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Serious, non-sarcastic question: what kind of waterboarding procedure *isn't* torture? I mean, I don't think I need to tell you that if the process *didn't* cause extreme mental duress (regardless of the 'specifics of the process'), it probably wouldn't be used as a means for extracting information.
I posted the quote from McCain (someone who might have some first-hand knowledge of the brutality and inhumanity of such things) for a reason: the notion that waterboarding is "torture-lite" is pretty silly. If the "specifics of the process" are such that it *doesn't* produce severe pain or suffering (otherwise known as torture), then I'm not sure why we do it at all.
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The answer's right there in your post. "Extreme." "Severe." Those are terms of degree. I don't doubt that it's an awful experience that's used to coerce confessions from people, but is it "extreme mental duress"? How does waterboarding compare to having electrodes hooked up to your balls? What exactly is the CIA-approved waterboarding process? It's all relevant, and it's 100% reasonable for Mukasey to want the facts before he makes a legal determination about it.
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All the facts that Mukasey needs can be found either here:
http://www.waterboarding.org/how-to
Or through a trip to a CIA interrogator for a live demo. If a reporter can go through a test run I'm sure Mukasey would have no trouble. That is unless he is deliberately avoiding the question for political reasons. This technique breaks CIA agents in an average of 14 seconds and the world record holder (an al Qaeda agent) lasted 2.5 minutes.
The only way I can see this being legitimately called "torture-lite" is because of the lack of long lasting physical damage. But by the same standards holding a taser to your balls would be "torture-lite".
http://www.rescuehumor.com/video/TASER_to_Balls.htm
I've never undergone waterboarding (although I'd love to try it) but if the above link is accurate and ABC's descriptions are accurate as well then this "debate" about whether or not waterboarding is a form of torture is nothing more than an act of deception that takes advantage of the ignorance of the general public. Whether or not we should be torturing terrorists is a completely different and legitimate debate though.
As far as "extreme mental duress" well that cop was fine. So that taser by itself wasn't "extreme mental duress". But if he experienced that every half hour for a month his mental health would end up being dramatically different. People that undergo that kind of torture under hostile conditions (sleep deprivation, surrounded by enemies, etc) will often break in ways that will take years of professional psychological therapy to recover from. Even with the best of help, many of them will never recover.