Right: President Bush's support of "enhanced interrogation" techniques was questioned after the loss of the twin towers. He was also lampooned, as with this poster.
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Arguments in favour of using torture on suspected terrorists
1. Terrorists pose a very grave risk to national safety
The severity of the threat which the United States continued to face after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks has been presented as a justification of the interrogation methods employed by the CIA.
A group of former CIA employees responded to the Senate committee report in defence of the actions the Agency took. They have established an Internet site on which to present their arguments. There they claim, 'This was a time we had solid evidence that al Qaida was planning a second wave of attacks against the U.S.; we had certain knowledge that bin Laden had met with Pakistani nuclear scientists and wanted nuclear weapons; we had reports that nuclear weapons were being smuggled into New York City; and we had hard evidence that al Qaida was trying to manufacture anthrax. It felt like a "ticking time bomb" every single day.'
The group further explains, 'In this atmosphere, time was of the essence. We had a deep responsibility to do everything within the law to stop another attack. We clearly understood that, even with legal and policy approvals, our decisions would be questioned years later. But we also understood that we would be morally culpable for the deaths of fellow citizens if we failed to gain information that could stop the next attacks.'
President George W Bush in his 2011 memoir 'Decision Points' defended the use of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques. President Bush stated, 'I knew that an interrogation program this sensitive and controversial would one day become public. When it did, we would open ourselves up to criticism that America had compromised our moral values.
I would have preferred that we get the information another way. But the choice between security and values was real. Had I not authorised waterboarding on senior al Qaeda leaders, I would have had to accept a greater risk that the country would be attacked. In the wake of 9/11, that was a risk I was unwilling to take. My most solemn responsibility as president was to protect the country. I approved the use of the interrogation techniques.'
Even President Barack Obama, who is opposed to the use of torture, has acknowledged, 'I understand why it happened. I - I think it - it's important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twins towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this.'
2. Terrorists do not adhere to international codes of military conduct and are not protected by them
It has been claimed that terrorists are not conventional military combatants, that they do not operate under international wartime conventions and so they do not have the protections that apply to prisoners of war.
The Geneva Conventions are the principal statements of appropriate conduct between combatants that are signatories to these Conventions and are engaged in a formally declared war. John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, writing for the Wall Street Journal and published on May 26, 2004, stated, 'The conflict with al Qaeda is not governed by the Geneva Conventions, which apply only to international conflicts between states that have signed them. Al Qaeda is not a nation-state, and its members-as they demonstrated so horrifically on Sept. 11, 2001-violate the very core principle of the laws of war by targeting innocent civilians for destruction.'
Professor Yoo went on to explain further, 'The reasons to deny Geneva status to terrorists extend beyond pure legal obligation. The primary enforcer of the laws of war has been reciprocal treatment: We obey the Geneva Conventions because our opponent does the same with American POWs. That is impossible with al Qaeda. It has never demonstrated any desire to provide humane treatment to captured Americans. If anything, the murders of Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl declare al Qaeda's intentions to kill even innocent civilian prisoners.'
Professor Yoo concluded, 'It is also worth asking whether the strict limitations of Geneva make sense in a war against terrorists. Al Qaeda operates by launching surprise attacks on civilian targets with the goal of massive casualties. Our only means for preventing future attacks, which could use WMDs, is by acquiring information that allows for pre-emptive action. Once the attacks occur, as we learned on Sept. 11, it is too late. It makes little sense to deprive ourselves of an important, and legal, means to detect and prevent terrorist attacks while we are still in the middle of a fight to the death with al Qaeda.'
A similar point was made by former vice president Dick Cheney in an interview given on December 10, 2014. Cheney stated, 'The terrorists were not covered by the Geneva Convention. They were unlawful combatants. And under those circumstances, they were not entitled to the normal kinds of courtesies and treatment you would accord to those [who were lawful combatants.]
3. Terrorists do not respond to conventional modes of interrogation
It has been claimed that many terrorist suspects are highly resistant to conventional forms of interrogation. The British police, for example, claim that some hardened criminals and terrorist suspects may simply refuse to talk.
Peter Clarke, a former head of counterterrorism at the London Metropolitan Police, stated in 2008, 'The vast majority of terrorist suspects maintain their right to silence... the walls of Paddington Green police station rarely reverberate with outpourings of guilt and contrition.'
Arnold Steinberg, in an article published in The Jewish Journal on March 23, 2006, encouraged his readers to consider the fact that many terrorists did not respond to conventional questioning and that more extreme measures may be needed in order to gain life-saving information.
