Guantánamo and the Limits of Coercive Interrogation: The Science of Enhanced Techniques

After the September 11 attacks, the CIA received unprecedented authority to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects using methods that went far beyond anything previously sanctioned by U.S. law. The program, euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EIT), operated in secret black sites around the world and at Guantánamo Bay.

In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 500-page summary of a 6,700-page classified report. Its conclusions were stark.

THE TECHNIQUES: The approved "enhanced" techniques included:

• Waterboarding (simulated drowning) — used 183 times on one detainee alone
• Sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours
• Confinement in small boxes
• "Walling" — slamming detainees into specially constructed walls
• Nudity, dietary manipulation, and rectal feeding

The legal authorization came through the "Torture Memos" written by DOJ attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee, which redefined torture so narrowly that almost none of these practices technically qualified.

WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS: Psychologists and interrogation researchers who reviewed the program found:

• Extreme stress and pain degrade memory and increase confabulation (making up plausible-sounding information)
• Subjects under torture will say whatever they believe their interrogators want to hear
• Coercive methods produce high quantities of information of extremely low reliability
• Rapport-based techniques consistently outperform coercion in producing accurate, actionable intelligence

THE SENATE REPORT: The 2014 Senate report concluded:

• The CIA's use of EITs was not effective at producing unique, actionable intelligence
• The CIA misled Congress and the White House about the program's effectiveness
• The program was far more brutal than initially described to oversight bodies
• At least 26 detainees were wrongfully held

THE LEGACY: No CIA official was prosecuted. The program ended officially under President Obama in 2009. The debate about its legality and effectiveness continues.

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