Decision ‘08

Why The Change On Iran? Some Details Emerge

Good piece from David Sanger in this morning’s NY Times on the events that led up to the changed NIE on Iran’s nuclear ambitions:

American intelligence agencies reversed their view about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after they obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program, senior intelligence and government officials said on Wednesday.

The notes included conversations and deliberations in which some of the military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons, including a warhead that could fit atop Iranian missiles.

The newly obtained notes contradicted public assertions by American intelligence officials that the nuclear weapons design effort was still active. But according to the intelligence and government officials, they give no hint of why Iran’s leadership decided to halt the covert effort.

Ultimately, the notes and deliberations were corroborated by other intelligence, the officials said, including intercepted conversations among Iranian officials, collected in recent months. It is not clear if those conversations involved the same officers and others whose deliberations were recounted in the notes, or if they included their superiors.

The American officials who described the highly classified operation, which led to one of the biggest reversals in the history of American nuclear intelligence, declined to describe how the notes were obtained.

But they said that the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies had organized a “red team” to determine if the new information might have been part of an elaborate disinformation campaign mounted by Iran to derail the effort to impose sanctions against it.

In the end, American intelligence officials rejected that theory, though they were challenged to defend that conclusion in a meeting two weeks ago in the White House situation room, in which the notes and deliberations were described to the most senior members of President Bush’s national security team, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

Sanger’s piece also puts the lie to the lefty rhetoric flying around that Bush knew all along but was playing the warmonger:

The officials said they were confident that the notes confirmed the existence, up to 2003, of a weapons programs that American officials first learned about from a laptop computer, belonging to an Iranian engineer, that came into the hands of the C.I.A. in 2004.

Ever since the major findings of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program were made public on Monday, the White House has refused to discuss details of what President Bush, in a news conference on Tuesday, termed a “great discovery” that led to the reversal.

Some of Mr. Bush’s critics have questioned why he did not adjust his rhetoric about Iran after the intelligence agencies began to question their earlier findings.

In a statement late Wednesday, the White House revised its account of what Mr. Bush was told in August and acknowledged that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had informed him new information might show that “Iran does in fact have a covert weapons program, but it may be suspended.”

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Mr. McConnell had warned the president that “the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data.”

A senior intelligence official and a senior White House official said that Mr. McConnell had been cautious in his presentation to Mr. Bush in an attempt to avoid a mistake made in the months leading to the Iraq war, in which raw intelligence was shared with the White House before it had been tested and analyzed.

“There was a big lesson learned in 2002,” the senior intelligence official said. “You can make enough mistakes in this business even if you don’t rush things.”

And it includes a warning for those who are too sanguine:

In fact, some in the intelligence agencies appear to be not fully convinced that the notes of the deliberations indicated that all aspects of the weapons program had been shut down.

The crucial judgments released on Monday said that while “we judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years,” it also included the warning that “intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate” led both the Department of Energy and the National Intelligence Council “to assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.”

The bottom line: we need to keep up the diplomatic pressure, even if the military option is off the table for now. Iran needs to face the continuation of current sanctions (new sanctions are not going to happen - Russia and China will make sure of that) until such time as it freezes uranium enrichment, as demanded by the full United Nations Security Council, and comes clean about the past status of its nuclear program and its current intentions.

Talks should take place at the lower level, to keep the diplomacy iron in the fire, but any high level ‘official’ contacts should be contingent upon a promise to at least temporarily suspend the enrichment…

37 Responses to “Why The Change On Iran? Some Details Emerge”

1 Andy Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Germany and France agrees with your bottomline,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7131703.stm
2 Scott Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Please explain what you mean when you write that this “puts the lie to the lefty rhetoric flying around that Bush knew all along but was playing the warmonger.” When would you say that he knew? Last Tuesday?

