WHY SO MANY TIMES?

According to the torture memos, Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. According to a former CIA officer, once seemed to be enough (from the NYT):

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The memos also reveal that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times yet earlier reports indicated that he told all he knew after a mere 2 1/2 minutes¹:

Waterboarding: Subjecting a person to simulated drowning has been used to obtain information or a confession for hundreds of years. The person is made to believe that death is imminent. According to what sources have told Dennis Ross of ABC News, waterboarding can break a person's will in a matter of seconds. The person is strapped to a board so he cannot move. His head is lower than his feet, and a towel covers his face. Water is then poured over his face, setting off a gag reflex and the feeling of drowning. Supposedly, Khalid Sheik Muhammad held out for about 2 1/2 minutes.

¹Newhouse News Service
September 23, 2006 Saturday 7:56 PM EDT
Together, Bush and Senators Compose a Narrow Definition of Torture
BYLINE: By GEORGE LATANZIO.
George Latanzio is an editor at The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be contacted at glatanzio@starledger.com