During his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump advocated for a resumption of President George W. Bush’s (now defunct) “enhanced interrogation” program to collect intelligence and to counter terrorism. He did not mince words at a November 2015 campaign rally in Ohio: “Would I approve of waterboarding? You bet your ass I would—in a heartbeat.” In January 2017, the New York Times and the Washington Post released a draft executive order (EO) requesting that national security officials “recommend to the president whether to reinitiate a program of interrogation of high-value alien terrorists to be operated outside the United States.”
President Trump’s numerous claims that “torture works” have been undermined by policymakers, psychologists, political scientists, and even his own Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis. Both General Mattis and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Mike Pompeo, are on record questioning the efficacy of torture as a tool of intelligence gathering. Following the release of President Trump’s draft EO, Senator John McCain issued a statement reminding the American public that torture cannot be implemented legally without Congressional consent: “The President can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America.”
If there is good evidence that torture is ineffective in generating useful intelligence about terrorist organizations, why do governments—like the United States after the 9/11 attacks—respond to terrorist attacks with more torture?