From most reasonable points of view, the evidence looks crystal clear that Bush changed his wording of his rhetoric to account for the new intelligence report in August, but without making a change in the tone. He then lied about it his presser the other day.
3 too many steves Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Is it possible he changed his tone and wording when he was convinced that this NIE is accurate? Do you suggest a different approach?
4 Ryan Bonneville Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 9:49 am
While I think his tone was irresponsible from the beginning, I will take a change and not worry too much about when he decided to make it. If there is anything in the world that can convince this president not to do something stupid, I consider that a victory.

There’s nothing quite like low standards, is there?
5 Ryan Bonneville Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/washington/07intel.html?ex=1354683600&en=2e24baad9264b7c2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

What is there even to say about this?
6 too many steves Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
More evidence that large human organizations are, by their very nature, given to corruption. The larger they are, the more corrupt they are likely to become. This results from the core characteristics of large groups: institutionalization, annonymity, and a focus on the ideal of the greater good. Thus, I am surprised not that this happened, but rather that it was uncovered.

The simple-minded will blame President Bush.
7 Scott Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
My point is that he did not change his tone. He changed his words, but only slightly so that he could still terrorize the country with his tone. Much like he did when millions of people listened to his speeches about Iraq and thought that Saddam was involved in 9/11.
8 peter Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I do not think it is Bush’s fault. He may be the Billy Buckner of American Presidents, but not everything which goes amiss in government is directly attributable to him. The fault (to the extent there is one) lies with the senior management of the CIA.

As for large organizations being inherently corrupt: I don’t think so. The US military, the Post Office, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart are just a few organizations which are very large and not corrupt in the least. Corruption occurs when there are weak controls and a lax corporate culture.

However, I don’t think the destruction of the tapes is a clear-cut case of corruption or even obstruction of justice. I think the CIA has a delicate balance between encouraging a risk-taking culture — which requires indemnifying their agents, otherwise they would be risk averse — and preventing abuses by agents who take things too far. On one hand, you want agents to do whatever they can to get actionable intelligence, but obviously agents will be more reticent if they are taped and subject to being second guessed later. While this story may appear on the surface to be one of obstruction of justice, I think it is not nearly as clear cut as that.
9 Mark Says:
December 7th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Scott, the article said that Bush was told that there was a good chance that new information would lead to a revised NIE, but that the conclusions were not firm yet. The article further states that the DNI did not give the raw data to the Bush Administration until it was tested, in response the Iraqi intelligence fiasco. If Bush had changed his policy on the basis of a ‘possibility’, you would be, presumably, upset.

Seems to me this is a case of damned if you, and damned if you don’t…in the eyes of Bush haters, his every move is suspect…
10 Jacques Distler Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:21 am
The fault (to the extent there is one) lies with the senior management of the CIA.

I do not think it is credible to assume that these tapes were erased without the explicit approval of White House officials.

However, I don’t think the destruction of the tapes is a clear-cut case of corruption or even obstruction of justice.

If the objective was to protect the identities of the CIA agents involved in the interrogations, digitally obscure their faces. (If the TV show, COPS, can do it, so can the CIA.) If the objective was to prevent the tapes themselves from being used as evidence (in an appeal by one of the interrogatees, or in a Congressional investigation), then that’s obstruction of justice, however you slice it.

agents will be more reticent if they are taped and subject to being second guessed later.

You always tape interrogations. There will be minutia the interrogator missed. There will be evidence useful if anything stemming from this investigation reaches a court.

Etc.

I think the CIA has a delicate balance between encouraging a risk-taking culture — which requires indemnifying their agents, otherwise they would be risk averse — and preventing abuses by agents who take things too far.

I ’spose that’s why we’re all vehemently opposed to putting video cameras on police patrol cars. Discourages the cops from taking initiative in doing their jobs ‘n all…

But that’s not what this story is about.

The CIA did videotape the interrogations and the agents knewthey were being videotaped.

And then the CIA destroyed the tapes when it becomes apparent that they might be subpoenaed by Congress, or by the Federal Courts.
11 Mark Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Jacques, the NY Times is reporting that the White House encouraged the CIA NOT to destroy the tapes:

White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.

