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

al-Qaeda is structured, names of individuals, techniques and tactics that al Qaeda might use. What
stands out is how little this information approximates the 'ticking bomb' scenario inevitably used to
justify torture ethically. The US apparently never found itself in the position of having the terrorist in
hand, knowing that he knew where the bomb was located, knowing that he would not talk unless
tortured, and then using torture to extract that information. But perhaps this is not surprising when we
consider that the 'ticking bomb' scenario is one where torture would be least likely to work because the
time-sensitive nature of the information makes it increasingly difficult for the state to take the time to
tell truth from fiction. From the point of view of the bomber, misinformation is a dominant strategy:
even if the state is eventually able to figure out that the location given is a lie, it has bought time for the
real bomb to go off. In other words, the more ethically justifiable torture is, the less likely it is to work.
Finally, if the state places any irrational faith in the efficacy of torture – if the state believes that torture
works – then threats to investigate cease to be credible. Even where such a state does investigate, as
occurred under al-Libi's torture, the state that believes in torture may discount evidence against the
confession, since doing otherwise would be throwing away information that must be right. This is
especially possible when the tortured confession matches the state's prior beliefs.
The case of al-Libi is particularly useful in this sense: because it is the situation where torture
should have been most likely to work – and in which torture failed with disastrous consequences for the
United States – it sheds light on how torture has been conducted across the War on Terror. As seen in
the HVD program, at Abu Ghraib and in Guantanamo, there is little evidence that the US torture more
effectively, and considerable evidence that torture failed on balance to benefit the US. Interestingly, al-
Libi revealed one more interesting bit of information to his Egyptian (and potentially CIA)
interrogators: pressed for the names of other al Qaeda members, he reveals the name and location of
Abu Zubaydah – an individual with almost no real information value for the US. Abu Zubaydah's
capture and interrogation results in a mass of information being unveiled – nearly all of it false, and the
rest of it useless. But because the US believed al-Libi, it believed Abu Zubaydah. The US would
spend millions of dollars and months of work tracking down false leads and phantom threats, diverting
attention and resources from actual terrorists and their actual plans.
While it is not impossible for torture to work in individual cases, there does not appear to be
any evidence that torture works systematically – that the state that relies on torture for information will
find itself better off on average than the state that refrains. There is, however, considerable reason to
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