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

in Cuba. (White, 2005)
Moreover, the abuse was not limited to the Abu Ghraib prison itself. Testimony from other
detention centers makes clear that abusive conditions were not simply a case of a few bad apples, or
even of generalized poor conditions. Instead, detainees were abused in concert with the needs and
desires of intelligence officers, both inside the military and in the CIA. Individuals captured in night
raids or otherwise by US forces would be held initially at forward operating bases for approximately
three days before being transferred to Abu Ghraib. Detainees would be interrogated for tactical
information – that is, for information of immediate and time-sensitive value. 100 According to
anonymous testimony from three US soldiers working at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Mercury,
violence against captives was not only pervasive but had become normalized. “The torture (…) had
become a means of stress-relief for soldiers. Soldiers said they felt welcome to come to the PUC
[Persons Under Control – a term replacing POW: HRW, p. 4] tent on their off hours to 'Fuck a PUC' or
'Smoke a PUC.' To 'Fuck a PUC' referred to beating a detainee, while 'Smoking a PUC' referred to
forced physical coercion sometime to the point of unconsciousness.” Any resulting broken bones would
generally be categorized as injuries sustained while being arrested, with a physician's assistant signing
off on the falsehood. (p. 5) However, the violence was also geared towards producing intelligence:
“Officers and NCOs from the Military Intelligence unit would direct guards to 'smoke' the detainees
prior to an interrogation, and would direct that certain detainees were not to receive sleep, water, or
food beyond crackers. Directed 'smoking' would last for 12-24 hours prior to an interrogation.” (Id.)
The ICRC similarly found widespread use of violence against detainees during capture in areas
throughout the country, including Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and Tikrit, but found that coercive
interrogations were reserved for “persons arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or
deemed to have an 'intelligence' value.” (ICRC, 2004, p. 3) The restrictiveness of this reservation is
hard to parse however: the Red Cross also found widespread evidence of abuse of authority by
members of the Iraqi police force, specifically blackmailing individuals with being handed over to the
Coalition Forces and making false accusations against those who did not or could not pay. In other
words, even if the Coalition restricted the use of interrogational coercion (up to and including torture)
100 This is in distinction from the 'strategic' information sought by interrogators at Abu Ghraib. In terms of the ticking
bomb, none of the interrogations at Abu Ghraib (or indeed at GTMO) would qualify, since any time-sensitive
information would have to be extracted as quickly as possible, at the point of capture, or immediately thereafter.
(Schlesinger Report, p. 58)
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