The disclosures provide new details about what Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said was a decision “made within C.I.A. itself” to destroy the videotapes. In interviews, members of Congress and former intelligence officials also questioned some aspects of the account General Hayden provided Thursday about when Congress was notified that the tapes had been destroyed.

Current and former intelligence officials say the videotapes showed severe interrogation techniques used on two Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who were among the first three terror suspects to be detained and interrogated by the C.I.A. in secret prisons after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Top C.I.A. officials had decided in 2003 to preserve the tapes in response to warnings from White House lawyers and lawmakers that destroying the tapes would be unwise, in part because it could carry legal risks, the government officials said.

That’s the NY Times…hardly a branch of the Republican National Committee…
12 Jacques Distler Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Hmmm. I think Marty Lederman said it better than I did.
13 Mark Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:37 am
I’m just saying that this is hardly an outlet known to make excuses for the Bush administration - but there are apparently going to be investigations. I’m cool with that…let’s see what shows up. Of course, the investigations will be hopelessly politicized, but maybe some good information will come out of them…
14 Jacques Distler Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Ooops, Mark. Our comments crossed in the æther.

If the Times is correct, and the WH advised against destroying the tapes, then that is to their credit. This is a clearcut case of obstruction of Justice. And if, in this rare instance, the WH stood against obstructing justice, my hat’s off to ‘em.
15 Jacques Distler Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Mark,

I read the NYT article, and colour me unimpressed.

It says that the WH advised the CIA not to destroy the tapes, back in 2003, but that, in 2005, the chief of the agency’s clandestine service woke up one morning, looked at himself in the mirror, and said “Hmmm. Better destroy those tapes.” And — without telling anyone — he went ahead and did so.

That scenario beggars credulity. So let me tell you how (I predict) this is going to go.

1) Said CIA official is hauled before a Congressional Committee, where he testifies that he was ordered to destroy the tapes.
2) The Committee issues subpoenas to try to find out who ordered the destruction of the tapes.
3) At some point up the chain of command, the WH invokes Executive Privilege, and refuses to allow the relevant officials to testify.
4) After a brief flurry of outrage, we all move on, distracted by the next scandal of this scandalous Administration.
16 Peter Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Jacques: I respect your argument and think there is a lot of validity to it. This is something I’m deeply ambivalent about, as I don’t think that it is a clear-cut issue. However, I think there is a strong counter-argument to be made. To wit:

1) I realize that I am going against the grain here, but I believe that “I was just following orders” is a legitimate excuse, either in Nurenberg or in this situation. You simply cannot have an effective military if soldiers are forced to choose between being punished during war for failure to follow their commanding oficer or being punished after the fact for following the officer. Those who give commands ought to be accountable, not those who follow them. The CIA is a quasi-military organization.

Let’s suppose that the CIA agents were instructed to use waterboarding as part of their interrogation. If that is the case, then the agents ought to be indemnified for their actions, and the existence of videotapes would likely lead to a situation where they have legal exposure for acting as they were instructed to. Keep the tapes and blur the faces? Sounds reasonable to me. I didn’t think of that.

2) I’m not sure if I agree that all torture is wrong in all circumstances. The hoary example is the ticking time bomb. The better way to frame the question is from The Brothers Karamzov, when Alyosha is asked if he would agree to have all suffering in the world end if and only if a small baby were tortured to death. Alyosha said no.

That is a perfectly respectable position, and I have no problem with it. However, Alyosha never met Joseph Stalin. I’m not sure if a complete ban on torture is legitimate when those who threaten us don’t play by Marquess of Queensbury rules. I’m sympathetic to Alan Dershowitz’s argument that torture ought to be allowed if an impartial board of experts sanctions it and there is a clear and immediate need to acquire information to prevent imminent harm.

