTON — CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said publicly for the first time Tuesday that his agency had used the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding on three Al Qaeda suspects, and he testified that depriving the agency of coercive methods would "increase the danger to America."
In the most detailed public comments on a CIA program that had been shrouded in secrecy for years, Hayden said the agency had used simulated drowning to extract crucial information from terrorism suspects in 2002 and 2003.
He also testified that only three detainees were ever subjected to the method: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative tied to the Sept. 11 plot; and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.
Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hayden said the CIA had ceased using waterboarding nearly five years ago, but he made a vigorous case for preserving the agency's ability to use "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
Information provided by two of the waterboarded prisoners, Mohammed and Zubaydah, accounted for 25% of the human intelligence reports circulated by the CIA on Al Qaeda in the five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hayden said.
And at a time when Congress is considering imposing sweeping new restrictions on the CIA, Hayden warned of potentially deadly consequences.
"If you create a box, we will play inside the box without exception," he said. "My view is that would substantially increase the danger to America."
Hayden's testimony came during a hearing that was supposed to focus on national security threats.
Instead, the session was dominated by a renewed debate over spy powers the Bush administration asserted after the Sept. 11 attacks, particularly interrogation methods.
The hearing exposed persistent fault lines between the political parties on the interrogation issue. Some Democrats on the panel have said that waterboarding amounts to torture.
Panel Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) questioned whether harsh CIA methods "undermined our moral standing" and reduced cooperation in the war on terrorism.
Even among administration officials testifying Tuesday, there were signs of shifting positions and divisions on the issue.
