Torture and the Human Mind

F or the United States government to authorize the infl iction of severe physical and emotional distress as a means of extracting information from detainees, the situation must be grave and the need for intelligence extreme.Whether understood as "enhanced interrogation" or "torture," the process requires stepping outside the bounds of normal interrogation conduct.Evaluating the effi cacy of enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT), therefore, is vital to the decision-making process as the consequences of a failed program of interrogation could be severe.Two recent books address the question of effectiveness by exploring enhanced interrogation as a way to achieve an end: Enhanced Interrogation by James E. Mitchell and Why Torture Doesn't Work by Shane O'Mara.Considered separately, the two works appear to be in contrast with each other.Mitchell argues from personal experience that enhanced interrogation can be an effective method for extracting information, but only if undertaken with exacting care.O'Mara, on the other hand, argues from neuroscientifi c and biomedical evidence that torture is counterproductive to mission success.A careful read of each book in turn, however, illustrates the fi ne line between success and failure and demonstrates that, although sometimes credited with successful outcomes, torture techniques are far more likely to fail than to succeed and authorizing them may create more diffi culties and roadblocks than desired.Enhanced Interrogation details the author's insider account of the development and execution of "enhanced interrogation" techniques within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).Efforts to enhance interrogation were initiated early in 2002 in response to the 9/11 attacks.Enhancement adds coercive elements to conventional interrogation.Conventional interrogation operates from a "traditional rapport-based law enforcement approach," excludes coercive manipulations, and maximizes social infl uence tactics in an effort to elicit information from reluctant informants (43).Army Field Manual 2-22.3,Human Intelligence Collector Operations, details approved techniques for interrogating prisoners and detainees.One might tersely summarize the fi eld manual's guidance as: "talk, but don't threaten and don't hit."According to Mitchell, once EITs were defi ned and approved by appropriate agencies and authorities, they were employed on highvalue detainees believed to harbor intelligence essential to US national security (51).Enhanced interrogation increases physical and mental stress through an array of manipulations, sensory deprivations, and progressively harsher treatment, to include life-threatening, but