Newsweek Writer’s Story Claiming That Torture Might Work Contradicts His 2006 Article Saying That It Doesn’t

Think Progress
Thursday, Jan 15, 2009

In Newsweek’s cover story this week, Evan Thomas and Stuart Taylor, Jr., argue that President-elect Barack Obama should embrace Vice President **** Cheney’s movement for the expansion of executive power. They conclude that Cheney’s work, especially with respect to torture, may be a necessary evil:

The issue of torture is more complicated than it seems. America brought untold shame on itself with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. It’s likely that the take-the-gloves-off attitude of Cheney and his allies filtered down through the ranks, until untrained prison guards with sadistic tendencies were making sport with electric shock. But no direct link has been reported. […] It is a liberal shibboleth that torture doesn’t work—that suspects will say anything, including lies, to stop the pain. But the reality is perhaps less clear.

But, as Big Tent Democrat points out at Talk Left, Thomas came to a much different conclusion in 2006, reporting in Newsweek that “most intelligence experts” say torture is ineffective:

In recent interviews with NEWSWEEK reporters, U.S. intelligence officers say they have little—if any—evidence that useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally understood to be torture.
Experts widely believe that torture fails to provide reliable intelligence. In an article for Vanity Fair last month, the counterterrorism officials with whom David Rose spoke were “unanimous” in their belief that torture does not work:

Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts
Newsweek’s recent claim that torture is effective fails to consider the consequences of its usage. Not only has torture caused the United States to lose standing in the world, but the perception that the U.S. tortures “directly and swiftly” helps terrorists recruit.

For those interested in the efficy of torture I recommend this article. An exert appears below.

Does torture work?

The French military's use of torture in Algeria is often cited as a success story. But the real story is more complex.
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/06/21/torture_algiers/index.html

By Darius Rejali

Jun 21, 2004 | Torture apologists point to one powerful example to counter all the arguments against torture: the Battle of Algiers. In 1956, the Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front) began a terrorist bombing campaign in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing many innocent civilians. In 1957, Gen. Jacques Massu and the French government began a counterinsurgency campaign in Algiers using torture. As English military theorist Brian Crozier put it, "By such ruthless methods, Massu smashed the FLN organization in Algiers and re-established unchallenged French authority. And he did the job in seven months -- from March to mid-October."

It is hard to argue with success. Here were professional torturers who produced consistently reliable information in a short time. It was a breathtaking military victory against terrorism by a democracy that used torture. Yet the French won by applying overwhelming force in an extremely constrained space, not by superior intelligence gathered through torture. As noted war historian John Keegan said in his recent study of military intelligence ("Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy From Napoleon to Al-Qaeda"), "it is force, not fraud or forethought, that counts" in modern wars.

The real significance of the Battle of Algiers, however, is the startling justification of torture by a democratic state. Algerian archives are now open, and many French torturers wrote their autobiographies in the 1990s. The story they tell will not comfort generals who tell self-serving stories of torture's success. In fact, the battle shows the devastating consequences of torture for any democracy foolish enough to institutionalize it.

Torture by the French failed miserably in Vietnam, and the French could never entirely secure the Algerian countryside, so either torture really did not work or there was some additional factor that made the difference in Algiers.

Among many torture apologists, only Gen. Massu, with characteristic frankness, identified the additional factor. In Vietnam, Massu said, the French posts were riddled with informants. Whatever the French found by torture, the Vietnamese opposition knew immediately. And long distances separated the posts. In Algiers, the casbah was a small space that could be cordoned off, and a determined settler population backed the army. The army was not riddled with informants, and the FLN never knew what the army was doing.