In The Blogs

False Confessions

| Wed Apr. 22, 2009 7:17 AM PDT

One of the common observations of the anti-torture crowd is that, historically, torture has been used primarily to extract false confessions, not genuine intelligence. Which is really a very tedious thing to say. After all, even if you don't like the guy, everyone knows that George Bush was trying to prevent future attacks by al-Qaeda, not extract false confessions. Right?

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

...."There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

That's Jonathan Landay at McClatchy. I'll leave the parallels with the Spanish Inquisition as an exercise for the reader.

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

New theme for Bush Library

Submitted by Karen on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 8:02 AM PDT.

The illustration above is from the Killing Fields memorial and museum in Cambodia. It is a fitting reminder that such atrocities should happen 'never again.' Perhaps SMU should consider repurposing the Bush Library in a similar fashion - highlighting in graphic detail the torture techniques, the black sites, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the illegal spying and wiretapping, as a reminder to Americans what was done in our names to fellow human beings.

Jesus.

Submitted by Matt (not verified) on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 8:17 AM PDT.

That's the thing about torture. You do it to get an answer you expect. Alchemy v. science. If you don't get that expected answer, you (apparently) just keep doing it. If, as it seems is the case, AQ's operations are so decentralized and fragmented that nobody really knows what the others are doing, you could torture the guy, let's say hundreds of times, and still not get the answer you were looking for, because they don't have the effing answer you're looking for. The larger question is why conservatives don't embrace the 'yeah it's harder to stick to your principles, but you know what? We're Americans, and when we say we're better than those clowns, we need to be better than those clowns.' What the hell is so wrong with that argument?

The other piece of this, of

Submitted by AmIDreaming on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 8:29 AM PDT.

The other piece of this, of course, is Gitmo. "Enhanced interrogations" there must have been even more circular. Since so many of the captives had no connection with terrorism, they had to be made to confess to reasons why they should be there. QED.

Wrong

Submitted by SRW1 (not verified) on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 8:40 AM PDT.

”One of the common observations of the anti-torture crowd is that, historically, torture has been used primarily to extract false confessions, not genuine intelligence. Which is really a very tedious thing to say. After all, even if you don't like the guy, everyone knows that George Bush was trying to prevent future attacks by al-Qaeda, not extract false confessions. Right?” I assume you you are saying this in an ironic manner, Kevin. But the real supporters of the claim on the right are serious about it. Because they have seen on 24 that 'torture works'. Therefore this argument has to be beaten back wherever it shows its ugly head. Contrary to Jack Bauer, interrogators undertaking real life torture do not know the details and the boundaries of the information they are looking for. They do not know when they get real information and when just it is stuff the tortured person hopes will make them stop. They do not know when they have all of the real information they will ever get. To make sure they get everything that is to be had, they are pretty much bound to go beyond the limits. In other words, torture is a self fouling process. Not only does it soil the person who does it, it generates foul information. And if I may be allowed to guess, I suspect that is precisely what the CIA re-learned in the March 2003 after having waterboarded KSM 183 times. Why else would they have stopped the use of this technique in the spring of 2003, as Michael Hayden implied in a congressional hearing?

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Tortured Logic Proves Every Conclusion

Submitted by Ross Best on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 9:09 AM PDT.

You can't get blood from a turnip without using enhanced interrogation techniques.

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Witch Trials Used Torture

Submitted by Duncan Kinder on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 9:46 AM PDT.

According to historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, witch trials applied torture to ratify the pre-existing belief that accused witches were engaged in diabolical activities.

Well, you know, nobody

Submitted by Glenn (not verified) on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 9:48 AM PDT.

Well, you know, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Especially when you're just

Submitted by Brian on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 10:08 AM PDT.

Especially when you're just reporting trouble at the mill.

Some evidence goes to the contary.

Submitted by Brian on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 10:02 AM PDT.

President Obama NID seems to think that "torture" worked. The CIA agrees.

Maybe not?

Submitted by SRW1 (not verified) on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 10:45 AM PDT.

Concerning the credibility of the CIA: "KSM lasted the longest under waterboarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again," said a former CIA official familiar with KSM's case. Source: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/cia-bans-water-.html So, what were the other 182 times for? Concerning the CNSNews story (the infamous Library Tower plot): "What clinches the falsity of Thiessen's claim, however (and that of the memo he cites, and that of an unnamed Central Intelligence Agency spokesman who today seconded Thessen's argument), is chronology. In a White House press briefing, Bush's counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that the cell leader was arrested in February 2002, and "at that point, the other members of the cell" (later arrested) "believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward" . A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, "In 2002, we broke up a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast." These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous"—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003. Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2216601/ So, how does waterboarding a guy in March 2003 uncover a plot that has already been foiled in February 2002. Sorry, this is all CYA action.

Maybe so.

Submitted by Brian on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 9:55 AM PDT.

You may wish to re-read the article. It does not mention the "Library Tower" plot. Are you sure that is what refers to?

Torture

Submitted by nepeta on Wed Apr. 22, 2009 7:14 PM PDT.

Tonight on Olbermann and Maddow the reporting indicates that the torture trail leads directly back to the WH, even before the legalistic memos were written. A truly amazing story it is, the worst possible scenario for Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld et al. and the faucet spigot is spurting info almost faster than it can be absorbed. Wonder how Obama is going to respond to this. A lawyer on Olbermann said that appointing a special prosecutor would turn off the spigot. So, guess we should be careful about what we wish for.

Krugman, as is so often

Submitted by Martin Richard (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 4:53 AM PDT.

Krugman, as is so often true, said it best: "Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link. There’s a word for this: it’s evil." from Krugman's blog at the NYTimes, The Conscience of a Liberal.

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