Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Work

Outgoing CIA director Michael Hayden defended the use of enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding.

ABC News’ Luis Martinez reports: CIA Director Michael Hayden offered a spirited defense of the agency’s controversial detention and interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which Attorney General nominee Eric Holder characterized today as “torture.” Hayden said the techniques provided extremely useful information about al Qaeda and have led to repeated successes against the terror network.
…
Hayden was not CIA Director at the time that the enhanced techniques were legally authorized for use at secret CIA prisons, but he offered a strong defense nonetheless. “I am convinced that the program got the maximum amount of information. Particularly out of that first generation of detainees.”

Referring to 9-11plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and al Qaeda financier Abu Zubaydah, Hayden said he couldn’t conceive of another way for them to have provided useful intelligence, “given their character and given their commitment to what it is they do.”

“You can’t say it didn’t work. It worked,” Hayden said in a wide-ranging farewell interview with reporters at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Va.

Let’s put aside the question of legality and morality and address the question of effectiveness. Our friend Silke at Hooah Wife is always arguing that “torture”, as she calls it, does not work. We have spirited debates on this issue and others. I have often argued that our intelligence agencies would have to be sadistic to use techniques like that if they did not work and I do not believe that we are a sadistic nation. The CIA is only interested in getting truthful, actionable intelligence and if these techniques were not effective or even counterproductive as Silke says, they would not have been used at all. Director Hayden is probably in the best position to vouch for its effectiveness and has reaffirmed it in this article. I don’t know how you can argue against the facts of success. I think many who argue that these techniques don’t work do so in hopes that you will be swayed by the passion and force of their argument because of their strong distaste for the techniques used. There is a tendency when liberals don’t have the facts on their side that if they say something loud enough and often enough that it will eventually be accepted as truth. I will concede that there are some ethical and political issues worth debating, but I just can’t buy the argument against its effectiveness especially when it is contradicted by the premier intelligence expert in the country.

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12 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

Scott said: Director Hayden is probably in the best position to vouch for it’s effectiveness and has reaffirmed it in this article.
Then why is he so vague about what specific information was learned as a result of waterboarding? It’s not as if this administration hasn’t revealed specific information about attacks that have been thwarted as a result of the wiretap program.
I don’t know how you can argue against the facts of success.
It depends on how you define “success.” What specific information was learned as a result of waterbaording?
There is a tendency when liberals don’t have the facts on their side that if they say something loud enough and often enough that it will eventually be accepted as truth.
That can apply to anyone, not just a liberal. Personally I consider myself a conservative and I can’t think of anything more conservative than upholding the rule of law.

1. Silke on January 20th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Silke said, “Then why is he so vague about what specific information was learned as a result of waterboarding?”

Silke probably isn’t nearly as old as I am and thus may not recall that during WWII there was a saying that “loose lips sink ships”. Thus no responsible person said anything that might provide information to those that were hell-bent on defeating the USA. The saying was true then, and it’s still true today.

2. Don on January 21st, 2009 at 8:14 am
Scott, I’m quite familiar with that slogan. It’s actually still used today throughout the military and especially in the intelligence community (where I worked) which is charged with education and enforcement of operational security.
As I stated earlier the administration has already provided specific information on what intelligence has been learned from controversial programs authorized by the administration – for instance the warrantless wiretapping program. There is far more reason to protect sources and methods for this program than the waterboarding interrogation technique. So this cannot be the reason.
Can you please define what “success” means other than asserting – well if he said it worked it must have.

3. Silke on January 21st, 2009 at 8:46 am
Hi Silke. You were actually responding to Don’s answer, not mine. But I will say that the word of the CIA Director is good enough for me. I don’t need to be privy to the details of the information obtained and methods used to take him at his word. After all he is the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. If he’s not qualified to give his opinion on this matter than no one is. If you are skeptical about his honesty, than you are accusing him of being a sadistic sociopath because there would be no other reason to use these techniques if he knew they were ineffective.

4. Scott Allan on January 21st, 2009 at 9:40 am
And sorry about calling you a “liberal”. It was a habit I’m trying to break.

5. Scott Allan on January 21st, 2009 at 9:42 am
Sorry about that, Don.
I’m not calling Hayden a liar. I simply want to know how he defines success. You’re argument in favor of waterboarding is that it works – but what does that mean? I have never denied that people will say things when they are tortured. The question is whether what they say is both valuable enough and worth compromising our principles over.

