May 24, 2009 12:10 PM

Powell: I Have "No Idea" If Torture Works

By
Michelle Levi
Topics
In The News
(CBS)
Colin Powell told Bob Schieffer he has "no idea" if the enhanced interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration were effective.

"I have no idea," he said on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "I hear that they were. I hear that they weren't. You see people from the FBI who come out and say, 'We got all of that information before any of that was done.' I cannot answer that question. And the problem is, I don't know what I don't know."

He said that he was aware that enhanced methods of interrogation were being considered in the aftermath of 9/11 but said he was "not privy" to the memos of legal documents that were being written.

"I think it was unfortunate but we had a system that kept that in a very compartmented manner. And so I was apart that these enhanced interrogation techniques were being considered. And they were judged not to be torture at the time," he said.

He argued that when "facing the possibility of a 9/11, you had to give some -- some flexibility to the CIA," noting that these methods were stopped under the Bush administration.

"It's easy now in the cold light of day to look back and say, you shouldn't have done any of that," Powell said.

"But as Mr. Cheney has said very, very often, as has President Bush and all of us, if we had another attack like 9/11, say on 9/11 a year later, nobody would have forgiven us for not doing everything we could."

More from Face The Nation (5.24.09):
  • Powell: Cheney's "Misinformed"
  • Read the complete transcript

    • Add a Comment See all 78 Comments
    by ReallyMeanIt May 26, 2009 1:07 PM EDT
    "We expect monsters to torture and murder, for that is their nature.

    We expect Americans to be just and humane, for that is our nature."
    SearingTruth

    A Future of the Brave
    Posted by searingtruth
    -----------------------------------------------------
    You're living in your fantasy theritical world. What out there is much different.
    Here's what would happen from 2 different views: Lets say we captured one of the hijacker on 9/10 along with all of the incriminating evidence but don't know when the hijacking is going to take place.
    - The libs would rather watch thousand of Americans suffererred of horrible death as long as the scumbag is not treated harshly.
    - Those that are sane would do whatever it takes to prevent the tragedy. The scumbag already forfeited his rights to be with the human race when he agreed to do this heinous act.

    So if your moral highground say it's ok to allowed thousand of deaths then you can keep it. Try not to break your neck when you fall off your high horse.
    Reply to this comment
    by picklepants7 May 26, 2009 6:15 AM EDT
    It is all very simple. If you want peace, then do not go to war with anyone else. Please remember that perhaps the purpose of the torture in Iraq is to ensure that Muslims take up arms agains the United States? Then, we create a war that never ends, a war that can go on forever, the so-called war on terrorism.

    I feel that we have succeeded in creating and continuing a never ending war. I doubt if the leaders of this country have any empathy at all for the hundreds of thousands of dead people, Iraqi, Americans, or otherwise. Please remember that if we truly desire peace, then we must not go to war. War is good for nothing except producing dead bodies, wounded soldiers, and and families mourning their losses.

    I am above all a realist.
    Posted by lgnsqdn at 9:09 AM : May 25, 2009


    that last line makes no sense after what you wrote. we go to war to preserve peace. you're an idealist, no where near a realist, who does not live in the real world, nor know that war is part of life whether we like it or not. some times war is in evitable. why don't you go back to sitting on your couch, smoke another left handed cigarette and watch woodstock.

    i'm a realist.
    Reply to this comment
    by bearslikepumas May 25, 2009 7:51 PM EDT
    As far as your theory on war giving the government an excuse to SPEND more... it's just that. So why try to make it sound like a fact with evidence to back it?

    World War II helped the united states out of the depression as well as opened America's eyes to the fact that women could do what men could do as well as blacks deserve rights if they're fighting side by side our white troops. Same with native Americans.

    We also stopped the taking over of the entire world by the axis of evil. I bet very much you would have been one of those screaming at the top of your lungs to be neutral.

    It's only in the aftermath amongst the rebuilding of cultures that we have a chance to see what was lost and won and weigh the difference.

    So get off your pedestal with your distortions and theories.

    They wanted the cold war to last.

    WOW.

    The world is getting more and more naive.
    Reply to this comment
    by bearslikepumas May 25, 2009 7:46 PM EDT
    Are you seriously trying to convince people that we didn't REALLY get attacked until they found out we were torturing their comrades?

    Wow.

    It's true what they say about the dissolution of truth and spreading enough lies makes a new truth.

    It's just sad that people make up and distort lies to make themselves come off as intellectual or to "prove" a point.

    Be ashamed of yourself.

    or

    Just run for a political office.

