Convening authority of military commissions Susan Crawford declined to bring charges against alleged 20th hijacker and Guantanamo inmate Mohammed al-Qahtani, on the grounds that he was tortured. Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. ” ‘The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. …You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge’ to call it torture, she said.”
– Bob Woodward, “Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official,” The Washington Post, Jan. 14, 2009