Let’s suppose that it was reasonable to assume that the two who were waterboarded had actionable intelligence which could have prevented imminent danger. If that is the case, what CIA agent would take on the job knowing that he could face jail time? Or do you refuse to waterboard and accept the possibility that innocents will die?

3) The analogy with police is a poor one. There is a considerable body of law which specifies exactly what a police officer can and can’t do. The interrogation of foreign suspects is far murkier, and the legal standards are evolving. A CIA agent has a reasonable fear of doing something in the line of duty which is legal one day and illegal the next.
17 Bob from Ohio Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Isn’t there a saying about “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence”?

The CIA has never been competent. Their mistakes and bad judgment are legendary. Having the tapes at all was the true mistake.

I mean one would hope the CIA learned the Nixon lesson but it is doubtful.
18 Jacques Distler Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I realize that I am going against the grain here, but I believe that “I was just following orders” is a legitimate excuse, either in Nurenberg or in this situation. You simply cannot have an effective military if soldiers are forced to choose between being punished during war for failure to follow their commanding oficer or being punished after the fact for following the officer.

There’s a reason, Peter, why our soldiers receive training on the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of War. It’s not so that they know what to demand, should they ever be captured by the enemy. It’s so that they know how to distinguish between a lawful and an unlawful order.

There have been plenty of instances of soldiers court-martialled for following orders that they knew (or should have known) were unlawful. I’ll grant that there are always gray areas. Somehow I doubt that this was one of them.

And, yes, I’m sure that CIA interrogators have received even more extensive training on these matters. Presumably, that’s why Larry Johsnon thinks it was Contractors, rather than CIA employees who were conducting the interrogations.

I’m not sure if I agree that all torture is wrong in all circumstances.

I think you might find the Israeli Supreme Court’s landmark 1999 decision on the subject interesting reading, then. The Israelis face (and have faced for many years) a much more serious terrorist threat than we do.

There is a considerable body of law which specifies exactly what a police officer can and can’t do. The interrogation of foreign suspects is far murkier, and the legal standards are evolving. A CIA agent has a reasonable fear of doing something in the line of duty which is legal one day and illegal the next.

Evolving? The only “evolution” I see has been in the opposite direction (thank you, John Yoo!).

Isn’t there a saying about “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence”?

Riiiiiiiiight, Bob. Jose Rodriguez probably got a little confused, and taped the final episode of “Friends” over them.
19 Peter Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Jacques: your points are all valid, and I don’t disagree with them. Luckily for the US military, I’ve never been a soldier, so I don’t claim to know how they are trained or why they are trained that way. If the Israelis think torture is ineffective, then who am I to contradict them (although my issue is whether it is morally wrong, not efficacious).

There is nothing wrong with an absolutist position on torture, but it is similar to the issue of pacifism. I respect those who are pacifists, but I am not one myself. Similarly, I respect the argument that all torture is wrong in all circumstances, but my question regards whether real world situations can trump ivory tower arguments.

The real world concerns include the possibility that administering torture would yield actionable intelligence which saves lives. I wouldn’t want to be the one to explain to a child why his parents died in an event which could have been prevented by waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed (a maudlin example, but one which is within the realm of possibility).

Another real world concern is the hiring and retention of people in the CIA. One imagines that it is hard enough to get qualified people to be a CIA agent, and the possibility that you could lose your career and/or freedom for acts which are legitimate one day and illegal the next must be a huge red flag to any job applicant there. This is not to suggest that CIA agents ought to be given carte blanche: only that unlike policeman and soldiers, they operate in a much murkier environment where the rules are fluid. Nobody wants to do something which is not only legal but encouraged under the management of John Yoo or David Addington, yet which is ex post facto illegal when, say, Alan Alda takes over their jobs.

