Visitors Will Be Able to Experience Genuine ‘Near Drowning’
The Board of Directors of the George W. Bush Presidential Library voted 13-0 to establish a waterboarding exhibit in which visitors who pay an extra admission fee will be subjected to the controversial “enhanced interrogation” technique.
“As the unanimous nature of the vote indicates, the board was quite enthusiastic about establishing this exhibit,” said a library spokesman. “The board feels that allowing the public to see firsthand someone undergoing waterboarding will convincingly show the public that it is not torture and President Bush did not allow torture during his administration.”
A member of the Board, who asked not to be identified, said he hoped that senior members of the Bush Administration would agree to allow themselves to be subjected to waterboarding at the Library’s exhibit in a series of fund-raising events.
“I’m confident that if someone like Vice President Cheney were to undergo waterboarding at the Library, that event alone could raise several million dollars in pledges,” said a board member, who asked no to be identified. “Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld, Al Gonzales — there’s a whole host of people who could undergo waterboarding and put the Bush Library fund raising well over the top,” he said.
The board member said there was “spirited, enthusiastic discussion” at the meeting about the fund-raising potential in selling video DVDs showing former Bush Administration officials undergoing waterboarding at the museum.
“There’s a goldmine here for the Bush library. Imagine the royalties from a video game in which the players could use waterboarding of Cheney and Rumsfeld to score points and so on,” the board member said.
A spokesman for Cheney said the former vice president was “greatly cheered by the board’s decision and believes such an exhibit will forcefully show the public that waterboarding is not torture, that it is a humane and effective tool to encourage a detainee to cooperate during an interrogation.”
He said the former vice president “would be happy to undergo waterboarding at the Library as a fund-raiser, provided his doctors will permit it.”
Cheney wears a heart pacemaker. His doctors would most likely rule out letting him undergo waterboarding, even if the former vice president doesn’t consider it torture.
Media reports have said that the library’s board of trustees hopes to raise $500 million for the facility, which will be built on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.