The New York Review of Books: The Logic of Torture

interrogations was strictly dictated by military intelligence. They

weren't the ones carrying it out, but they were the ones telling the MPs
to wake the detainees up every hour on the hour....

Provance told the reporters that "the highest ranking officers at the prison were involved and that the Army appears to be trying to deflect attention away from the military intelligence's role."

One needn't depend on the assertions of those accused to accept that what happened
in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq was not the random brutality of "a few bad
apples" (which, not surprisingly, happens to be the classic defense governments use
in torture cases). One needn't depend on the wealth of external evidence, including
last fall's visit to Abu Ghraib by Major General Geoffrey Miller, then the
commander of Guantanamo (and now commander of Abu Ghraib), in which,
according to the Taguba report, he "reviewed current Iraqi Theater ability to rapidly
exploit internees for actionable intelligence"; or Lieutenant General Sanchez's
October 12 memorandum, issued after General Miller's visit, instructing intelligence
officers to work more closely with military policemen to "manipulate an internee's
emotions and weaknesses"; or statements from Thomas M. Pappas, the colonel in
charge of intelligence, that he felt "enormous pressure," as the insurgency increased
in intensity, to "extract more information from prisoners."[1] The internal
evidence the awful details of the abuse itself and the clear logical narrative they
take on when set against what we know of the interrogation methods of the
American military and intelligence agencies-is quite enough to show that what
happened at Abu Ghraib, whatever it was, did not depend on the sadistic ingenuity
of a few bad apples.

This is what we know. The real question now, as so often, is not what we know but what we are prepared to do.

4.

Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer "yes," then you must
accept all the necessary consequences.

-Colonel Philippe Mathieu, The Battle of Algiers (1965)

When, as a young intelligence officer, the late General Paul Aussaresses arrived in war-torn Algeria a halfcentury ago and encountered his first captured insurgent, he discovered that methods of interrogation were widely known and fairly simple:

When I questioned them I started by asking what they knew and they
clearly indicated that they were not about to talk....

Then without any hesitation, the policemen showed me the technique
used for "extreme" interrogations: first, a beating, which in most cases
was enough; then other means, such as electric shocks...; and finally
water. Torture by electric shock was made possible by generators used
to power field radio transmitters, which were extremely common in
Algeria. Electrodes were attached to the prisoner's ears or testicles, then
electric charges of varying intensity were turned on. This was

Page 9 of 13

The New York Review of Books: The Logic of Torture

apparently a well-known procedure... [19]

Aussaresses remarks that "almost all the French soldiers who served in Algeria
knew more or less that torture was being used but didn't question the methods
because they didn't have to face the problem directly." When as a responsible officer
he gives a full report to his commander on his methods which are yielding, as he
notes, "very detailed explanations and other names, allowing me to make further
arrests"- he encounters an interesting response:

"I know what you mean, Colonel. You're thinking of cleaner ways. You
feel that none of this fits in with our humanistic tradition."

"Yes, that's what I mean," answered the Colonel.

"Even if I did agree with you, sir, to carry out the mission you've given
me, I must avoid thinking in moral terms and only do what is most
useful."

Aussaresses's logic is that of a practical soldier: a traditional army can defeat a determined guerrilla foe only through superior intelligence; superior intelligence can be wrested from hardened insurgents in time to make it "actionable" only through the use of "extreme interrogation"-torture; therefore, to have a chance of prevailing in Algeria the French army must torture. He has nothing but contempt for superior officers, like his colonel, who quail at the notion of "getting their hands dirty"—-to say nothing of the politicians who, at the least sign of controversy over the methods he is obliged to employ, would think nothing of abandoning him as "a rotten apple."