    You'll fit right in with your brethren.
    Reply to this comment
    by sjc_1 May 25, 2009 12:34 PM EDT
    "..a war that can go on forever.."

    I believe that many Republicans loved the Cold War because it brought never ending military contracts to their corporations. This huge flow of public contract dollars kept them rich for generations.

    If we can have a "time horizon" in Iraq, it is like other horizons. No matter how far you go you never get there. The so called "War on Terror" is a replacement for the Cold War. Guns and butter, without the butter for anyone but the wealthy.
    Reply to this comment
    by lgnsqdn May 25, 2009 12:09 PM EDT
    It is all very simple. If you want peace, then do not go to war with anyone else. Please remember that perhaps the purpose of the torture in Iraq is to ensure that Muslims take up arms agains the United States? Then, we create a war that never ends, a war that can go on forever, the so-called war on terrorism.

    I feel that we have succeeded in creating and continuing a never ending war. I doubt if the leaders of this country have any empathy at all for the hundreds of thousands of dead people, Iraqi, Americans, or otherwise. Please remember that if we truly desire peace, then we must not go to war. War is good for nothing except producing dead bodies, wounded soldiers, and and families mourning their losses.

    I am above all a realist.
    Reply to this comment
    by rushlimpdrug May 25, 2009 10:37 AM EDT
    Colon Powell's autobiography to be titled:

    "Clueless"
    Reply to this comment
    by bigsk8fan May 25, 2009 9:33 AM EDT
    here is a clue to figure out if torture works. in the middle ages, inquisitors used it to get confessions of witchcraft. does that help?
    Reply to this comment
    by rednomo May 25, 2009 9:25 AM EDT
    Former Senior Interrogator in Iraq Dissects Cheney's Lies and Distortions
    As a senior interrogator in Iraq (and a former criminal investigator), there was a lesson I learned that served me well: there's more to be learned from what someone doesn't say than from what they do say. Let me dissect former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on National Security using this model and my interrogation skills.
    First, VP Cheney said, "This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately... it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do." He further stated, "It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so." That is simply untrue. Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq. What the former vice president didn't say is the fact that the dislike of our policies in the Middle East were not enough to make thousands of Muslim men pick up arms against us before these revelations. Torture and abuse became Al Qaida's number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives.
    Secondly, the former vice president, in saying that waterboarding is not torture, never mentions the fact that it was the United States and its Allies, during the Tokyo Trials, that helped convict a Japanese soldier for war crimes for waterboarding one of Jimmie Doolittle's Raiders. Have our morals and values changed in fifty years? He also did not mention that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both prohibited their troops from torturing prisoners of war. Washington specifically used the term "injure" -- no mention of severe mental or physical pain.
    Thirdly, the former vice president never mentioned the Senate testimony of Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who successfully interrogated Abu Zubaydah and learned the identity of Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber, and the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was the mastermind behind 9/11. We'll never know what more we could have discovered from Abu Zubaydah had not CIA contractors taken over the interrogations and used waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Also, glaringly absent from the former vice president's speech was any mention of the fact that the former administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.
    In addition, in his continued defense of harsh interrogation techniques (aka torture and abuse), VP Cheney forgets that harsh techniques have ensured that future detainees will be less likely to cooperate because they see us as hypocrites. They are less willing to trust us when we fail to live up to our principles. I experienced this firsthand in Iraq when interrogating high-ranking members of Al Qaida, some of whom decided to cooperate simply because I treated them with respect and civility.
    The former vice president is confusing harshness with effectiveness. An effective interrogation is one that yields useful, accurate intelligence, not one that is harsh. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of interrogations, the goal of which is not to coerce information from a prisoner, but to convince a prisoner to cooperate.
    Finally, the point that is most absent is that our greatest success in this conflict was achieved without torture or abuse. My interrogation team found Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq and murderer of tens of thousands. We did this using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques. These worked to great effect on the most hardened members of Al Qaida -- spiritual leaders who had been behind the waves of suicide bombers and, hence, the sectarian violence that swept across Iraq. We convinced them to cooperate by applying our intellect. In essence, we worked smarter, not harsher.
    Reply to this comment
    by bearslikepumas May 25, 2009 3:33 AM EDT
    Also, about breaking laws. When a soldier goes to a foreign country and shoots another person it's murder. He's not defending his home. He's on foreign soil for whatever reason he may be there. According to our laws, that's murder. You kill someone, it's murder. We don't try him or call it illegal because our government sanctions certain killing during times of war.
    Reply to this comment
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