Educing Information: The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims responds
On 15 January 2007, the Intelligence Science Board of the United States National Defense Intelligence College released a report entitled Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art-Foundations for the Future about the interrogation methods used by the U.S. intelligence community in their dealings with terror suspects.
Examining nearly four decades of interrogation techniques, the publication’s authors concluded that there is no scientific evidence that coercion and other aggressive methods of interrogation, including torture, yield valuable information from suspects.
In a brief interview, IRCT Secretary-General Brita Sydhoff commented on the report’s findings and its potential to influence the global struggle against torture.
What is your initial reaction to the publication of this report?
For the IRCT, this just reiterates the point we’ve made all along. Our position always has been that torture has no place in interrogation proceedings, or anywhere else for that matter. First, torture is explicitly forbidden by international laws and conventions. Second, torture does not produce reliable information – quite the contrary. People will say anything under torture to make the pain stop. It is not a methodology of interrogation; it is a form of punishment. Worse still is that torture can and does produce even greater animosity toward those who sanction it. A humiliated and hurt individual lashes out – we’re seeing this in places like Iraq, where torture feeds into the ever-growing cycle of violence.
How has public opinion changed about interrogation methods since the beginning of the so-called “War on Terror”?
Since September 11, 2001 there has been a common argument where people who would normally condemn torture have said, “I don’t believe in torture, but…” The underlying rationale is that it is permissible to adjust the borderlines when we are dealing with terror suspects. But where does it stop? Accepting “some” torture opens a Pandora’s box. It leads to increased violence at all levels of society. Only an absolute prohibition of torture can prevent this.
One of the report’s authors writes that while there is significant research on the social and psychological consequences of torture, there is little on the applicability of torture tactics to educing information from suspects. How do you respond to this?
There is a need to explore legal – i.e. non-torture – interrogation methods, especially in conflict societies. The truth is that many countries and individual interrogators are under a lot of pressure to elicit information – sometimes any information – and therefore they resort to coercive and aggressive tactics. This is aggravated by the macho culture depicted in popular entertainment – such as on the television show “24”, which I have talked about earlier – that portrays good guys getting back at terrorists through any means possible. A lot more research needs to be done to find other ways to obtain reliable intelligence.
What do you hope the outcome of publication of this information will be?
This report holds a lot of potential benefit for the IRCT and our member centres. It reinforces what we have been saying for years, and we hope to work with our colleagues, especially in the U.S, to leverage the report’s findings both to raise our profile and to heighten awareness of the immediate need to cease harsh interrogation methods that amount to torture. The report is quite simply a remarkable confirmation by a large group of highly experienced interrogators and intelligence professionals of the point we have always maintained: torture has no place in our world today, be it operationally, legally or morally.
Read the report:
The study Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art-Foundations for the Future can be downloaded on the Federation of American Scientists’ website at http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf
kilde: www.irct.org