It has long since become clear that President Bush and his highest officials, as

they confronted the world on September 11, 2001, and the days after, made a series of decisions about methods of warfare and interrogation that General Aussaresses, the practical soldier, would have well understood. The effect of those decisions— among them, the decision to imprison indefinitely those seized in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terror, the decision to designate those prisoners as "unlawful combatants" and to withhold from them the protections of the Geneva Convention, and finally the decision to employ "high pressure methods" to extract "actionable intelligence" from them-was officially to transform the United States from a nation that did not torture to one that did. And the decisions were not, at least in their broad outlines, kept secret. They were known to officials of the other branches of the government, and to the public.

The direct consequences of those decisions, including details of the methods of interrogation applied in Guantanamo and at Bagram Air Base, began to emerge

Page 10 of 13

The New York Review of Books: The Logic of Torture

more than a year ago. It took the Abu Ghraib photographs, however, set against the
violence and chaos of an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, to bring Americans'
torture of prisoners up for public discussion. And just as General Aussaresses would
recognize some of the methods Americans are employing in their secret
interrogation rooms-notably, the practice of "water-boarding," strapping prisoners
down and submerging them until they are on the point of drowning, long a favorite
not only of the French in Algeria but of the Argentines, Uruguayans, and others in
Latin America 20 the general would smile disdainfully at the contradictions and
hypocrisies of America's current scandal over Abu Ghraib: the senior American
officers in their ribbons prevaricating before the senators, the "disgust" expressed by
high officials over what the Abu Ghraib photographs reveal, and the continuing
insistence that what went on in Abu Ghraib was only, as President Bush told the
nation, "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops, who dishonored our country
and disregarded our values." General Aussaresses argued frankly for the necessity of
torture but did not reckon on its political cost to what was, in the end, a political war.
The general justified torture, as so many do, on the "ticking bomb" theory, as a
means to protect lives immediately at risk; but in Algeria, as now in Iraq, torture,
once sanctioned, is inevitably used much more broadly; and finally it becomes
impossible to weigh what the practice gains militarily in "actionable intelligence"
against what it loses politically, in an increasingly estranged population and an
outraged world. Then as now, this was a political judgment, not a military one; and
those who made it helped lose the generals' war.

A half-century later, the United States is engaged in another political war: not only the struggle against the insurgency in Iraq but the broader effort, if you credit the administration's words, to "transform the Middle East" so that "it will no longer produce ideologies of hatred that lead men to fly airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington." We can't know the value of the intelligence the torturers managed to extract, though top commanders admitted to The New York Times on May 27 that they learned "little about the insurgency" from the interrogations. What is clear is that the Abu Ghraib photographs and the terrible story they tell have done great damage to what was left of America's moral power in the world, and thus its power to inspire hope rather than hatred among Muslims. The photographs "do not represent America," or so the President asserts, and we nod our heads and agree. But what exactly does this mean? As so often, it took a comic, Rob Corddry on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, to point out the grim contradiction in this:

There's no question what took place in that prison was horrible. But the
Arab world has to realize that the US shouldn't be judged on the actions
of a... well, we shouldn't be judged on actions. It's our principles that
matter, our inspiring, abstract notions. Remember: Just because
torturing prisoners is something we did, doesn't mean it's something we
would do.

Over the next weeks and months, Americans will decide how to confront what their fellow citizens did at Abu Ghraib, and what they go on doing at Bagram and Guantanamo and other secret prisons. By their actions they will decide whether they will begin to close the growing difference between what Americans say they are and what they actually do. Iraqis and others around the world will be watching to see whether all the torture will be stopped and whether those truly responsible for it,

Page 11 of 13

The New York Review of Books: The Logic of Torture

military and civilian, will be punished. This is, after all, as our President never tires
of saying, a war of ideas. Now, as the photographs of Abu Ghraib make clear, it has
also become a struggle over what, if anything, really does represent America.

[] "In Abu Ghraib prison alone, senior officials have testified that no less than three
sets of interrogation policies were put in play at different times- those cited in
Army field manuals, those used by interrogators who previously worked in
Afghanistan and a third set created by Iraq's commanding general after policies used
at Guantanamo Bay," from Craig Gordon, "High-Pressure Tactics: Critics Say Bush
Policies Post 9/11--Gave Interrogators Leeway to Push Beyond Normal Limits,"
Newsday, May 23, 2004.

