24, Torture & the American Military

Counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer, the chief protagonist in the Fox Television Network series “24,” rarely holds back when trying to extract information from a suspected or confirmed terrorist or to protect the United States from disaster. Over the course of his “career,” federal agent Bauer breaks a drug lord out of a federal prison, causing a riot and the death of at least one corrections officer. He assaults and seriously injures his partner to protect his undercover operation. He shoots and kills a known terrorist, even though she is no longer a threat. He interrogates a suspected terrorist while his partner cuts the suspect’s wrist. He fights heroin addiction after using the drug to convince drug cartel members that he has joined them. Again, to protect his cover, he points a gun at his partner’s head and squeezes the trigger, guessing, correctly, that the gun is not loaded. He tells a potential source of information that, if she does not cooperate, she will be sent to a foreign country for interrogation where her constitutional rights do not apply. He points a gun at a military pilot and orders the pilot to stay on course after the pilot has been given orders to turn the plane around. In an interrogation room, he fires a gun at a prisoner and all of these events occur in less than twenty-four hours during Season Three of the show. Season after season Bauer averts the country from disaster of apocalyptic proportions with derring-do and tactics that almost certainly violate U.S. and international law. And, he usually gets results.

Bauer's colleagues also resort to extreme measures in the face of serious threats to the country, even against other members of their unit. Twice, when the agency suspected a mole among the ranks, the director called in "Richards," the unit's resident torture expert. When summoned to the interrogation room, Richards, who rarely speaks, carries the tricks of his trade in a silver attaché case, the full contents of which we never see although his weapon of choice is usually a needle. All of this leads to an obvious question: does torture work? The experts say it does not.

A successful interrogation is one that extracts actionable, accurate intelligence from a subject and the lives of American troops and their allies may hang on the quality of the intelligence they have. Unfortunately, the value of intelligence tends to diminish over time and, usually within 24 hours, the enemy has adjusted to the capture of one of its operatives and the trail goes dead. Like other interrogation techniques, if torture works it must work fast before the enemy can react.

The question of torture's efficacy may be hypothetically answered in a number of ways: it works; it does not work; it only works with specific personality types; only certain types of torture work. The use of what are called "harsh" techniques deepens the problem. To some, the term "harsh methods" is a euphemism for torture. To others, the term appears to describe practices that fall somewhere between torture and techniques formally authorized for use by the United States military and other federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Central Intelligence Agency.

While 24 suggests that torture works, no research has tested the efficacy of torture and ethical constraints prevent scientists from doing so. Even harsh interrogation techniques, however one defines them, cannot be measured in an experimental setting for the same reasons. And, although the methods formally authorized by the United States military have never been empirically tested, they share some common themes with the techniques used by law enforcement officers: isolation, fear, and rapport.

Law enforcement officers have known for years that building rapport with a suspect is the swiftest way to extract a truthful confession. Fear of what might come and isolation from friends, family, and lawyers can help speed the process and result in a suspect's confession, sometimes even before the paperwork is completed. The U.S. military has embraced these methods and if you talk to interrogators themselves they will forcefully argue that once violence enters the interrogation booth, the interrogation has failed.

The military trains intelligence personnel at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, home of its intelligence school, and graduates say that instructors emphasize the Military Code of Justice and the Geneva Conventions as much as they do specific intelligence and interrogation strategies. Intelligence soldiers themselves, like good detectives, know that those who do not follow the rules do great damage to both the United States military and the country itself. The interrogators that I have spoken with view interrogations as a battle of wits, like a good chess game, and gather information in accordance with U.S. and international law.

There is no doubt that problems persist. False confessions are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States and many of those confessions are the result of questionable practices by police officers. Some military interrogators still use methods that unquestionably violate U.S. and international law and the American military needs to do a better job of weeding out those who are unfit to serve. Their presence does a disservice to the intelligence corps members who serve honorably and effectively.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram have become symbols of all that is wrong with American policy in the fight against terrorism but they do not tell the whole story. Evidence suggests that the vast majority of federal counterterrorism agents and military interrogators pride themselves on obtaining information by following the rules.