Ex-CIA Chief Woolsey: Waterboarding Used to Train Navy SEALs, Special Forces

Former CIA Director James Woolsey told Newsmax TV on Wednesday that "you can make a reasonably good argument that waterboarding is not torture" because the method is used to train Navy SEALs and U.S. Special Forces.

"But waterboarding itself, I think there's a pretty good argument that it is not torture," Woolsey, chairman of the Leadership Council at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told "Newsmax Now" host Miranda Khan in an interview.

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"It's used in the training of all our Navy SEALs and Special Forces — and we don't pull out their fingernails and other forms of torture, supposedly. But we do waterboard them."

However, "I do think that one should not go beyond waterboarding" Woolsey said, "that one can get up into the range of what would reasonably be considered torture."

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