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

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that is, deliberately taking advantage of the administration's a priori beliefs. (Id.) A motive for this deception is not hard to find. Firstly, by telling the interrogators what their bosses wanted to hear, al- Libi might be able to gain freedom from torture, at least for some time. But it is also possible that al- Libi saw manipulating the US into a war with Iraq as a means of benefiting al Qaeda, in a sense replicating the jihadi movement's greatest victory in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union by bleeding the US in an endless (and expensive) war of occupation. In fact, a former jihadist who claims to have been a mole for MI5, MI6, and the French intelligence service (GDSE) argues that this was precisely the case. “Omar Nasiri” trained at Khalden under al-Libi where he received training in bombings, assassinations, withstanding torture and lying under interrogation. He claims that, when asked by another jihadist where the “best country to fight the jihad,” al-Libi replied “Iraq,” because it was the “weakest” Muslim country. (Standard, 23/11/2006) Furthermore, Hussein's regime was a secular dictatorship – exactly the sort of corrupted state that al Qaeda sought to replace with an Islamic Republic: al-Libi “knew what his interrogators wanted, and was happy to give it to them. He wanted to see Saddam toppled even more than the Americans did.” 111 If the administration's goal was simply to invade Iraq, and saw torture as a means to generate false confessions that it did not need, then this would imply a commonality of interests between the US and al Qaeda – the simpler explanation is that al-Libi's story fit the administration's prior beliefs sufficiently well that even analysis that recognized the canard was ignored. The case of al-Libi is critical for understanding how torture operates in the real world, for several reasons. Firstly, the detainee in question did in fact have intelligence crucial to the conduct of the War on Terror: other detainees, like Abu Zubaydah, had no intelligence, and thus guaranteeing that the interrogator (when it accepted their story) would be accepting misinformation. So torture could have worked in al-Libi's case. Secondly, the US was in a position to have investigated the detainee's claims – and in fact had done so, as we saw in the DIA analysis (DITSUM 044-02). Thirdly, the interrogators were conducted by Egyptians, whose state has a long history of using torture during interrogations: it is therefore exceedingly unlikely that the torture was not painful enough. 112 Fourthly, 111 The quote is taken from Nasiri's book, “Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda: a Spy's Story.” Perseus Books Group, NY (2006), p. 230. It is important to note that none of the intelligence services mentioned above has taken issue with Nasiri's claim to have been an informant, and at least one member of the CIA has spoken highly of his work as a spy, stating that Nasiri's claims track with his own knowledge as the former head of the CIA's bin Laden desk from . ( Washington Post, 20/03/2008;New York Times, 17/11/2006) 112 While we do not know exactly how al-Libi was tortured in Egypt, there are many stories regarding the nature of Egyptian interrogation. The State Department noted in a 2002 report that Egyptian detainees faced being “stripped and 131
these interrogations were conducted under CIA oversight: the US government was not in a position of having to rely on the Egyptian authorities to determine the value of the educed information. Lastly, the nature of the intelligence, and the way in which it was used by the administration, placed a major emphasis on getting it right: with so much individual and institutional prestige on the line over intelligence that, while helpful, was not strictly necessary in order to go to war against Iraq, it is highly unlikely that the administration had no interest in finding out the truth. In other words, in the case of al-Libi, we have a situation where we can assume that the state was torturing 'in good faith' (actually looking for true information and not simply false confessions), where where the state had strong intelligence capacity (it could separate truth from fiction), where the pain inflicted was severe, those directing the torture reliable, and where the US was able to distinguish truth from fiction with a high degree of certainty. The outcome was an intelligence catastrophe. 5.6. Conclusion As we have seen in this chapter, torture in the real world does not approximate torture in the movies, or on TV. While it is theoretically possible for the state to gain good information through the use of torture, the causal mechanism underlying claims of torture's effectiveness does not seem to work. The problem comes down to the information asymmetry between the captive and the state: the state does not know what the captive does and does not know. Because of this, the state is in a position of having to check the information that is revealed under torture: if it cannot credibly commit to doing so, then the captive has literally no incentive to cooperate, because the state will not be able to identify defection when it occurs. The sad truth about torture is that it is no different from any other method of interrogation: it relies on an intelligence apparatus that can investigate claims and identify lies. When the state can credibly commit to investigating, the rational captive will cooperate when the state threatens to waterboard them – but would do so as well if threatened with execution, or life imprisonment, or offered time off, or sufficiently nicer prison accommodations, or a financial reward, or any other offer that the detainee values more than the information they have to give. If the state cannot credibly commit to investigating the claims made, or if the state cannot commit not to torture blindfolded; suspended from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; subjected to electrical shocks; and doused with cold water and sexually assaulted.” (“Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2003,” US Department of State. Available at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27926.htm . ) 132
