Joseph Abrams reports for Fox:
The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.
It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment."
"The water was poured 183 times -- there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds."
Consider this a Fox counterattack after today's front-page New York Times story by Brian Stelter tracing an allegedly misleading account of the CIA's interrogation of Abu Zubaydah as it reverberated through the media. That story paid particular attention to the role Fox played in repeating a 2007 ABC report that Zubaydah quickly broke after being waterboarded for just 35 seconds. Stelter's story included the misleading figure that Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times but according to Abrams, Zubaydah himself told the Red Cross he was waterboarded "no more than ten times," which probably means a good deal fewer than 10 times.
Given these numbers, there's no obvious reason to doubt the statements made by John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who was the source for the ABC report. It is not hard to imagine that the CIA, having already subjected Zubaydah to one waterboarding session that produced valuable information, would subject him to four or five more just to see what else came out.
We can't know for sure without more information about the interrogation, but supporters of investigations and prosecutions and truth commissions should be asking themselves what will most disturb the American people if this information does emerge -- that Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed were dunked a few times, or that valuable information was gained from those interrogations and now the Obama administration and their advocates in the media are hanging patriotic Americans out to dry for doing what was necessary.