Please tell me what specifically we learned from waterboarding three terrorists? You can’t just say the technique was successful because the people who used it says it was. That is circular reasoning.

6. Silke on January 21st, 2009 at 10:34 am
By the way, that wasn’t a rhetorical question. What did we learn from waterboarding three terrorists?

Calling something “effective” because someone (who is inclined to say it) says it is “effective” but provides no evidence to support that claim isn’t exactly an open and shut case.

7. Silke on January 21st, 2009 at 3:37 pm
It’s not clear to me what you are looking for in an answer. I do not have access to classified interrogation information at the moment. And I don’t really feel that the CIA needs to share that information to validate their claims. However, some evidence was presented to the 9/11 commission about the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6452789.stm

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/05/641272.aspx

1. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City that killed six people and injured more than 1,000.

2. The 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington using four hijacked commercial airliners. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

3. A failed “shoe bomber” operation to bring down two US commercial airliners.

4. The October 2002 attack in Kuwait that killed two US soldiers.

5. The nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia that killed 202 people.

6. A plan for a “second wave” of attacks on major US landmarks after 9/11 attacks. Alleged targets included the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Plaza Bank building in Seattle and the Empire State Building in New York.

7. Plots to attack oil tankers and US naval ships in the Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Gibraltar and in Singapore.

8. A plan to blow up the Panama Canal.

9. Plans to assassinate former US presidents including Jimmy Carter.

10. A plot to blow up suspension bridges in New York.

11. A plan to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago by burning fuel trucks beneath or around it.

12. Plans to “destroy” Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben in London.

13. A planned attack on “many” nightclubs in Thailand targeting US and British citizens.

14. A plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange and other US financial targets after 9/11.

15. A plan to destroy buildings in Elat, Israel, by using planes flying from Saudi Arabia.

16. Plans to destroy US embassies in Indonesia, Australia and Japan.

17. Plots to destroy Israeli embassies in India, Azerbaijan, the Philippines and Australia.

18. Surveying and financing an attack on an Israeli El-Al flight from Bangkok.

19. Sending several “mujahideen” into Israel to survey “strategic targets” with the intention of attacking them.

20. The November 2002 suicide bombing of a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, frequented by Israelis. At least 14 people were killed.

21. The failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet leaving Mombasa airport with a surface-to-air missile on the same day as the hotel bombing.

22. Plans to attack US targets in South Korea, such as US military bases and nightclubs frequented by US soldiers.

23. Providing financial support for a plan to attack US, British and Jewish targets in Turkey.

24. Surveillance of US nuclear power plants in order to attack them.

25. A plot to attack Nato’s headquarters in Europe.

26. Planning and surveillance in a 1995 plan (the “Bojinka Operation”) to bomb 12 American passenger jets, most on trans-Pacific Ocean routes.

27. The planned assassination attempt against then-US President Bill Clinton during a mid-1990s trip to the Philippines.

28. “Shared responsibility” for a plot to kill Pope John Paul II while he visited the Philippines.

29. Plans to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

30. An attempt to attack a US oil company in Sumatra, Indonesia, “owned by the Jewish former [US] Secretary of State Henry Kissinger”.

31. The beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped in Pakistan in January 2002 while researching Islamist militancy.

8. Scott Allan on January 21st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Scott, thank you for providing some specifics.

Even assuming all this information came only from the waterboarding and not the laptop computer and other materials found in his possession at the time of his capture, confessing to plots after the fact and providing a wish list of possible future targets (not actual plots in the operational phase) is not exactly the ticking time bomb scenario most torture proponents claim justifies waterboarding. In fact…

“One official cautioned that many of Mohammed’s claims during interrogation were “white noise” – designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day’s interrogation session.”

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-03/16/content_828972.htm

9. Silke on January 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I don’t suppose the China Daily News have any interest in trying to undermine the U.S. standing in the world? Do you prefer to believe the Director of the CIA or the citing of anonymous officials in a foreign paper?

10. Scott Allan on January 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Since the source is the Associated Press (a U.S.-owned media company just like your source, ABC News) I’m not sure what your point is. There’s no reason why what both men said couldn’t be true at the same time.

11. Silke on January 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
We’ve made a pro/con article on enhanced interrogation techniques on Debatepedia. It frames the arguments in this article and others. You may want to have a look.
http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:_Enhanced_interrogation_techniques#Pro

12. Brooks on April 29th, 2009 at 8:43 pm