Since I wrote the original post, reporting has emerged which suggests that the CIA deliberately destroyed the tapes after being told by multiple sources not to do so. That puts a different spin on things. However, regarding the moral issues of being held accountable for torture: my suggestion is only that these issues are too complex to be reduced to any easy answers.
20 Fargus Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
On the issue of torture, Peter, how about if KSM could have been pressured to talk not by torturing him, but by torturing his wife in front of him? Or his kids? Same thing, using torture to potentially achieve some intelligence. Where, then, does it stop? The ridiculous arguments offered up in support of torture make next to no sense. How often do you think a situation arises where we know about an impending attack, we know that this specific person has intelligence that could stop it, and we know that it’s going to happen in the next couple of hours? If anything, the ticking time bomb scenario is good for the man being tortured, because he knows that there’s an expiration on his torture. He’s got to hold out for a couple of hours, and then he’s golden. Bomb goes off, everything’s done. At most, he’s got to throw out some incorrect information to throw people off the trail, or to make them stop torturing him for a little while.

I like you, Peter, but any arguemnts in favor of torture come across as ridiculous and contrived to me.
21 Mark Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Well, I don’t want to be seen as arguing for torture, but KSM WAS subjected to waterboarding, and he did give up two very important terrorists who were apprehended as a result. He only had to be waterboarded once - he found the whole thing so unnerving that at the mere mention of the technique afterwards, he sang like a bird…sorry, no link, but if I find it, I’ll post it.

Again, I’m not arguing for waterboarding, just pointing out that Peter’s example is not only not fanciful, but actually occurred…in any event, according to every news account that I’ve read, the practice was apparently used during 2002 and 2003, then abandoned. This did not prevent Democrats who knew of it when it was occuring, yet did nothing, not even registering an objection, from playing ‘Gotcha’ with the Attorney General when it fired up the base…
22 Mark Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Maybe this Wikipedia article was what I was thinking of:

Several accounts reported that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded while being interrogated by the CIA. According to the Bush Administration, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed divulged information of tremendous value during his detention. He is said to have helped point the way to the capture of Hambali, the Indonesian terrorist responsible for the 2002 bombings of night clubs in Bali. According to the Bush Administration, he also provided information on an Al Qaeda leader in England.

…According to sources familiar with a private interview of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he claimed to have been waterboarded five times. “A CIA official told ABC News that he had been water-boarded, and had won the admiration of his interrogators because it took him two to two-and-half minutes to start confessing – well beyond the average of 14 seconds observed in others.” This is disputed by two former CIA officers who are reportedly friends with one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed interrogators called this bravado, and who claimed that he was waterboarded only once. According to one of the officers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed needed only to be shown the drowning equipment again before he “broke.” “Waterboarding works,” the former officer said. “Drowning is a baseline fear. So is falling. People dream about it. It’s human nature. Suffocation is a very scary thing. When you’re waterboarded, you’re inverted, so it exacerbates the fear. It’s not painful, but it scares the shit out of you.” (The former officer was waterboarded himself in a training course.) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he claimed, “didn’t resist. He sang right away. He cracked real quick.” He said, “A lot of them want to talk. Their egos are unimaginable. (He) was just a little doughboy. He couldn’t stand toe to toe and fight it out.” After being subjected to waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed involvement in thirty-one terrorist plots.
23 Mark Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Now, on this matter of the destruction of the tapes - that is just plain wrong. I agree that it needs to be investigated, and that it seems pretty clearly obstruction of justice (or it smells that way, in any event). Whether we’ll find out where the buck stopped is another matter - I disagree with our friend Jacques that we can automatically assume that the White House was involved…I don’t find the notion of the CIA doing this unilaterally as incredible as Professor Distler…but I wouldn’t be blown over to find out that it came from higher up, either. I just don’t want to jump to conclusions when the only credible reporting that we’ve seen says that the White House told the CIA NOT to destroy the tapes and the decision came from inside the agency…
24 Mark Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I should also point out that the Justice Department has moved quickly on the investigation, as shown in this story:

The Justice Department and the CIA announced yesterday that they have started a preliminary inquiry into the CIA’s 2005 destruction of videotapes that depicted harsh interrogation of two terrorism suspects.