Steinberg wrote, 'Consider the case of an Al Qaeda terrorist who did not respond for months to conventional interrogation. His interrogators eventually manufactured a fraudulent photograph of his wife and two children, with the Arabic caption, "They need their father's love." He broke, providing valuable information.'
In an article published in City Journal in December, 2005, Heather MacDonald explains that some of the al Qaeda fighters had received resistance training. In 2002 the United States acquired a seized al-Qaeda manual which coached terrorists in how to resist interrogation.
MacDonald quotes an interrogator from Guantanamo Bay who stated, 'The jihadists would tell you, "I've divorced this life, I don't care about my family."' Many of the usual bases for appeal when interrogating suspects are claimed to not be present in terrorist suspects.
A United States interrogator, Joe Martin, has explained the psychological effect of stress which, he claims, is to induce uncertainty in the mind of a detainee about the level of coercion an interrogator might use.
Martin states, 'Let's say a detainee comes into the interrogation booth and he's had resistance training. He knows that I'm completely handcuffed and that I can't do anything to him. If I throw a temper tantrum, lift him onto his knees, and walk out, you can feel his uncertainty level rise dramatically. He's been told: "They won't physically touch you," and now you have. The point is not to beat him up but to introduce the reality into his mind that he doesn't know where your limit is.'
4. Torture is an effective mode of interrogation
The CIA and others who have used torture generally defend the value and the accuracy of the information it illicits. The CIA, in response to the Senate committee report criticising the worth of the information obtained through torture, stated that information gleaned from detainees in CIA custody 'substantially advanced the Agency's strategic and tactical understanding of the enemy in ways that continue to inform counterterrorism efforts to this day'.
A group of former CIA employees responded to the Senate committee report in defence of the actions the Agency took. They have established an Internet site on which to present their arguments. There they claim, 'The report defies credulity by saying that the interrogation program did not produce any intelligence value. In fact, the program led to the capture of senior al Qaida leaders, including helping to find Osama bin Ladin, and resulted in operations that led to the disruption of terrorist plots that saved thousands of American and allied lives.'
On July 27, 2013, the Director General of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, replied to the Senate committee report regarding the supposed inaccuracy of the information obtained through torture. Brennan stated, 'In particular, the Agency disagrees with the Study's unqualified assertions that the overall detention and interrogation program did not produce unique intelligence that led terrorist plots to be disrupted, terrorists to be captured, or lives to be saved.'
The Chief Director then referred to appendices to his response which support the claims he makes about the value of the information received.
Similar claims have been made by former United States vice president Dick Cheney. Mr Cheney stated of the Senate report criticising the United States' use of enhanced interrogation techniques, 'The report's full of crap. It did in fact produce actionable intelligence that kept us safe from attacks.'
5. The CIA's use of torture was authorised and overseen
Defenders of the CIA's use of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques have argued that the interrogation was not unauthorised or unsupervised. They argue that the program had presidential authorisation, was approved at other points along the United States chain of command and that its operation was adequately overseen.
A group of former CIA employees responded to the Senate committee report in defence of the actions the Agency took. They have established an Internet site on which to present their arguments. There they claim, 'We, as former senior officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, created this website to present documents that conclusively demonstrate that the program was: authorized by the President, overseen by the National Security Council, and deemed legal by the Attorney General of the United States on multiple occasions... CIA relied on their policy and legal judgments. We deceived no one.'
On July 27, 2013, the Director General of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, replied to the Senate committee report regarding the supposedly unauthorised and unsupervised nature of CIA interrogation procedures. Brennan stated, 'Regarding the Study's claim that the Agency resisted internal and external oversight and deliberately misrepresented the program to Congress; the Executive Branch, the media, and the American people, the factual record maintained by the Agency does not support such conclusions.'
In His 2011 memoire 'Decision Points', President George Bush claims that he was aware of the interrogation techniques employed by the CIA and considered them legal. President Bush states, 'On March 28, 2002...At my direction, Department of Justice and CIA lawyers conducted a careful legal review. They concluded that the enhanced interrogation program complied with the Constitution and all applicable laws, including those that ban torture...'
The CIA has directly disputed claims that it conducted its interrogation practices without notifying and therefore without the knowledge of those bodies responsible for its oversight.
In its response to the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) the CIA stated, 'CIA briefed SSCI members and staff on rendition, detention and interrogation issues 35 times from 2002-2008. There were 30 similar briefings to the HPSCI (Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) and 20 notifications provided to both committees during this period.'