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

charge of paramilitary training at the Khalden training camp, training among others Zacarias
Moussaoui, the so-called 20 th hijacker, as well as Ahmed Ressam, the terrorist behind the LAX plot in
1999, Richard Reid, the “Shoe Bomber,” and Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 th
attacks. (Washington Post, 05/01/2002; BBC 16/11/2006) Al-Libi was picked up by the Pakistani
security services after September 11 th , and was transferred to US holdings shortly thereafter. He was, at
that time, the highest profile al Qaeda member to be questioned by the US. (New York Times,
06/01/2002) As a highly placed member of al Qaeda, al-Libi was in a position to reveal a potentially
large amount of information regarding the sorts of training that al Qaeda's members were receiving, as
well as information on membership in the group and the location and identity of al Qaeda leaders. For
his interrogation, however, he was sent to Egypt – at that time, the CIA had yet to receive authorization
for its High Value Detainee program, and so to have tortured him then would have been to break the
law without even the fig leaf of an OLC memo. (New York Times, 09/12/2005) Before he was
rendered into Egyptian custody, however, al-Libi had already begun to make references to links
between al Qaeda and Iraq – under torture in Egypt, he fleshed these references out, stating that Iraq
had trained al Qaeda fighters in the use of “bomb-making, poisons and deadly gasses.” (New York
Times, 08/10/2002)
This intelligence almost immediately became a major talking point for the administration during
the build up to the Iraq invasion. It was repeated not only by low-level press officials, but by the
President himself during a major speech in Cincinnati on October 7 th 2002 where he made the case for a
preemptive invasion of Iraq. It was also repeated by then Secretary of State Colin Powell during his
speech before the United Nations Security Council on February 5th 2003 as part of a campaign to gain
international support for the attack. 108 In every conceivable way, the intelligence that came from al-Libi
under Egyptian torture was publicly disseminated by the administration, placing on the line the prestige
and reputation of not only the US, but also those, like Colin Powell, who had personally vouched for its
authenticity. But this intelligence turned out to have been false: shortly after the invasion of Iraq, al-
Libi recanted his story, leading the CIA to withdraw its support from the intelligence by March 2004.
(New York Times, 31/07/2004) By relying on the tortured words of al-Libi, the administration had
presented false information not only to the American public, but also to the global community. (New
108 The full transcript of Powell's speech before the UNSC can be found at the following website:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77675,00.html . Powell refers to al-Libi as a “senior Al Qaeda terrorist (…)
responsible for one of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan.”
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