Psyche, Science, and Society

Zelikow: Dubious arguments that “torture works”

Phillip Zelikow, the counselor of the State Department from 2005 to 2006 and the executive director of the 9/11 commission, discusses claims that “torture works,” making a number of good points:

A Dubious C.I.A. Shortcut

By Phillip Zelikow

GOOD intelligence can sometimes be gained by tormenting captives beyond endurance. It is an old, old technique, refined during the 20th century by science — and pseudo-science. By 1949 George Orwell could envision the shrewdly calibrated torments that induced his protagonist in “1984” to love Big Brother. Such methods worked all too well, Orwell feared. The United States experimented in the 1950s and 1960s with novel ways of extracting information. But, until 2002, it never considered the kind of systematic and truly Orwellian C.I.A. program that has now been revealed. Yet the question lingers: Do such methods really work? Don’t we need something like this?

The C.I.A. program did generate a huge volume of intelligence material. Many of these interrogation reports did contain valuable information. After all, the C.I.A. had exclusive custody of many of the most important Qaeda captives for years. Any of the flow from that river would be theirs. Agency officials thus wrote memos recounting plots prevented and people captured.

Yet the C.I.A.’s claims that its methods produced actionable information can also be misleading. Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he would like all of the agency’s defenses of its interrogation program declassified. But that would declassify only one side of the intelligence argument. Each of these accounts of disrupted plots and captured terrorists has a back story, full of lore and arguments about who developed which lead and whose sources proved out.

A professional evaluation of the C.I.A.’s claims would have to examine these cases to sift and weigh the contributions. The Senate Intelligence Committee is embarking on an important effort to sort out the claims and counterclaims.

What the committee may well find, after all the sifting, is that the reports were a critical part of the intelligence flow, but rarely — if ever — affected a “ticking bomb” situation. Yet the main rationale for using extreme methods is to save time. To the extent that the methods are more than just a way of debasing an enemy, their added value is in breaking people quickly, with the downsides including unreliability.

That is one reason the methods of torment do not stack up well against proved alternatives that rely on patience and skill. In setting up this program, officials do not seem to have thoughtfully considered those alternatives. The Intelligence Science Board, a federal advisory group, published a report in 2006 illustrating how those in charge of interrogations could have more thoroughly looked at options. The Israelis and British also have a huge amount of painfully acquired experience in using those alternatives, including in some cases where they really did have ticking bombs, either Palestinian or Irish. Neither of those countries can lawfully adopt the C.I.A. program revealed in the Justice Department memos; the Israeli Supreme Court has spoken to these issues in exceptionally eloquent opinions.

The United States has plenty of its own experience to consider, in law enforcement (remember the frenzy a generation ago over the Supreme Court’s Miranda decision requiring suspects to be read their rights?) as well as in war. In World War II, the United States and Britain had special programs for “high value” captives. Thousands of lives were at stake. Yet, even in a horrifyingly brutal war, neither government found it necessary to use methods like the ones in this C.I.A. program. George Marshall would not have needed a lawyer to tell him whether such methods were O.K.

More recent history is also revealing. America inadvertently carried out an experiment in how best to question Qaeda captives. On the one side there was the C.I.A. effort, while on the other there was the military-run program against Al Qaeda in Iraq. The Iraq program, organized by the Joint Special Operations Command, was reformed after the Abu Ghraib scandals. It respected basic international standards. It used teams made up of experts from the military, the C.I.A. and law enforcement. The F.B.I. did not have to stay away, as it did from the C.I.A.’s “enhanced” interrogations.

Qaeda captives in Iraq were hard cases, often more seasoned in violence than captives taken elsewhere. Yet the program in Iraq was and remains highly successful. I was impressed when I observed it in 2005 as part of a wider look at our intelligence efforts. I know that Joint Special Operations Command leaders told the White House that they could interrogate captives effectively under the higher standards.

There is another variable in the intelligence equation: the help you lose because your friends start keeping their distance. When I worked at the State Department, some of America’s best European allies found it increasingly difficult to assist us in counterterrorism because they feared becoming complicit in a program their governments abhorred. This was not a hypothetical concern.

A thoughtful inquiry parsing the pros and cons is necessary — but it may not end up finding much, if any, net intelligence value from using extreme methods. It should also consider the future of the C.I.A.: over the long haul, it might be best for the agency if its reputation rested on outstanding professional standards and patient expertise.

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Philip Zelikow, a professor of history at the University of Virginia, was the counselor of the State Department from 2005 to 2006 and the executive director of the 9/11 commission. He contributes to the Shadow Government blog at ForeignPolicy.com.

April 24th, 2009

Chris Mathews takes on a torture defender

April 24th, 2009

JPRA warned against use of “torture”

It turns out the the JPRA, the SERE parent agency, which provided advice on torture techniques also warned against their use. As the Washington Post reports, they issued a stunning memo clearly describing these techniques as “torture” and saying not to use them:

Document: Military Agency Referred to ‘Torture,’ Questioned Its Effectiveness

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick

he military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as “torture” in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon’s chief lawyer and warned that it would produce “unreliable information.”

