Time just released an article that takes a hard look at Bushie claims that waterboarding actually saved lives. It starts out with an allegation by Cheney that Obama is selectively declassifying memos to hide what we learned.
Like many of his allies, Cheney insists that methods like waterboarding or sleep deprivation are an essential tool needed to pry vital intelligence from terrorists who otherwise refused to cooperate with their captors. Last month he said "the enhanced interrogation program" stopped "a great many" 9/11-like attacks.
Among these thwarted attacks, according to George Tenet, were 20 attacks against "communications nodes, nuclear power plants, dams, bridges, and tunnels" and a planned attack on the West Coast.
The problem, Time says, is that there's no real way to prove such arguments are true.
For instance, these supposed plots may have been just ways to make the pain stop.
"Torture gets people to talk — no question," says a former senior U.S. national security official involved in such matters. "They talk and talk and talk, until you stop hurting them. But in every instance, bar none, you later discover that they've just been lying or exaggerating, or telling you what they think you want to hear." In fact, a 1963 CIA interrogation manual warned that those resisting questioning "are likely to become intractable if made to endure pain" or generate "false, concocted as a means of escaping from distress."
Even one of the memos raises doubts about whether these tactics actually worked.
A footnote in the May 30, 2005 memo by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, states that, "According to the [CIA] IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information ... On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques. ... "
That occasion? When the CIA questioned Abu Zubaydah, the officers on-scene believed he was forthcoming. However, some elements at Langley still thought he was stonewalling, and ordered him waterboarded one more time.
Also, Time points out, any claims that attacks were prevented are suspect because that same intelligence community failed to discover that Saddam had no WMDs.
So Cheney et al can pat themselves on the back all they want. But it seems at best, the effectiveness of these techniques is a wash at best (no pun intended).