Steve Kleinman, a military intelligence officer for many years, says the justification and use of torture by the Bush Administration on potential sources of information was carried out with no knowledge of whether it would help or harm the goal of protecting the U.S from more attacks. To add to Krugman’s insight about know nothingism and macho pride, the decision to torture was made on the basis of “this is what real men do,” not any real analysis about how best to protect the U.S. Getting such an analysis was possible in 2002. It was not done. It took Human Rights Watch, in 2008, to gather together 15 experienced intelligence officials, with 350 years of collective experience, to talk about the most effective means of getting information from people, dangerous or otherwise, and to multiply that informant contact by contact by contact. [The examples in Jane Mayer's The Dark Side add to the judgment that torture not only doesn't work, it works against the desired goal. She cites several instances in which the FBI was compiling reams of data from individual prisoners, only to be kicked out by the CIA which proceeded to extract useless and misleading information from the same prisoner, by means of torture.]

It may surprise some to learn that running human intelligence operations has much in common with sales. One objective in every contact a salesman makes with a potential client is to obtain a lead on another prospect. Similarly, an objective of every contact an intelligence officer makes with a source of intelligence is to solicit a lead on another potential source of intelligence. It doesn’t require operational experience to recognize the probability of gathering information on other sources of intelligence is far greater when sought in an atmosphere of trust, humanity, and professionalism.

I feel strongly that in the vast majority of the interrogations I’ve conducted, I was able to consistently realize two important and synergistic outcomes. First, not only was I able to elicit reliable information that responded to the established intelligence needs of policy-makers and military commanders, but also, through a strategic, relationship-building approach, the prisoner-of-war or detainee frequently offered information that pertained to areas of his knowledgeability that I couldn’t have anticipated going into the interrogation. In a very real sense, intelligence information was delivered to me not because the prisoner had to, but rather because he wanted to!

Second, upon their release, detainees who were treated with respect or, at the minimum, in a manner consistent with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, were far more likely to carry positive messages about Americans and America that could only promote our national interests abroad. Humane treatment at the hands of American officials provides a stark and memorable contrast to what many individuals around the world have experienced while detained by members of a hardline internal security apparatus. Scenarios such as this, when repeated with sufficient consistency and frequency, enable us to achieve Sun Tzu’s highest standard in the art of war: to win without fighting.

Nieman Watchdog