Enhanced interrogation techniques

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

Enhanced interrogation techniques are a term used, in the original context of interrogating persons, in U.S. Central Intelligence Agency custody, suspected of involvement in terrorism and deemed High Value Detainees by the George W. Bush Administration. These techniques became more widely used by both military and intelligence personnel. President Barack Obama's decision to release documents detailing the methods was a compromise between the views of civil libertarians and intelligence officials. ^[1]

Some simply consider the term to be euphemistic for torture, but the truth is more in shades of gray than a black and white decision to use torture to gain information. Virtually all of the methods came from Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training given to U.S. military personnel at risk of capture. They were adopted shortly after the 9-11 attack by officials and military commanders, at a time of shortage of skilled interrogators, although the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Attorney General at the end of the Bush administration ^[2] said that half of the key U.S. information on al-Qaeda came from using the techniques on the High Value Detainees.

While they may have violated criteria of the Third Geneva Convention, it had been the legal position of the George W. Bush Administration that the Conventions did not apply to al-Qaeda members and Taliban leadership. Analysis by the Bush Administration's Office of Legal Counsel also held that they did not violate the Convention against Torture (CAT) when interpreted in light of the U.S. Senate caveats on ratification of the CAT. These caveats limited the interpretation of torture to that within principles of the United States Constitution and U.S. laws prohibiting torture.

There is little question that the techniques constituted coercive interrogation. It is also fair to say that the individual methods were not of the type that caused permanent physical harm, as did the iconic rack and burning coals of the Inquisition, or more recent joint dislocations on U.S. personnel prisoners of war in the Vietnam War. Whether or not they caused psychological damage is more difficult to say. Whether or not they damaged U.S. foreign relations, or the more subtle issue of moral authority, is beyond the scope of this article.

Arguments in favor of their use include military necessity. Indeed, some legal experts, such as Alan Dershowitz, have argued that outright torture is morally justified in "ticking bomb" scenarios. ^[3]

General principles of methods

As originally intended by the CIA, ^[4]

• Conditioning techniques to wear the detainee down to a “dependent state”
• Corrective techniques are used to “correct, startle, or ... achieve another enabling objective” All of the corrective interrogation techniques involve physical contact between interrogator and prisoner, but were not intended to cause damage or severe pain.
• Coercive techniques “place the detainee in more physical and psychological stress”

Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, after reviewing legal opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the U.S. Department of Justice, justifying these methods as within U.S. and international law, commented that "it appears that the OLC authors proceeded not out of sadism or indifference, but out of desperation." ^[5]

While the initial authorization indeed was limited to the Central Intelligence Agency, at least some of the techniques diffused to prisoners in military custody.

One particular method, waterboarding, has been singled out as most likely to be construed as torture, as by Susan Crawford, a retired judge and former Army general counsel appointed by the Bush Administration.^[6] She rejected military tribunal charges for an individual subjected to this and other methods.

References