The announcement follows congressional demands Friday for an investigation into the CIA’s action despite warnings from the White House and congressional leaders to preserve the tapes.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden disclosed the destruction of the tapes Thursday in a letter to his staff, telling them that the identities of the interrogators in the 2002 sessions needed to be protected. Some lawmakers have rejected that explanation.

In a letter sent yesterday, Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s national security division, wrote to CIA General Counsel John A. Rizzo to confirm the inquiry and asked the CIA to preserve evidence and documents.

Wainstein indicated in the letter that he will be working with the CIA inspector general’s office to determine “whether a further investigation is warranted.”

“Based on our recent discussions, I understand that your office has already reviewed the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the videotapes, as well as the existence of any pending relevant investigations or other preservation obligations at the time the destruction occurred,” Wainstein wrote to the CIA.
25 Peter Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Fargus: of course there are some lines which you don’t cross. You don’t torture KSM’s wife or someone’s kids. They are not responsible for what he did or what he knows.

If Mark’s post 21 is correct and waterboarding him revealed actionable intelligence, then it puts the question into pretty sharp focus. Is it your suggestion that no matter what the intelligence was, it could not justify the use of torture to obtain it? (Let’s assume that the information was not available any other way).

I agree that the ticking time bomb example is a dumb one, so let’s use something better. In World War II, the Nazis used torture to break members of the French Resistance and get them to reveal the location of their colleagues. Let’s suppose that there is another 9/11 attack and you have one of the perpetrators in custody. You are reasonably certain that there is a second attack to follow, and the man in custody knows who would carry it out. He will not reveal any names under normal interrogation.

What do you do? And why?
26 Fargus Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Harsh interrogation. But not what torture supporters call “harsh interrogation.” That’s the same thing as torture. I don’t pretend to know enough about interrogation methods to give a specific prescription of what action should be taken, and I can’t believe that either of you do. At the very least, there are people in the field who have said things that support both sides of the debate. As such, I find it a little depressing that the common consensus is that the presumption isn’t just that torture works, but that it’s the most effective vehicle of extracting accurate information. Both of those propositions are in question at the least.

Peter, take your scenario in the post above, but let’s add one piece to it. Let’s say we know that KSM won’t break under torture, but that he’s susceptible to the emotional strains of watching loved ones being tortured. Why is the line drawn where you draw it? If you’re potentially going to be able to save thousands of lives by simply torturing an innocent woman for a couple of hours, isn’t that a no-brainer? Almost as much of a no-brainer as torturing the guy in the first place? After all, the concept is almost identical.
27 Peter Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 12:35 am
I think you can draw a legitimate distinction between torturing KSL, who is far from innocent, and his loved ones, who presumably are innocent. KSL is a mass murderer — if he suffers in an interrogation meant to prevent another terrorist act, I doubt many people would feel sympathy towards him. However, torturing innocent people crosses a line which should never be crossed.

The case that it is morally justifiable “to save thousands of lives by simply torturing an innocent woman for a couple of hours” rests on utlitarianism — the pain which is caused is far less than the pain which it prevents, or the result is the greatest good for the greatest number — is really no different than the parable from the Brothers Karamazov in post 16. If it is OK to end all of the suffering in the world by torturing a small baby to death, then why not two babies? Ten? One hundred? So Alyosha takes the absolute position: it is never justifiable, no matter what the moral calculus happens to be. Is that the right answer? I’m not sure — but it eliminates all of the reductio ad absurdum arguments which those who take the opposite approach have to answer.

In balancing the rights of someone like KSL with possibly saving the lives of innocents, I would tilt the balance towards saving lives. However, in balancing the rights of innocents (KSL’s loved ones) against preventing an act of terror, you have a very different moral equation. KSL caused the deaths of thousands, and if he suffers as part of a process to prevent other deaths, then so be it. However, his loved ones do not bear the same culpability he does, and should not suffer even if that suffering causes him to spill the beans. Some lines ought never to be crossed, regardless of the utilitarian equation.
28 Jacques Distler Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 4:43 am
I think you can draw a legitimate distinction between torturing KSL, who is far from innocent, and his loved ones, who presumably are innocent.

