Did Torture Work?-Froomkin asks *the* question that needs to be asked

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/12/11/BL2007121101053_pf.html

In interviews yesterday and this morning, a former CIA agent called waterboarding what it is. Not "enhanced interrogation" or "harsh tactics." Simply: torture.

It's a notable achievement in the battle against the Orwellian doubletalk infesting the national discourse and the news coverage about this important issue.

John Kiriakou, who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded, also made clear that every decision leading to the torture of CIA detainees was documented and approved in cables to and from Washington. That's a step forward for accountability after two gigantic steps back last week, when it emerged that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of two of its torture sessions.

But Kiriakou, whose first interview was with Brian Ross of ABC News, also made the unsubstantiated claim that torture worked. Kiriakou told Ross yesterday that, as a result of waterboarding, suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah coughed up information that "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

Ross asked Kiriakou to say a bit more about those thwarted attacks: "Were they on US soil? Were they in Pakistan?"

Kiriakou replied: "You know, I was out of it by then. I had moved onto a new job. And I-- I don't recall. To the best of my recollection, no, they weren't on US soil. They were overseas."

But where's the evidence?

Like Kiriakou, Bush last year described Zubaydah as a senior terrorist leader who divulged crucial information under questioning.

But, as I wrote in Friday's column, Bush and the Torture Tapes, investigative reporter Ron Suskind has written that Zubaydah was a mentally ill minor functionary, and that most if not all of the information he provided to the CIA was either old news -- or entirely made up.

There are many reasons why Americans should be skeptical about assertions that terrorist attacks were thwarted as a result of what administration officials would call "enhanced interrogation." (I enumerated some of the reasons last month at NiemanWatchdog.org, where I am deputy editor.)

But it all boils down to the fact that, so far, no one from Bush on down has come up with a single documented example of American lives saved thanks to torture.

Kiriakou Speaks

Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen write in The Washington Post: "A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that 'probably saved lives,' but that he now regards the tactic as torture.

Richard Esposito and Brian Ross report for ABC News: "Kiriakou said the feeling in the months after the 9/11 attacks was that interrogators did not have the time to delve into the agency's bag of other interrogation tricks. . . .

"At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do. And as time has passed, and as September 11th has, you know, has moved farther and farther back into history, I think I've changed my mind," he told ABC News.

Here's the video of the interview, and parts one and two of the transcript.

Kiriakou described a considerable paper trail.

Kiriakou: "The cable traffic back and forth was extremely specific. And the bottom line was these were very unusual authorities that the agency got after 9/11. No one wanted to mess them up. No one wanted to get in trouble by going overboard. So it was extremely deliberate. . . . "

Ross raised the issue of false confessions -- but didn't confront Kiriakou with Suskind's reporting.

Ross: "Was there concern that-- the techniques would result in false confessions? He would just say something?"

Kiriakou: "Oh, there was always that concern."

Ross: "And how do you guard against that?"

Kiriakou: "Well, the only way that you really can at least partially guard against that is to not do these things regularly. That's why so few people were-- were water boarded. . . . ou really wanted it to be a last resort. Because we didn't want these false confessions. We didn't want wild goose chases. . . . "

Ross: "Was he ever caught in a lie?"

Kiriakou: "No."

Ross: "An exaggeration?"

Kiriakou: "No. And we-- we really ran down everything that he said. Obviously, there are other sources to-- to corroborate-- things. And this is one way that you're able to vet the people that you're speaking with. And to the best of my recollection, he never led us down the wrong path."

(By contrast, Suskind reported that Zubaydah "named countless targets inside the U.S. to stop the pain, all of them immaterial.")

Kiriakou's current view on waterboarding: "I think that-- water boarding is probably something that we shouldn't be in the business of doing."

Ross: "Why do you say that now?

Kiriakou: "Because we're Americans, and we're better than that."

Kiriakou told CBS News that he and at least one other CIA officer refused to use water boarding and the other newly authorized interrogation tactics. "That job, he said, was turned over to retired commandos under contract to the CIA."

Via Thinkprogress I see Kiriakou was on NBC's Today Show this morning with Matt Lauer. Lauer asked Kiriakou where the permission was given to carry out torture.

Lauer: "Was the White House involved in that decision?"

Kiriakou: "Absolutely. This isn't something done willy nilly. It's not something that an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and the Justice Department."

Lauer then played a clip from a September 2006 interview he did with Bush, in which the president said: "I told our people get information without torture, and was assured by our Justice Department that we were not torturing."

Kiriakou's response: "I disagree."

Suppose it does work. Does that justify its use?

I think the real questions about torture are more fundamental. What kind of societies use torture? Can a society that uses torture have a respect for human rights? Do we want to be a society that respects human rights?

and THAT (IMHO) is the root of the matter here. IF it did work then we would have a completely different discussion-it would be a different issue. There is no proof that it does work. There is no proof, other than anecdotally, that any actionable intelligence has been created/found due to torture recently or in the distant past.

Torture does have it's uses such as to let people in an area of operation that you are there and you mean business but most likely the use is for the torturers person whims. In an interview a few years ago one of the founding members of Delta Force said that the only reason for torture is for the sick sadistic jollys of the torturer.


If we can get to the root of whether or not it works and get that into the public discussion the already weak support for this will evaporate completely.