« Is 4 seconds of waterboarding torture? | Main | When does your legal advice make you a war criminal? »
Wednesday
Apr222009

Whether torture “works” depends on the goal.

Interrogation experts frequently say they can get more and better information faster from a captive by their non-violent, relationship-building methods than by torture, and that torture yields wrong and unreliable information because a torture victim will say whatever he thinks will stop the pain. An important goal of the Bush administration was to get confirmation of wrong information, according to Jon Landay of McClatchy:

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.

Read the rest of Landay's shocking report here.

 

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>