OK, well, let’s talk about torturing Abu Zubayda (one of the interrogatees on the destroyed tapes), then.

While far from “innocent”, he was

a) a logistics guy, with no knowledge of Al Qaeda operations
b) mentally ill

Given that no actionable intelligence could possibly be extracted from him, why was torturing him justified, whereas torturing KLS’s wife (say), which would have led to the extraction of actionable intelligence, not?

I would have thought that “it’s OK to torture the guilty” had gone out with the Salem Witch Trials . Evidently not.
29 Fargus Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Peter, your derision of utilitarian calculus goes away when it becomes about KSM, and that confuses me. I understand from a visceral level why you draw the distinction, but when I pull back a little bit, in one case you’re saying “torturing one person to save thousands of lives is morally reprehensible,” and in another case you’re saying “torturing one person to save thousands of lives is morally correct.” Again, from that visceral level, I understand that you’re claiming KSM’s acts have somehow devalued his life, therefore the equations are not equal. But this is an argument in which you and I aren’t going to agree, so let’s take it in another direction.

Say we’ve got KSM in custody, and we’re 90% sure there’s an attack coming that would kill 10,000 people. Obviously, by your logic above, torturing him is the right thing to do. OK, let’s say we’re 50% sure. Still the right thing to do? 25% sure? 10% sure? 1%? After all, 1% of 10,000 is still 100 people, so the expected outcome of NOT torturing him is 100 people dead, so you’ve got a moral responsibility to torture him, right? Do you have to wait until your intelligence gives you only a .01% chance of 10,000 people dying before it’s not morally defensible anymore to torture someone with the hopes of getting information?

Here’s another thing to think about: Peter, you seem to have absolute confidence in the ability of torture to produce not just intelligence, but to produce better intelligence than any other method would produce. Why?
30 peter Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Fargus and Jacques: thanks for your thoughtful responses. I have to admit that I am somewhat queasy making this argument – who knows, I may get drummed out of the Prius driving, NPR tote bag carrying, Micheal Moore ticket stub holding Bay Area – but I think that there is a strong case to be made that torture is morally justified if it satisfies each of the following criteria:

1) the person being tortured is known beyond any doubt to have committed crimes against humanity
2) there is a strong likelihood that the person can and will reveal information which will prevent the imminent loss of human life
3) there is no other way to obtain the information
4) there is some kind of oversight body which authorizes it

I worked with someone who died on 9/11 on her way back from her grandmother’s funeral. She left behind a husband, her parents, and was pregnant with her first child. When I think of her on one hand and KSL on the other, I find it difficult to accept the possibility that taking torture out of the equation could result in the loss of innocent life. Admittedly, this is an emotional equation on my part, but I try to be non-dogmatic and call them as I see them.

As for your specific questions:

1) Abu Zubayda would not meet the criteria above.

2) I can’t give an answer to Fargus’s slippery slope question. However, the fact that it’s a judgment call does not mean that judgments can’t be made. I can turn it around: do you believe in the right to abortion? What about in the third trimester? How about five minutes before natural childbirth would occur? I would presume that you probably are pro-choice but would find delivery five minutes before term beyond the pale. As with torture, there is no clear line dividing right from wrong – but this doesn’t mean that we cannot devise norms for what is acceptable. Hence the fourth criterion above (an oversight body).

