War on Terror Watch: Putting Away the "Torture is Effective" Argument

Over the weekend, former Bush Administration officials continued blowing smoke that the release of Government memoranda confirming the authorisation of torture was a "threat to national security" (rather than admitting that they are trying to cover up their roles in an illegal and ineffective programme). There was also some media silliness, notably a lengthy piece by Scott Shane in The New York Times that offered the choice, "Would you rather be tortured or hit by a Hellfire missile?" (Scott, I believe the answer is, "Neither.")

Two articles, however, got to the heart of the matter: the Bush-era torture didn't work.
Ironically, the first is by the same Scott Shane of the insipid "waterboarding or death by missile" dilemma:

The first use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against a prisoner from Al Qaeda was ordered by senior Central Intelligence Agency officials despite the belief of interrogators that the prisoner had already told them all he knew, according to former intelligence officials and a footnote in a newly released legal memorandum. The escalation to especially brutal interrogation tactics against the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, including confining him in boxes and slamming him against the wall, was ordered by officials at C.I.A. headquarters based on a highly inflated assessment of his importance, interviews and a review of newly released documents show. Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case.

Shane's piece, which follows an even better investigation by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick of The Washington Post, confirms:

1. The first priority for key members of the Bush Administration, based in the Vice President's office and the Department of Defense and supported by the Office of Legal Counsel, was to get acceptance that "enhanced interrogation" could and would be used. 2. Those officials wanted a "demonstration case" for the techniques. To justify that, they needed a "high-value" detainee. They didn't have one at this point (this was before the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, one of the 9-11 planners), so they exaggerated intelligence to create one. 3. Senior CIA officials, probably including Director George Tenet, supported this and overruled CIA personnel "on the ground" who had better knowledge of Abu Zubaydah and the information he was giving. 3. The torture of Abu Zubaydah set aside an interrogation which was providing some useful information and instead led to inaccurate and false statements. At the website Firedoglake, "Emptywheel" pulls out an important detail from the torture memoranda:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammad].

To put that number in perspective, Emptywheel notes this paragraph:

...where authorized, it may be used for two "sessions" per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water appliaction. Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period.

That adds up to a maximum --- for 12 minutes in a 24-hour period --- of 90 waterboarding in a month, only 1/2 of the actual treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Yet, six years later, despite this extraordinary application of "enhanced interrogation" techniques, Bush Administration defenders of torture still cannot point to one significant piece of intelligence produced by the waterboardings.