Truth about torture

News that U.S. special forces had killed Osama bin Laden had barely hit the TV screens before former officials in the Bush administration were claiming that their policy of "enhanced interrogation" had been vindicated. The use of torture, they said, was key to finding bin Laden. Bush attorney general Michael Mukasey said that crucial information about the identity of bin Laden's courier had been gained by waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11.

But the New York Times reported in early May that "harsh techniques played a small role at most" in discovering bin Laden. In fact, prisoners who were harshly interrogated were more likely to offer misleading information. CIA director Leon Panetta reported that there was no one essential piece of information that led U.S. intelligence agencies to bin Laden and no evidence that enhanced interrogation had been key to the effort.

Senator John McCain, who was subjected to torture himself when he was a prisoner in North Vietnam, rejected Mukasey's conclusion, citing Panetta's report. McCain added, "I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence, because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear—true or false—if he believes it will relieve his suffering."