What We Know about Torture
Ali Soufan, a supervisory special agent in the FBI from 1997 to 2005, writes a compelling op-ed in today’s New York Times, in which he rebuts claims that the use of torture on Abu Zubaydah produced actionable intelligence where traditional methods had failed.
He writes:
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
You can read the entire op-ed here.
The Times this morning also included a news analysis piece by Scott Shane that surveys the competing claims by proponents and opponents of torture. It concludes that we may never know whether or not torture produced useful intelligence that could not have been gleaned by other methods. But Shane does quote FBI Director Robert Mueller that no plots were disrupted by intelligence gathered from torture.
In an interview with Vanity Fair last year, the F.B.I. director since 2001, Robert S. Mueller III, was asked whether any attacks had been disrupted because of intelligence obtained through the coercive methods. “I don’t believe that has been the case,” Mr. Mueller said. (A spokesman for Mr. Mueller, John Miller, said on Tuesday, “The quote is accurate.”)
Shane is probably right. We may never know whether or not the use of torture was “effective.” But that should not stop us from declaring what we do know:
- the use of torture was wrong;
- it devastated any effort to prosecute these individuals by invalidating, legally, anything gained during tortured interrogations–accurate or not; and
- it destroyed the ability of the FBI and CIA to work together–one of the shortcomings identified by the 9/11 commission.
Finally, in stooping to torture, we betrayed our own identity, we compromised our moral authority, and as a result we damaged our own security.