“The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel,” says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. Parts of the attachment, obtained in full by The Washington Post, were quoted in a Senate report on harsh interrogation released this week.

It remains unclear whether the attachment reached high-ranking officials in the Bush administration. But the document offers the clearest evidence that has come to light so far that technical advisors on the harsh interrogation methods voiced early concerns about the effectiveness of applying severe physical or psychological pressure.

The document was included among July 2002 memoranda that described severe techniques used against Americans in past conflicts and the psychological effects of such treatment. JPRA ran the military program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), which trains pilots and others to resist hostile questioning.

The cautionary attachment was forwarded to the Pentagon’s Office of the General Counsel as the administration finalized the legal underpinnings of a CIA interrogation program that would sanction the use of 10 forms of coercion, including waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning. The JPRA material was sent from the Pentagon to the CIA’s acting general counsel, John A. Rizzo, and on to the Justice Department, according to testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A memo dated Aug. 1, 2002, from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel authorized the use of the 10 methods against Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of an al-Qaeda associate captured in Pakistan in March 2002. Former intelligence officials have recently contended that Abu Zubaida provided little useful information about the organization’s plans.

Senate investigators were unable to determine whether William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon’s general counsel in 2002, passed the cautionary memo to Rizzo or to other Bush administration officials reviewing the CIA’s proposed program.

Haynes declined to comment, as did Rizzo and the CIA. Jay S. Bybee, who as an assistant attorney general signed the Aug. 1 memo, did not respond to a request for comment.

Daniel Baumgartner, who was the JPRA’s chief of staff in 2002 and transmitted the memos and attachments, said the agency “sent a lot of cautionary notes” regarding harsh techniques. “There is a difference between what we do in training and what the administration wanted the information for,” he said a telephone interview yesterday. “What the administration decided to do or not to do was up to the guys dealing with offensive prisoner operations. . . . We train our own people for the worst possible outcome . . . and obviously the United States government does not torture its own people.”

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he thinks the attachment was deliberately ignored and perhaps suppressed. Excerpts from the document appeared in a report on the treatment of detainees released this month by Levin’s committee. The report says the attachment echoes JPRA warnings issued in late 2001.

“It’s part of a pattern of squelching dissent,” said Levin, who added that there were other instances in which internal reviews of detainee treatment were halted or undercut. “They didn’t want to hear the downside.”

A former administration official said the National Security Council, which was briefed repeatedly that summer on the CIA’s planned interrogation program by George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, and agency lawyers, did not discuss the issues raised in the attachment. Tenet declined comment through a spokesman.

“That information was not brought to the attention of the principals,” said the official, who was involved in deliberations on interrogation policy and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “That would have been relevant. The CIA did not present with pros and cons, or points of concern. They said this was safe and effective, and there was no alternative.”

The Aug. 1 memo on the interrogation of Abu Zubaida draws from the JPRA’s memo on psychological effects to conclude that while waterboarding constituted “a threat of imminent death,” it did not cause “prolonged mental harm.” Therefore, the Aug. 1 memo concluded, waterboarding “would not constitute torture within the meaning of the statute.”

But the JPRA’s two-page attachment, titled “Operational Issues Pertaining to the Use of Physical/Psychological Coercion in Interrogation,” questioned the effectiveness of employing extreme duress to gain intelligence.

“The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as possible — in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss of life — has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture,” the document said. “In essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative 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 information. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption.”

There was no consideration within the National Security Council that the planned techniques stemmed from Chinese communist practices and had been deemed torture when employed against American personnel, the former administration official said. The U.S. military prosecuted its own troops for using waterboarding in the Philippines and tried Japanese officers on war crimes charges for its use against Americans and other allied nationals during World War II.

The reasoning in the JPRA document contrasted sharply with arguments being pressed at the time by current and former military psychologists in the SERE program, including James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who later formed a company that became a CIA contractor advising on interrogations. Both men declined to comment on their role in formulating interrogation policy.

The JPRA attachment said the key deficiency of physical or psychological duress is the reliability and accuracy of the information gained. “A subject in pain may provide an answer, any answer, or many answers in order to get the pain to stop,” it said.

In conclusion, the document said, “the application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information.” The word “extreme” is underlined.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

April 24th, 2009

Shep Smith – We’re Americans. We Don’t Torture!

Fox News’ Shepard Smith and Judith Miller passionately denounce torture. Maybe there’s some hope for the right:

Later he went further, pounded the table and yelled We Don’t F*cking Torture!

