‘Torture is torture’ ignores the complex nature of intelligence gathering

On Thursday I was on the BBC’s ‘This Week’ to talk about the CIA and torture. It is, for many reasons, perhaps the most gruesome subject possible. And not just because of the hideous allegations involved, but also because it is one of those subjects which people wantonly lose their reason over. Like a small number of other subjects in our society at the moment, it is one which people try wilfully to simplify, usually in order to show the world what a moral person they are and, by contrast, what immoral people their opponents are. I will use this post to set out some of my own views and certain objections to what seems to be the status quo debate on all this.

Didn’t this week’s report showed the CIA to be torturing on an industrial scale?
The Senate Intelligence Committee report which came out this week is gruesome reading. But it also cannot be read in isolation and there are convincing reasons to believe that it is largely or partly untrue. Republicans on the Committee walked out of the process when they realised that the aim of the investigation was not to have a genuine look into allegations of torture but specifically to criticise the last Republican administration and the CIA’s behaviour during the George W Bush Presidency. One sign of how bad this politicisation was is that the Committee did not even speak with – or seek evidence from – the people who headed the CIA during the period in question. In particular, it is worth reading this response piece by former CIA Directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden and others.

Senator Bob Kerrey, a former Democrat who used to sit on the Intelligence Committee, was one of those who highlighted what a politicised, partisan process this has become. In a striking piece