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The killing of Osama bin Laden has had the unfortunate effect of reviving the debate on the efficacy of torture. If the use of torture were to help find bin Laden, it should have happened in the 2002-2004 period, when the use of torture by the United States was in its heyday, not some 7 to 9 years later.
Does torture work and is its use defensible? In an interview conducted after Osama bin Laden was killed, Glenn L. Carle, a retired CIA officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002, said that coercive techniques "didn't provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information." Carle's assessment has been echoed by experienced interrogators, who contend that building a rapport with a suspect is the best way of getting trustworthy information.
During the height of the uproar over the use of torture by the U.S., the FBI voiced strong objection to its use, and the top lawyers in the legal system of the military services risked their careers by trying to stop the use of torture.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who authorized the use of a number of harsh, coercive methods of interrogation in an infamous memo, later stated that such methods didn't work: "It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."
Even if it could be proven that torture sometimes produces useful information, there are compelling reasons why it should never be employed by any agency of the U.S. government: 1) our use of torture furthers the risk that it will be employed against U.S. military personnel and diplomats stationed overseas; 2) some countries will be less likely to cooperate on anti-terrorism programs if the U.S. is torturing detainees; 3) our use of torture has been cited by terrorism specialists as a major recruiting tool for terrorist groupings, who can use it as an illustration of how little regard the United States has for its proclaimed human rights values; 4) our use of torture renders futile any attempt we might make to put a stop to human rights violations in other countries; and 5) torture is illegal by both statute and treaty -- our adoption of the Geneva Conventions -- also, the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits the military's use of torture.
