My last reply to those pro-torturers were some powerful quotes from testimonies of those that are experts in the field. I wanted to share them with you as well. Enjoy.

“The point is not whether the CIA program produced useful intelligence. Of course it did. Quite a lot. The CIA had exclusive custody of a number of the most important al Qaeda captives in the world, for years. Any good interrogation effort would produce an important flow of information from these captives.

“Complicating the story, the CIA did not just rely on physical coercion. A long‐term interrogation program was also being employed, mustering a number of experts using growing skill in patiently mining for more information and assimilating it. Indeed, one of the tragedies of this program is that the association with physical coercion detracts attention away from some of the very high quality work the CIA did do for the country, quality work that has continued in recent years even after this
program was substantially dismantled.

“So the issue is not whether the CIA program of extreme physical coercion produced useful intelligence; it is about its net value when compared to the alternatives.2 And, even though the program may have

“2 While in government, I joined in encouraging the Intelligence Science Board, a federal advisory group, and its chairman, Robert Fein, to pursue a professional examination of the empirical data, science, and pseudo‐science surrounding the topic of interrogation. The Board ultimately produced a valuable report with papers from a variety of experts.

“A representative conclusion, from a veteran interrogator and former director of the Air Force Combat Interrogation Course, was that “the scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information.” The author added that, “Claims from some members of the operational community as to the alleged effectiveness of coercive methods in educing meaningful information from resistant sources are, at best, anecdotal in nature and would be, in the author’s view, unlikely to withstand the rigors of sound scientific inquiry.” Col. Steven Kleinman, “KUBARK Counter‐ Intelligence Interrogation Review: Observations of an Interrogator – Lessons Learned and Avenues for Further Research,” in Intelligence Science Board, Educing Information – Interrogation: Science and Art – Foundations for the Future (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Intelligence College Press, December 2006), p. 130 and note 91.

“some value against some prisoners, it has serious drawbacks just in the intelligence calculus, such as:

‐ constraints in getting the optimal team of interrogators, since law enforcement and military experts could not take part;
‐ whether the program actually produces much of the timesensitive current intelligence that is one of its unique justifications;
‐ loss of intelligence from allies who fear becoming complicit in a program they abhor and a whole set of fresh problems with coalition cooperation on intelligence operations;
‐ poorer reliability of information obtained through torment;
‐ possible loss of opportunities to turn some captives into more effective and even cooperative informants; and
‐ problems in devising an end‐game for the eventual trial or longterm disposition of the captives.”

– Testimony from Philip D. Zelikow: an American that held the executive director position of the 9/11 Commission, director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and Counselor of the United States Department of State.

“From my experience – and I speak as someone who has personally interrogated many terrorists and elicited important actionable intelligence– I strongly believe that it is a mistake to use what has become known as the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a position shared by many professional operatives, including the CIA officers who were present at the initial phases of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation. …

These techniques, from an operational perspective, are ineffective, slow and unreliable, and as a result harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda. (This is aside from the important additional considerations that they are un-American and harmful to our reputation and cause.) …

“And my focus is on the future. I wish to do my part to ensure that we never again use these harmful, slow, ineffective, and unreliable techniques instead of the tried, tested, and successful ones – the ones that are also in sync with our values and moral character. Only by doing this will we defeat the terrorists as effectively and quickly as possible.

“There are many examples of successful interrogations of terrorists that have taken place before and after 9/11. Many of them are classified, but one that is already public and mirrors the other cases, is the interrogation of al Qaeda terrorist Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri, known as Abu Jandal. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, together with my partner Special Agent Robert McFadden, a first-class intelligence operative from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), (which, from my experience, is one of the classiest agencies I encountered in the intelligence community), I interrogated Abu Jandal.
Through our interrogation, which was done completely by the book (including advising him of his rights), we obtained a treasure trove of highly significant actionable intelligence. For example, Abu Jandal gave us extensive information on Osama Bin Laden’s terror network, structure, leadership, membership, security details, facilities, family, communication methods, travels, training, ammunitions, and weaponry, including a breakdown of what machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, and anti-tank missiles they used. He also provided explicit details of the 9/11plot operatives, and identified many terrorists who we later successfully apprehended. … ”

– Testimony from Ali Soufan: A Lebanese-American FBI agent, Ali Soufan was instrumental in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and abroad …