DOES TORTURE WORK ?

A book-length federal government report tackles a major question of our time: how to get information effectively from unwilling prisoners to defend against terrorism. The short answer is that no one really knows.

The authors, a group of experts advising intelligence agencies, agree that interrogation methods used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are largely ineffective and often counterproductive. They urge further research to try to determine “what works.”

The document is widely considered must reading for interrogators, government officials and especially the Bush administration personnel who are meeting to write new rules for getting information out of terrorism suspects.

Part of the problem is that some of the current interrogators, as well as the general public, have been misled by television shows that simplify the process by showing that some well-placed torture can suddenly produce information that can, say, save a big city from terrorist destruction.

The document is titled “Educing Information,” noting that the word “interrogation” often carries negative connotations. But the document is all about interrogation.

Coercion was standard practice for centuries. But in World War II, British and American authorities came to rely primarily on persuasion, through developing “rapport” with prisoners.

That lesson was lost when emphasis shifted to training American captives how to resist “brainwashing” in Korean and Vietnamese prison camps and U.S. interrogation methods shifted back to coercion. Some writers conceded that coercion may work in certain circumstances, but said no research has yet told interrogators what those circumstances are.

The study followed a premise that the United States needs to obtain information from unwilling suspects, that the process should be based on social and behavioral science, and that getting it wrong can incur major costs while getting it right can benefit national security.

John A. Walquist of the National Defense Intelligence College summed up the urgency of the project: “Failure to act now risks not only the lives of prisoners and detainees, the success of coalition operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror, or even our country’s greater security interests. Hanging in the balance is our very identity as a nation – the heart and soul of the United States and the values of life, liberty and justice that American service members are fighting and dying to preserve. Clearly, we must persevere in this effort to find the truth.”

The search must go on. Significantly, this volume is designated as “Phase 1 Report.”