The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

03/10/2004)
Moreover, the character of the evidence presented varies widely in quality: in addition to the 11
individuals who were charged with having personally met Osama bin Laden, others were identified as
enemy combatants for possessing rifles or a Casio watch, wearing olive drab clothing, sleeping at a
guest house used in the past by al Qaeda, and having been conscripted into the Taliban's armed forces.
(p. 17) One detainee was declared an enemy combatant on the following evidence:
Detainee is associated with the Taliban.
The detainee indicates he was conscripted into the Taliban.
Detainee engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition partners.
The detainee admits he was a cook's assistant for Taliban forces in Narim, Afghanistan
under command of Haji Mullah Baki.
Detainee fled from Narim to Kabul during the Northern Alliance attack and surrendered
to the Northern Alliance. 97
Problematically, the apparent assumption that those fighting with the Taliban, including those
conscripted by force, could be classified as dead-enders, or as 'the worst of the worst' in the words of
Donald Rumsfeld is somewhat attenuated by the recent finding that over 90% of southern Afghanis
(i.e., those most likely to support or have been under the control of the Taliban) were unaware of the
link between the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan, even almost nine years after the fact.
(ICOS, p. 28)
The limited nature of the allegations against most detainees, as well as the fact that some of the
evidence alleged stemmed from (potentially coerced) denunciations by other detainees must make us
question how much intelligence these individuals would be able to provide. This suspicion is
strengthened when we consider that the highest value detainees, high ranking members of al Qaeda and
the Taliban, were not sent to GTMO until September 2006. Until then, these individuals had been held
by the CIA in so-called 'black sites,' and had been hidden from the Red Cross. (ICRC, 2007)
Nonetheless, interrogations did proceed against detainees, and there are several indications that these
interrogations were essentially coercive. On January 5 th , 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) released a group of emails from FBI agents at GTMO complaining of abusive methods used
97 From the summary of evidence for an unidentified detainee, quoted in Denbeaux and Denbeaux, p. 17.
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