"'There is a difference between compliance and cooperation,' he said. Compliance can result from torture -- a detainee will do anything to make the rough treatment end. But real cooperation, says Soufan, comes from engaging the detainee after learning everything possible about them."
Torture's apologists always want to deny the importance of skilled interrogators, who conduct extensive research on their subjects and often spend a long time building up a rapport with them.
In Rodriguez's case, he also resorted to claims that torture had led to the capture of Osama bin Laden. He told Dana Priest of the Washington Post last week, "I am certain, beyond any doubt, that these techniques, approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government, certified by the Department of Justice, and briefed to and supported by bipartisan leadership of congressional intelligence oversight committees, shielded the people of the United States from harm and led to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden."
In response, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a joint statement (PDF) condemning the remarks made by Rodriguez and others who had leapt on the bandwagon as the anniversary of bin Laden's death approached. In their statement they said that such remarks were "inconsistent with CIA records" and "misguided and misinformed," and they expressed their disappointment that "Mr. Rodriguez and others, who left government positions prior to the OBL operation and are not privy to all of the intelligence that led to the raid, continue to insist that the CIA's so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques' used many years ago were a central component of our success."
Their statement, as the New York Times explained, "rebutted various claims that critical information about bin Laden's courier" came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or from Abu Faraj al-Libi, another "high-value detainee" seized in Pakistan in 2005 and held at Guantà ¡namo since September 2006 like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other "high-value detainees." In addition, the Times noted that the statement "rejected claims that tough treatment drew valuable information about bin Laden's courier from a third detainee, unidentified in the statement," but elsewhere identified as Hassan Ghul, another "high-value detainee," who was seized in Iraq in 2004 and who was never held at Guantà ¡namo. The statement noted, "While this third detainee did provide relevant information, he did so the day before he was interrogated by the CIA using their coercive interrogation techniques."
"Instead," according to the Times, Sens. Feinstein and Levin stated, without elaborating, that "the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program."
That is important, but what is needed now is for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to complete its comprehensive review of the CIA's former detention and interrogation program and publish it. As the statement also explained, "Committee staff have reviewed more than 6 million pages of records and the Committee's final report, which we expect to exceed 5000 pages, will provide a detailed, factual description of how interrogation techniques were used, the conditions under which detainees were held, and the intelligence that was -- or wasn't -- gained from the program."
As Dan Froomkin explained in the Huffington Post last Monday, the investigation by Democrats, which has taken nearly three years and in which Republican lawmakers have refused to take part, "concludes that records from the Bush administration fail to support claims that torture was effective in stopping any terrorist attack" or in leading to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last year.
While people such as Jose Rodriguez remain free to peddle their nonsense about torture, and to profit from it, America's name continues to be tarnished and the American public continue to be shamefully misled. The long-awaited report into the CIA's torture program should be published as soon as possible to let people know what really happened and, one hopes, to play a part in tearing down the "golden shield" that has so far protected Bush administration's officials from prosecution.
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