12) See my "Torture and Truth," The New York Review, June 10, 2004, the first part
of the present article, which takes up the Red Cross report in detail.

13 See Edward Epstein, "Red Cross Reports Lost, Generals Say: The System Is
Broken,' Army Commander Tells Senate Panel about Abu Ghraib Warnings," San
Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 2004.

[ See Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, "Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross
Visits to Prison in Iraq," The New York Times, May 19, 2004.

[5] See R. Jeffrey Smith, "Memo Gave Intelligence Bigger Role: Increased Pressure
Sought on Prisoners," The Washington Post, May 21, 2004.

[ See Douglas Jehl and Neil A. Lewis, "US Disputed Protected Status of Iraq
Inmates," The New York Times, May 23, 2004.

(See Josh White and Scott Higham, "Sergeant Says Intelligence Directed Abuse,"
The Washington Post, May 20, 2004.

Detainee #

[8] See "Translation of Sworn Statement Provided by
1430/21 Jan 04," available along with thirteen other affidavits from Iraqis, at "Sworn
Statements by Abu Ghraib Detainees," www.washingtonpost. com. The name was
withheld by The Washington Post because the witness "was an alleged victim of
sexual assault."

(See Greg Mitchell, "Exclusive: Shocking Details on Abuse of Reuters Staffers in
Iraq," Editor and Publisher, May 19, 2004, which includes excerpts from the
Baghdad bureau chief's report.

[19] See KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation— July 1963, archived at
"Prisoner Abuse: Patterns from the Past," National Security Archive Electronic
Briefing Book No. 122, p. 83; www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122.
"KUBARK" is a CIA codename.

Page 12 of 13

The New York Review of Books: The Logic of Torture

See Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual—1983, National Security
Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122, "Non-coercive Techniques";
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122.

[12] See "Semper Sensitive: From a Handout That Accompanies a Weeklong Course
on Iraq's Customs and History," Marine Division School, Harper's, June 2004, p.
26. For a discussion of shame and the American occupation of Iraq, see my "Torture
and Truth."

[3] Though we do know something of what has gone on at other American
interrogation centers, for example, the American air base at Bagram, Afghanistan.
See Don Van Natta Jr., "Questioning Terror Suspects in a Dark and Surreal World,"
The New York Times, March 9, 2003, and my "Torture and Truth."

4 See Scott Higham and Joe Stephens, "Punishment and Amusement," The
Washington Post

[15] Richard A. Serrano, "Three Witnesses in Abuse Case Aren't Talking: Higher-ups
and a Contractor Out to Avoid Self-incrimination," San Francisco Chronicle, May
19, 2004.

[16] See White and Higham, "Intelligence Officers Tied to Abuses in Iraq."

[17] See General Antonio M. Taguba, "Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th
Military Police Brigade" (The Taguba Report), page 7.

[18] See Douglas Jehl, "Officers Say US Colonel at Abu Ghraib Prison Felt Intense
Pressure to Get Inmates to Talk," The New York Times, May 18, 2004.

U19 See Paul Aussaresses, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-
Terrorism in Algeria, 1955-1957, translated by Robert L. Miller (Enigma, 2002).

[20] See James Risen, David Johnston, and Neil A. Lewis, "Harsh CIA Methods Cited
in Top Qaeda Interrogations," The New York Times, May 13, 2004.

Page 13 of 13

Home Your account · Current issue Archives Subscriptions Calendar Newsletters Gallery NYR Books

Copyright©1963-2005 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved. Nothing in this publication may be
reproduced without the permission of the publisher. Illustrations copyright © David Levine unless
otherwise noted; unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Please contact web@nybooks.com with any
questions about this site. The cover date of the next issue of The New York Review of Books will be
February 10, 2005.