What Else Needs To Be Said?

After reading Ali Soufan's piece in the New York Times today, I'm not sure how torture can be supported anymore by the most deluded of torture apologists short of Dick Cheney announcing that tomorrow that, in fact, there is a God and he told Dick torture doesn't work.

In fact, it's made us and the world less safe, severely damaged our intelligence-gathering capabilities and exasperated the debilitating effects on our military from insurgencies on two war fronts.

Ali Soufan, former FBI interrogator, lays it all out:

The inspector general’s report distinguishes between intelligence gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which culminate in waterboarding. While the former produces useful intelligence, according to the report, the latter “is a more subjective process and not without concern.” And the information in the two memos reinforces this differentiation.

They show that substantial intelligence was gained from pocket litter (materials found on detainees when they were captured), from playing detainees against one another and from detainees freely giving up information that they assumed their questioners already knew. A computer seized in March 2003 from a Qaeda operative for example, listed names of Qaeda members and money they were to receive.

Soon after Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, was captured in 2003, according to the 2005 memo, he “elaborated on his plan to crash commercial airlines into Heathrow Airport.” The memo speculates that he may have assumed that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a fellow member of Al Qaeda who had been captured in 2002, had already divulged the plan. The same motivation — the assumption that another detainee had already talked — is offered to explain why Mr. Mohammed provided details about the Hambali-Southeast Asia Qaeda network.

And:

Some of the information that is cited in the memos — the revelation that Mr. Mohammed had been the mastermind of 9/11, for example, and the uncovering of Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber — was gained from another terrorism suspect, Abu Zubaydah, by “informed interrogation,” conducted by an F.B.I. colleague and me. The arrest of Walid bin Attash, one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted messengers, which was also cited in the 2005 C.I.A. memo, was thanks to a quick-witted foreign law enforcement officer, and had nothing to do with harsh interrogation of anyone. The examples go on and on.

He includes torture supporters favorite claim, on the plot targeting L.A.:

Supporters of the enhanced interrogation techniques have jumped from claim to claim about their usefulness. They have asserted, for example, that harsh treatment led Mr. Mohammed to reveal the plot to attack the Library Tower in Los Angeles. But that plot was thwarted in 2002, and Mr. Mohammed was not arrested until 2003.

If there is justice in the world, and I'm not so sure there is ultimately, the Bush administration should be remembered for at least this one thing: By unlawfully pushing torture onto CIA interrogators, whether it was to find a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda or not, the Bush administration crippled our efforts in dismantling Al Qaeda and undeniably stained the country's reputation. That stain will take more than a few good-faith actions to wash off.

If we don't address these truths, what are we setting ourselves up for in the future? How long before we hear reports of kidnapped American soldiers being tortured? How will we react? Will we acknowledge the example we set for the world? I doubt it.

(Photo: Day one of the 365 Project. Day one being September 5, 2009.)