Twenty-First-Century Torture

Immediately following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, members of the George W. Bush administration signaled that current rules regarding intelligence, detention, and interrogation were too confining. With approval from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the president declared that the Geneva Conventions’ detention and interrogation guidelines would not apply to Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. The problem with Geneva, administration lawyers argued, was that it would tie interrogators’ hands. The CIA and the military wanted an explicit legal blessing for their interrogation programs. They got it in the form of a series of memos by the OLC and military lawyers, who defined torture in exceedingly narrow terms. The result was “enhanced interrogation,” which the administration claimed did not amount to torture but was still a sufficiently “tough” program to break hardened terrorists.

Detainees and Prisoners of War

International humanitarian law requires equal care for detainees. Following disclosures of abuse at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, multinational forces sought to provide detainees with relatively high standards of care. One result was to cause resentment among host-nation allies who suffered inferior care at local facilities. Abu Ghraib also triggered an intense public debate about the role of medical professionals in enhanced interrogation. Ultimately, the American government declined to prosecute service personnel because enhanced interrogation was not manifestly unlawful. There were, therefore, no grounds for any military officer, or any person of ordinary sense and understanding, to refuse orders to participate in interrogation sessions. Force feeding animates a similar debate about detainee rights. Opposition to force feeding invokes patient self-determination. Arguments supporting force feeding question an inmate’s ability to freely refuse food, affirm the state’s duty to preserve life, and recognize that captured combatants forfeit their right to strike.

Three Presidents, Three Conflicts

This chapter proposes an approach to the separation of powers that can be applied to presidents of all ideological stripes and personal dispositions. It cites George W. Bush and the authorization of torture, in which the Bush Administration authorized a written list of enhanced interrogation techniques, such as the notorious practice of water-boarding. It also covers President Obama's agreement between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, along with certain other countries, under which Iran agreed to certain limitations on its development of nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. The chapter describes the impeachment and acquittal of Donald Trump by the Senate as the most acrimonious separation-of-powers conflict in the tumultuous Trump years. It talks about the House vote on impeachment and the Senate vote on removal that surpassed the partisan impeachment and removal proceedings for President William Jefferson Clinton.

A Blighted History

This chapter outlines the history of “harsh” interrogation methods based on coercion and torture. This includes discussion of the US “Enhanced Interrogation” Program and the British military’s development and use of the “Five Techniques,” along with real-world examples, including the interrogation of two detainees thought to be associated with the 2001 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The chapter discusses the underlying theory behind the use of torture and coercion and explains why these interrogation methods are ineffective at obtaining reliable information from detainees. It also describes the reasons why torture continues to be used. Such reasons relate to revenge, dehumanization, and hatred.

The Terrorist Hunters Become Political Quarry: The CIA and Rendition, Detention and Interrogation

The chapter focuses on the CIA’s relationship with its political masters and oversight mechanisms in the aftermath of 9/11. The post 9/11 CIA was different, and working to new rules: detentions at Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions, enhanced interrogation techniques, black sites, waterboarding were sanctioned in the global hunt for al-Qaeda members, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Nashiri. However, these techniques became extremely controversial and led to reviewing the oversight of the CIA’s activities. Document: Concerns Over Revised Interrogation Plan For Nashiri.