It is no different than after 9/11, when the media claimed that the U.S was committing torture by waterboarding terrorists for information about future attacks.
The clearest proof that it was not torture was when reporters line up to try being waterboarded so they could write stories about how terrible it was. I don’t recall any reporters ever lining up to try having their fingernails pulled out, toes cut off, branded with red hot steel, or stretched on a rack.
I'm not sure that you can compare a situation where a friendly person would immediately stop the procedure when given a signal with the person who was held against their will with no way of knowing when the procedure was going to stop.
(I don't want to get sidetracked on the subject because I have been here long enough to know that if the US government did it then it could not have possibly been a criminal act; I'm just pointing out the flaw in your argument.)