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

calories). EITs included: slamming the detainee wearing a plastic neck collar to prevent whiplash
against a “false wall;” confinement of two hours in the “small box” and 18 hours in the “large” one,
with or without harmless insects; stress positions; sleep deprivation up to 11 days; and finally
waterboarding. (p. 15) Waterboarding was itself subject to limitations on use, although these tended to
be essentially advisory: “[i]f more than 3 sessions of 5 or more applications are envisioned within a 24
hour period, a careful medical assessment must be made before each later session.” (OIG, annex F; 10)
In practice, these techniques would be used in conjunction with each other: standard procedure
according to detainee testimony was to combine stress positions with sleep deprivation, induce
hypothermia before waterboarding, and so on.
How well, then, did this torture work? According to the CIA itself, the HVD program was
highly successful. In memos and press releases from 2004 and 2005, the CIA points to the apparent
cooperation of Khalid Shaykh Muhammed (KSM) after being waterboarded, leading to the disruption
of terrorist plots and the saving of American lives. A careful examination of these claims, however,
reveals a more ambiguous picture. In a brief report entitled “Khalid Shaykh Muhammed: Preeminent
Source on Al-Qa'ida,” the CIA lists the information that KSM has revealed, the vast majority of which
appears to be historical in nature or, where intelligence breakthroughs occurred leading to the arrest of
suspected terrorists, the result of KSM mistakenly revealing information he believed already to be
common knowledge. (CIA, “KSM”) KSM revealed information regarding the structure of al Qaeda, as
well as how al Qaeda “might conduct surveillance of targets” in the US, and “how it might select
targets,” as well as details on plots that had already been broken up (such as the “Library Tower” plot
and the Heathrow plot), but no indication is given that intelligence provided by KSM broke up any
extant plots. 105 KSM apparently did provide information leading, at least indirectly, to the capture of
several terrorists including Iyman Faris, Jose Padilla, Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin) as well as a cell of
14 members of the Indonesian jihadist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Pakistan. (“KSM, pp. 1-3)
However, in none of these cases was KSM's role particularly crucial: Iyman Faris was already under
suspicion by the FBI, and had agreed to act as a double agent after being confronted by them; Jose
105 The Library Tower plot had been broken up in early 2002, nearly a year before KSM's arrest in March of 2003.
Likewise, the Heathrow plot had been revealed to the British government in February of 2003. (Guardian, 10/11/2010)
President Bush would nonetheless claim that KSM's torture had in fact revealed both plots in speeches as well as in his
memoirs – a falsehood that would find repeated life among conservative commentators, news services, and bloggers.
See, for example, the writings of Marc A. Thiessen, former speech writer to George W. Bush, in his column at the
Washington Post as well as his recent book, “Courting Disaster” (Regnery). The OIG report itself “did not uncover any
evidence that these plots [or others identified through torture] were imminent.” (p.88)
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