Beyond torture: the future of interrogation

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay: two names that have become synonymous in many people's minds with torture and abuse of human rights by American interrogators. When Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2009, he set out to erase the stain such practices have left on America's image. The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group established later that year has as one of its stated aims to interrogate without brute force and to employ "scientifically proven" techniques - though without saying what these might be.

It seems like a noble goal, but on closer inspection it raises a host of questions. Can science validate interrogation techniques - and if so, how? What is the effect on the human mind of coercive interrogation that stops short of physical torture? And, crucially, are there any interrogation techniques that can be shown to be both effective and humane?

In the past, the US military used a set of 19 approved interrogation methods laid down in the Army Field Manual 2-22.3, which explicitly prohibits threats or coercion. Following the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, the George W. Bush administration decided that this should change. So, after legal consultations, new ways to apply pressure on people under interrogation were drawn up. For several years they remained secret, but more recently we have acquired a pretty good idea of the techniques interrogators used at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the US base at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

Take, for example, the treatment log of Mohamed al-Kahtani, made public in March 2006. This revealed that for weeks on end he faced a daily routine of just 4 hours of interrupted sleep, prolonged stress positions, blaring music, extremes of temperature, and various humiliations - including being treated like a dog, and a mock birthday party at which he was shown puppet shows of himself engaging in sexual acts with Osama bin Laden.

The technique known as waterboarding, in which the subject experiences the sensation that they are drowning, was also common. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has claimed responsibility for planning the 9/11 attacks, was subjected to waterboarding more than 180 times in March 2003 alone.

Do any or all of these amount to torture? The 1984 UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is somewhat vague. It differentiates between torture - "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person" - and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" (CIDT). This distinction may reflect the notion that inserting needles under someone's fingernails or pulling out their teeth is in some way worse than, say, blindfolding and hooding, forced nudity, isolation, humiliation, forced stress positions, or deprivation of sleep or light.

Yet the UN convention is clear: both torture and CIDT are illegal. And maybe the distinction is unimportant anyway, as there appears to be little to choose between them in terms of the long-term ill-effects they cause to their victims.

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@'New Scientist'