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEG
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This work is dedicated to my wife,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT vii 1. T
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ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Se
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judged by their effects. The deonto
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etter than chance on average, no ma
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from fiction, and also in the time
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the cases differ in how well inform
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characterization by method. Torture
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gather such evidence was strong, to
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ineffective. Something must prevent
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The description which it would be n
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powerful themselves. 21 While histo
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known by the misnomer 'torture-ligh
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substitute for intelligence gatheri
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This lack of good data on torture t
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found that the procedure can cause
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captive who has faced torture, and
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state cannot credibly commit to pla
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incentive not to present as favorab
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units, those engaged in the applica
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of causal mechanisms in a very dire
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the threats they face are real, whe
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3.1. Introduction. CHAPTER 3 THE WI
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discovered by Sir Thomas Newton and
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two, and the execution of the convi
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years preceding the outbreak at Sal
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these women - non-Church members, p
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Hubbard) and four grown and married
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innocent, and recalled that when he
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crowd was deeply and troublingly mo
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it was precisely in these terms tha
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came to an end. Misogyny was all to
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only the witch-trials that brought
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partners in their own (apparent) de
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possibility would be to question th
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John Bridges (whose own wife and da
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she again broke down and named seve
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forcing the already convicted to re
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We can thus see Tituba's confession
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Samuell Parris. 70 The strongest ev
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order to purge political dissidents
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torture as a failure based on this
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Page 89 and 90: time, the government in Paris was c
Page 91 and 92: for two reasons - first, because Me
Page 93 and 94: The Soummam conference in the Summe
Page 95 and 96: one of the primary justifications f
Page 97 and 98: DOP in particular is instructive fo
Page 99 and 100: us stops in the city center. These
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Page 103 and 104: dismantling of the ZAA organization
Page 105 and 106: found in the literature: the revela
Page 107 and 108: In fact, the use of torture did hav
Page 109 and 110: e.g.), by March (when the DPU had b
Page 111 and 112: Paul Teitgen appears to have been c
Page 113 and 114: the French public. 95 Secondly, the
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Page 119 and 120: y military interrogators. (Washingt
Page 121 and 122: fact come verbatim from a 1957 jour
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Page 127 and 128: name for metanetwork analysis. 102
Page 129 and 130: other words, the CIA High Value Det
Page 131 and 132: Padilla was accused by KSM of plott
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Page 135 and 136: alternative mechanism) by Darius Re
Page 137: York Times, 09/12/2005) Insofar as
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Page 143 and 144: CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: The Misleadin
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Page 147 and 148: situations (France in Algeria and V
Page 149 and 150: Jack Bauer was used as justificatio
Page 151 and 152: Biderman, Albert D. “Effects of C
Page 153 and 154: Crelinstein, Ronald and Alex Schmid
Page 155 and 156: History Teacher. 30:4 (1997): pp. 4
Page 157 and 158: International Council on Security a
Page 159 and 160: Lewis, Neil A. “Red Cross Finds D
Page 161 and 162: Obuchowski, Chester W. “Algeria:
Page 163 and 164: Schiemann, John W. “Interrogation
Page 165 and 166: Barack Obama is Inviting the Next A
Page 167 and 168: United States, Department of Defens
Page 169: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Patrick Armshaw
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