April 24th, 2009

Swine flu in North America

I know I’ve been extremely concerned with the torture issue recently, and will continue to be. But I’ve also blogged a number of times on the avian  flu epidemic danger. Now word comes that swine flue is in North America. There are 60 potential swine flu deaths in Mexico and seven or so cases in the US, with no deaths. Unlike the fear of the last several years, this isn’t the H5N1 avian flu strain that we’ve beedn dreading might develop human-to-human transmission. Rather its a novel H1N1 strain, to which we have essentially no immunity. Revere at Effect Measure is a good source. he reports on a CDC phone call describing the current situation.

It could be a bumpy ride over the next few weeks or months. Or it could fizzle out. And H5N1 is still around, potentially mutating to allow human-to-human transmission.

3 comments April 24th, 2009

Krugman: Investigation is necessary for the soul

Paul Krugman endorses investigation and prosecution:

Reclaiming America’s Soul

By Paul Krugman

“Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” So declared President Obama, after his commendable decision to release the legal memos that his predecessor used to justify torture. Some people in the political and media establishments have echoed his position. We need to look forward, not backward, they say. No prosecutions, please; no investigations; we’re just too busy.

And there are indeed immense challenges out there: an economic crisis, a health care crisis, an environmental crisis. Isn’t revisiting the abuses of the last eight years, no matter how bad they were, a luxury we can’t afford?

No, it isn’t, because America is more than a collection of policies. We are, or at least we used to be, a nation of moral ideals. In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.

And the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.

What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true — even if truth and justice came at a high price — that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?

For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let’s be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?

Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job — which he’s supposed to do in any case — and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.

I don’t know about you, but I think America is capable of uncovering the truth and enforcing the law even while it goes about its other business.

Still, you might argue — and many do — that revisiting the abuses of the Bush years would undermine the political consensus the president needs to pursue his agenda.

But the answer to that is, what political consensus? There are still, alas, a significant number of people in our political life who stand on the side of the torturers. But these are the same people who have been relentless in their efforts to block President Obama’s attempt to deal with our economic crisis and will be equally relentless in their opposition when he endeavors to deal with health care and climate change. The president cannot lose their good will, because they never offered any.

That said, there are a lot of people in Washington who weren’t allied with the torturers but would nonetheless rather not revisit what happened in the Bush years.

Some of them probably just don’t want an ugly scene; my guess is that the president, who clearly prefers visions of uplift to confrontation, is in that group. But the ugliness is already there, and pretending it isn’t won’t make it go away.

Others, I suspect, would rather not revisit those years because they don’t want to be reminded of their own sins of omission.

For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract “confessions” that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way.

It’s hard, then, not to be cynical when some of the people who should have spoken out against what was happening, but didn’t, now declare that we should forget the whole era — for the sake of the country, of course.

Sorry, but what we really should do for the sake of the country is have investigations both of torture and of the march to war. These investigations should, where appropriate, be followed by prosecutions — not out of vindictiveness, but because this is a nation of laws.

We need to do this for the sake of our future. For this isn’t about looking backward, it’s about looking forward — because it’s about reclaiming America’s soul.

April 24th, 2009

Another report of torture before OLC memos

From Raw Story. another account of torture before the OLC provided their get-out-of-jail-free-card memos.  This report illustrates what the CIA torture manuals were about. Before the psychologists  systematized the torture based upon psychological principles of learned helplessness, the CIA used the old fashioned beating and spray with pepper spray style: of torture

Suit: Torture began before Bush administration sanctioned it
Detainee’s lawyer claims U.S. interrogators applied pepper spray to prisoner’s hemorrhoids

A man imprisoned after Sept. 11, 2001, as a suspected terrorist was tortured in numerous secret CIA prisons before Bush administration memos allowing the practice had even been written, according to a lawsuit filed in a Newark federal court on Thursday.

“Beginning in December 2001, [Rafiq] Alhami was tortured repeatedly, the lawsuit claims,” reported the Associated Press.

“The methods were varied: At different times Alhami was stripped naked, threatened with dogs, shackled in painful ’stress’ positions for hours, punched, kicked and exposed to extremes of heat and cold. The suit also alleges Alhami’s interrogators sprayed pepper spray on his hemorrhoids, causing extreme pain.”

The torture continued after Alhami was transferred to the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2003, where he currently is held, according to the suit.

“His lawyer, Joshua Denbeaux, said he believed Alhami is the first person to accuse U.S. officials of torture before the Justice Department issued a 2002 memo approving controversial interrogation tactics,” reported the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

“The suit names the Defense Department and more than 20 current and former military officials, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It seeks $10 million in damages.”

The suit also names former CIA Director George Tenet and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

“‘Rafiq was tortured before the memos authorizing torture were written,’ Denbeaux said,” according to the Ledger.

“Alhami has denied being a member of a terrorist group, and claims he was arrested based on information provided to the Iranian government by an Iranian citizen seeking a bounty,” reported CBS.

“According to the lawsuit, sometime within the last 18 months Alhami was convicted in absentia in Tunisia for violating that country’s Patriot Act, despite the act being passed in 2003, two years after he was detained by the U.S.”

Compiled by Stephen C. Webster.

1 comment April 24th, 2009