Nasser Nasser / AP, file

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi meets with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left in Tripoli, Libya, in Sept. 2008. Human Rights Watch on Thursday released a report painting a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

A human rights organization says it has collected evidence of two previously unreported cases in which U.S. agents used waterboarding or a similar harsh interrogation technique on Libyan militants held by American forces in Afghanistan. 

The 154-page report by Human Rights Watch also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said. 

The report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were held in U.S.-led detention centers in Afghanistan -- some for as long as two years -- or in U.S.-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them over to Libya.

"Not only did the U.S. deliver his (Gadhafi's) enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. 

"The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened," she added. 

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The documents, which were found in once-secret archives that became public during the Libyan revolution, included classified correspondence between top Libyan officials and officials from the CIA and Britain's spy agencies MI5 and MI6. 

They illustrate how, between late 2003 when Gadhafi agreed to give up his weapons of mass destruction programs, and the 2011 Libyan revolution, Gadhafi and Western intelligence agencies quietly cooperated in battling Islamic militants. 

Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama and human rights activists have condemned as torture. 

Britain, U.S. defend actions
U.S. and British officials defended their governments' actions. 

"It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats. That is exactly what we are expected to do," said Jennifer Youngblood, a CIA spokeswoman. 

"The context here is worth revisiting. For example, by 2004, the U.S. government had convinced Gadhafi to renounce Libya's WMD programs and to help stop those terrorists who were actively targeting Americans," Youngblood said. 

A spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said: "The government has been clear that it stands firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. We do not condone it, nor do we ask others to do it on our behalf. 

"In addition, we have published the Consolidated Guidance which provides clear directions for intelligence officers and service personnel dealing with foreign liaison services regarding detainees held overseas," the spokesman said. 

Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years 

Some of the other nations that Human Rights Watch alleged to be U.S. collaborators in these operations are the Netherlands, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, Morocco and Sudan. 

The most dramatic, and potentially controversial, of the report's 14 case studies relates to alleged waterboarding. 

Human Rights Watch said that testimony from former detainee Mohammed Shoroeiya about how he was allegedly waterboarded repeatedly by U.S. interrogators was "detailed and credible."

Shoroeiya claimed he had been waterboarded while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, and that a doctor was present during the interrogation sessions, the group said. 

It said that a second former Libyan detainee, Khalid al-Sharif, described how he was subjected to a "similar type of treatment," though this did not involve being strapped to a board. 

Libyan rebels find album filled with photos of his 'darling' Condoleezza Rice

Human Rights Watch said both detainees claimed that they were hooded and had ice water poured over their noses and mouths until they felt like they were suffocating -- the sensation associated with waterboarding. 

Claims contradict Bush, CIA
The accounts by the Libyan detainees, one-time members of a militant faction called the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, contradict claims by former President George W. Bush, former CIA director Michael Hayden and other U.S. officials that waterboarding was only used on three militants in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- none of them Libyan. 

U.S. officials expressed skepticism about the waterboarding allegations. And there are apparent differences in how the Libyans describe their treatment and the waterboarding procedures used in three cases that U.S. authorities have confirmed -- those of alleged al-Qaida militants Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. 

In those cases, official investigations reported, the interrogation subjects were doused repeatedly, but in short bursts, with bottled water. 

Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

"The agency has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases in which detainees were subjected to the waterboarding technique," the CIA's Youngblood said. 

"Although we cannot comment on these specific allegations, the Department of Justice has exhaustively reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees in the post-9/11 period -- including allegations involving unauthorized interrogation techniques — and it declined prosecution in every case," she added. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Delaware State Police

Melvin Morse, 58, and Pauline Morse, 40, were charged with reckless endangerment, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child.

A couple in Delaware was arrested for abusing their eldest daughter, which included an alleged act of waterboarding.

Delaware State Police initially arrested Melvin Morse, 58, after they were informed of a domestic assault incident on July 12, when Morse allegedly grabbed his 11-year-old daughter by the ankle and began dragging her across a gravel driveway at their home in Georgetown, Del. He then took her inside and began spanking her, according to a police report.

Morse, a pediatrician, was charged on July 16 with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of assault. He was later released after posting $750 secured bail.

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On Monday, the daughter was brought to the Children's Advocacy Center of Delaware where she was interviewed. She told detectives that over a two-year period, she was disciplined by her father by what he called “waterboarding.” She said her father would hold her face under a running faucet, causing the water to go up her nose and all over her face, the police report said.

The child said this form of punishment was used at least four times. She said her mother, Pauline Morse, 40, witnessed a few of these incidents and failed to stop her father.

The couple also have a 5-year-old daughter.

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Police arrested the couple on Tuesday and charged them with four counts of reckless endangering, conspiracy and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Melvin was committed to Sussex Correctional Institution in lieu of $14,500 secured bond, and Pauline was released on a $14,500 secured bond. Both parents were ordered to have no contact with each other or either of their children.

Both children are currently in the care of the Division of Family Services. 

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What is torture? In the post-9/11 era, that question has loomed over the country’s efforts to track down and interrogate those planning terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

The former director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service renewed the debate this week with the publication of his book, “Hard Measures,” and an explosive interview on 60 Minutes in which he defended the “enhanced interrogation” program he helped oversee.

On Thursday, Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that what his officers did was legal, noting torture involves the “breaking of bones” and “blood on the walls.” He said CIA officers knew tactics resulting in great bodily harm wouldn’t elicit good intelligence, so they used other ones, like waterboarding and sleep deprivation, on their subjects.

President Obama, who has said waterboarding is “torture,” ended the practice shortly after taking office.

Rodriguez defended the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation” program on “Morning Joe,” claiming it added momentum to the “war on terror” as the agency began capturing al-Qaida’s “high command.”

He said the first detainee to provide the big picture on al-Qaida was Abu Zubaydah, who was near death after being wounded by the Pakistanis. He was nursed back to health because the service knew how valuable his information would be, Rodriguez said.
Zubaydah, who had been the third most senior al-Qaida figure, was subjected to waterboarding along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of plotting the bombing of the USS Cole in 2002.

“The program is not about using brute force because we recognize that brute force doesn’t work. So, we’re totally in agreement that torture does not work,” he added.

But critics charge that waterboarding and other “enhanced techniques” are torture, similar to what was practiced by the Japanese or the Nazis.

“This is not that,” he said. “Our waterboarding program is based on the U.S. military training program … tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen were waterboarded pursuant to this program to prepare them for the possibility of being captured someday so that they would know what it felt like.”

The last waterboarding was in 2003. He said there was a lot of confusion among the public over how many times someone was waterboarded versus how many pourings of water there was, noting that “183 pourings of water became 183 times, which is just not the case.”

Of the interrogation techniques, “waterboarding is the most harsh; sleep deprivation is tough, too,” he said. But he noted that when he described the tactics to a U.S. senator who had been a marine, the response was, “’What?’ He said, ‘That’s it?’”

When asked what torture was, Rodriguez said: “Brute force. It’s breaking of bones. It’s people passing out from pain. It’s blood on the walls. This is the way that some of our heroes who’ve actually been tortured tell us what torture is.”

Despite his defense of the technique, Rodriguez doesn’t think waterboarding would work today, since the enemy would be prepared for it. Nonetheless, he said, the controversial interrogation program’s value was “incredible,” providing “thousands and thousands of reports” about al-Qaida.

“The more we captured, the more we learned and eventually it destroyed the organization that attacked us on 9/11 and allowed us to get bin Laden,” he said.

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