Did torture work?

Now that the torture memos are out the public is confronted once again by the details of how the Bush Administration conducted it's "War on Terror".

Although some of the detail of these memos are grisly, many defenders of the administration characterize the tactics as necessary and have vouched for their usefulness in terms of getting results and stopping plots against the United States for 7 years after 9/11.

However, in Sunday's New York Times they wrote "CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the September 11 attacks, 183 times and 83 times on another al Qaeda suspect.

The question becomes: after which waterboarding did Mr. Mohammed confess and what terrible event did he protect us from?

Perhaps now would be an appropriate time to bring up some advice that veteran trial lawyers give to freshly graduated attorneys: "If the facts aren't on your side, argue the law, if the law's not on your side, then pound the table and scare the heck out of people."

The Washington Post today uncovered a document from the Pentagon which identifies practices causing extreme physical distress as torture and which questions its effectiveness

.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/JPRA-Memo_042409.pdf

The Pentagon describes the purpose of interrogation: "The primary objective of interrogation within the context of intelligence is the collecting of timely, accurate, and reliable information."

Naturally, if we are trying to obtain timely, accurate, and reliable information, we would want to use the most effective techniques possible, right? After all, lives were at stake, we were told.

The Pentagon goes on to state:

"Conceptually, proponents envision the application of torture as a means to expedite the exploitation process. In essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as alternatives to the more time consuming conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate intelligence. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption. (NOTE: The application of physical and or psychological duress will likely result in physical compliance. Additionally, prisoners may answer and/or comply as a resut of threats of torture. However, the reliability and accuracy of information must be questioned.)"

If torture doesn't work, what does?

"As noted previously, upwards of 90 percent of interrogations have been successful through the exclusive use of a direct approach, where a degree of rapport is established with the prisoner. Once any means of duress has been purposefully applied to the prisoner, the formerly cooperative relationship cannot be reestablished. In addition, the prisoner's level of resolve to resist cooperating with the interrogator will likely be increased as a  result of harsh or brutal treatment. The key operational deficits related to the use of torture is its impact on the reliability and accuracy of the information provided. If an interrogator produces information that resulted from teh application of physical and psychological duress, the reliability and accuracy of this information is in doubt. In other words, a subject in extreme pain my provide an answer, or many answers in order to get the pain to stop."

It seems fair to speculate about how many waterboarding sessions it took Khalid Sheik Mohammed before he decided to stop cooperating with us?

Could it be that the reason for this pattern of behavior on the part of the Bush administration was not to get good information but to obtain confessions of information that wasn't true? After all, our experience from the Korean War was that the Chinese interrogators were interested in extracting false confessions for propaganda purposes.

A recent report issued by the Senate Armed Services Committee said "torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib prison and approved by officials in the George W. Bush administration were applied only after soliciting a "wish list" from interrogators."

Torture produces false confessions and the Bush administration had a "wish list" of false confessions they wanted their detainees to make.

Why would they want false information? One can imagine the purpose as one of domestic manipulation: intimidating the American citizenry enough so that they wouldn't protest other illegal practices they were gradually becoming aware of such as using the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans and their phone calls without a normal wiretap authorization or  establishing a connection to terrorism.

In fact, the Pentagon document went on to make another wry observation: "In numerous cases, interrogation has been used as a tool of mass intimidation by oppressive regimes."

President Bush, on the other hand, made several declarations about torture in his speeches at various points during his administration:

"The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example."  President Bush on UN Torture   Victims Recognition Day, June 26, 2003.

"Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law. . . Many have been detained, arrested, thrown in prison and subjected to torture by regimes that fail to understand that their habits or control will not serve tem in the long term."Statement by President Bush released by the Whtie House on June 26, 2005.

"We do not torture." President Bush to reporters during a visit to Panama in November 2005

"I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved. . . I told the country we did that. And I also told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it." President Bush in an interview with ABC about interrogation tactics used on detainees in April 2008