3) I don’t have “absolute confidence” in torture’s putative ability to obtain information. My only experience with torture is when my daughter insists that we watch America’s Top Model or Beauty and the Geek. I only know that it worked very well for the Nazis when they wanted to round up French resistance members, and I think the example in post 25 is a realistic way to frame the question. I’m certainly not advocating the indiscriminate use of torture. My only (humble) point is that there may be instances when it is morally justified, and if so we ought to determine what those instances would be.
31 Fargus Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I’ll respond to your four criteria as I see them (and I thank you as well for your thoughtful and measured responses):

1) What qualifies as a “crime against humanity”? Does, say, torturing people qualify as a “crime against humanity,” as it has in the past of our very own country?
2) Where’s the cutoff for “strong likelihood”? Again, this criterion seems to me to beg to be taken advantage of.
3) How will this criterion be determined? How do you determine objectively that, say, positive reinforcement will not possibly bear any fruit?
4) The concerns in the first three flow into the fourth, but also it just turns my stomach to think of some kind of US sanctioned Torture Advisory Board operating in my country, in my name, talking about the right way to torture people.

I’ll only say, and I’ll try to say it as respectfully as possible, that using the argument, “Hey, it worked for the Nazis!” isn’t really going to win me over to your cause, Peter.
32 peter Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Well, before we start going round in circles, I would say that the answers to your questions are judgment calls which I’m not qualified to make. However, I think that is begging the question. The fact that it’s difficult to define where the line should be doesn’t mean that there are some cases which are egregiously one side of the line and others which aren’t. Let’s suppose that torturing KSL yielded information which prevented another attack. In my view, that is pretty clearly something worth doing. The fact that other instances aren’t as clear cut doesn’t mean that this one is ambiguous.

Again, it’s no different than banning elective abortions in the third trimester. There is nothing magical about the first day of the third trimester, but you have to draw the line somewhere. This doesn’t mean that no lines should be drawn.

As for the Nazis: this is not to endorse Nazi behavior, only to answer the question of whether torture works.

Look, this turns my stomach too. However, to take the absolutist position – all torture is wrong in all circumstances – you have to be willing to accept the fact that sparing the likes of KSL from torture could lead to the massive loss of innocent life. It’s a Faustian bargain, but I would accept it. You would not. I have no problem with your thesis – however I would make a different choice.
33 Fargus Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
There is the oft-overlooked dynamic, then, of what being a torture-sponsoring state would do to our credibility abroad. There’s the dynamic of what torturing people does to the torturers. Is the strategic advantage of hypothetically maybe possibly perhaps getting some information enough to counterbalance turning people into torturers and becoming known abroad as a state that sponsors torture?
34 peter Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
That is an excellent point. The Economist ran a piece a few months ago saying basically the same thing: regardless of the putative benefits of torture, the damage in prestige and moral leadership outweigh them. In their words: if innocents die because of a refusal to torture, “so be it.”

I’m not sure I agree with it — but I don’t deny that it is a powerful argument.
35 Fargus Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Another point that’s not often thought of: Why limit torture to foreigners if it’s so effective? Why not apply the same set of standards to our own citizens in our own prison system? Take a small-time drug dealer, convicted of murder. Why not torture him to get the names of all his associates?
36 peter Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Hmmm. I like the way you’re thinking. Before we’re done with this exercise, you’ll make Dick Cheney look like a (rhymes with wussy).

However, I do have a semi-intelligent answer for you. Scale has to be a criterion. A small time drug dealer? No way. Timothy McVeigh? Maybe. You raise a good point: for my argument to be intellectually honest, it would have to include American citizens as well as foreigners. I will concede that is a weakness of my position.
37 Fargus Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Well, that’s where I’d get into the idea of “crimes against humanity.” What if it’s a small-time drug dealer who’s killed a dozen guys on the streets over the last year? What if it’s a medium-time drug dealer who’s got proven financial links to countries that support terrorism? What if it’s a drug dealer of any scale who’s distributed coke laced with Drano and killed, albeit indirectly, any number of kids who overdosed on his stuff? What if that stuff’s still out there, posing a danger to those who might buy it, and this guy knows where we could get it to prevent its distribution? Do we not have a moral obligation to stop that from happening?