The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information
The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information
The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information
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Ghraib. (Schlesinger, p.60) <strong>The</strong> bureaucratic paralysis also meant that prisoners were difficult to track,<br />
leading to multiple escapes, including by high Value Detainees, and that detainees were rarely released,<br />
even after having been cleared <strong>of</strong> any charges. (Taguba, p. 25) This bureaucratic morass becomes even<br />
more troubling when we consider that an estimated “70 to 90 percent <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> persons deprived <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake.” (ICRC 2004:8)<br />
A good indication <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> ability <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> intelligence <strong>for</strong>ces at Abu Ghraib to adequately<br />
investigate <strong>the</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation given to <strong>the</strong>m under interrogation can be found in how prisoners whom it<br />
had been determined were not a threat to <strong>the</strong> Coalition were treated. If MI <strong>of</strong>ficers had high confidence<br />
in <strong>the</strong>se assessments, deciding that <strong>the</strong> detainee was ignorant or had told all he knew, <strong>the</strong>n we would<br />
expect <strong>the</strong> detainee to be released, not least in order to free up much needed space at <strong>the</strong> over crowded<br />
prison. In reality, however, this rarely occurred: detainees were <strong>of</strong>ten held <strong>for</strong> months after being<br />
cleared <strong>for</strong> release. In fact, 60% <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> total detainee population was categorized as those who had<br />
committed “Crimes against <strong>the</strong> Coalition” but who had no intelligence value and no longer posed a<br />
significant threat: <strong>the</strong> “Detainee Releasing Authority,” Maj General Barbara Fast “routinely denied <strong>the</strong><br />
board's recommendations to release detainees in this category who (…) clearly met <strong>the</strong> requirement <strong>for</strong><br />
release.” (Taguba, p. 25) <strong>The</strong> authorities could not be certain that <strong>the</strong> detainees had told all <strong>the</strong>y knew,<br />
or that apparently innocent detainees were not actually combatants. (Schlesinger, p. 61) This<br />
uncertainty was to influence <strong>the</strong> decisions <strong>of</strong> bureaucrats and interrogators at Guantanamo, Afghanistan<br />
and Iraq alike: “In talking to some <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>of</strong>ficers at Kandahar and Bagram … <strong>the</strong>y all talk about how<br />
<strong>the</strong>re was this great fear among <strong>the</strong>m, those who were going to be putting <strong>the</strong>ir signatures to <strong>the</strong> release<br />
<strong>of</strong> prisoners,great fear that <strong>the</strong>y were somehow going to manage to release somebody who would later<br />
turn out to be <strong>the</strong> 20 th hijacker.” 101<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is reason to believe that <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> interrogations applied to a very large swath <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
detainee population, regardless <strong>of</strong> participation in <strong>the</strong> insurgency. As related by Col. Larry Wilkinson,<br />
chief <strong>of</strong> Staff to Secretary <strong>of</strong> State Colin Powell during <strong>the</strong> first George W. Bush administration,<br />
military intelligence and <strong>the</strong> CIA had begun to develop “an ad hoc intelligence philosophy” that would<br />
be used to justify <strong>the</strong> holding and continued interrogation <strong>of</strong> those detainees known to be innocent <strong>of</strong><br />
any ties to terrorism, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, known as <strong>the</strong> “mosaic philosophy” - <strong>the</strong> military<br />
101 Excerpt from an interview on National Public Radio <strong>of</strong> 'Chris Mackey' – <strong>the</strong> pseudonym <strong>of</strong> a US interrogator in<br />
Afghanistan 2002. Quoted in Danner (2009).<br />
119