Via The Hill: Ex-CIA director defends rectal rehydration
“These were medical procedures,” Hayden said during a tense interview on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” He added that the method was used because detainees were dehydrated, and that giving them intravenous fluids with needles would be dangerous.
”I’m not a doctor,” he said. “What I am told is that this is one of the ways that the body is rehydrated.”
From page 144 of the report:
After approximately three weeks, the CIA developed a more aggressive treatment regimen “without unnecessary conversation.”Majid Khan was then subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration, which included two bottles of Ensure. Later that same day, Majid Khan’s “lunch tray,” consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was “pureed” and rectally infused. Additional sessions of rectal feeding and hydration followed.
While I am not that kind of doctor, I am pretty sure that what is described above in bold does not amount to any kind of legitimate medical option. Indeed, in general the very idea of “involuntary rectal feeding” cannot possibly be an appropriate action unless, of course, the goal was to abuse a detainee to the point of creating pliancy and hopefully garnering information from that detainee. In a word : torture. It does not sound, at all, like a “medical procedure.”
Beyond that, I am not sure that pureeing dinner is the most effective process here, either.
According to The Hill, this technique was used on five detainees.
Also: if it is possible to subdue a person to the point that they can be treated rectally, I am pretty sure it is possible to subdue them to the point that an IV could be used.
Hayden’s detached, dismissive approach to all of this is disgusting. And, again, simply a straight-forward defense of torture.
