Professional Interrogator Rejects Bushies’ Arguments About Release Of Torture Memos

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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/probes-of-bush-administration/professional-interrogator-rejects-bushies-argument-about-release-of-torture-memos/

Professional Interrogator Rejects Bushies’ Arguments About Release Of Torture Memos


So what does a real live interrogator think about the loud criticism from Bushies and GOPers of Obama’s decision to release the torture memos?

Torin Nelson — a civilian adviser and former Army soldier who served as an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from 2002-2008 — largely rejected the Bushies’ arguments in an interview, claiming the release of the memos wouldn’t tip off terrorists to torture secrets or compromise our long-term security.

Nelson offered a nuanced take, agreeing with one key claim of torture backers. Asked if terrorists can train to resist torture if they know the interrogators’ “outer limits,” Torin told our reporter, Amanda Erickson: “Yes, definitely. They can resist physically and physiologically.”

But he rejected the argument as irrelevant. Such a trained detainee, he said, is more likely to get tortured for longer, which makes it more likely that he’ll volunteer falsehoods. The question is not whether “they can totally withstand torture,” Torin said. “The question is the quality of information that they give up. The information is most likely false,” designed to “make the immediate treatment stop.”

Torin also rejected another key Bush argument: That terrorists don’t know about the “outer limits” of torture techniques. He said that much info has already been public, that released inmates readily communicated such info with comrades, and that he’d personally dealt with detainees who knew these “outer limits” already.

“There was never a detainee who wasn’t ready for the worst treatment,” Torin said. “The information {released in the memos} from a couple of years ago is nothing new to them.”

To be sure, torture proponents will probably reject Torin’s arguments, simply because he was a key whistle-blower for government probes of detainee abuse and joined a human rights campaign against torture. But Torin has been on the torture front lines — and he says the Bushies’ claim about the torture memos are largely bogus.