THE DEBATE OVER THE UNITED STATES' POST-SEPTEMBER 11TH ENDORSEment of torture as a policy in aid of interrogation has been curious indeed. Official U.S. government memoranda defined torture so narrowly, in contravention of U.S. law and treaties, and interrogators and jailers engaged in abusive acts undoubtedly constituting torture under U.S. and international law, yet the United States has neither admitted that such policy existed, nor formally defended the mistreatment of detainees. However, former government officials and academics – often the same people – have presented what they consider justifications for torture, without conceding that the United States has adopted such measures. Do those reasons withstand scrutiny and analysis? And, if not, what is to be done with those who have constructed such a policy, and with the policy itself?

Certainly the intensity of the reaction to revelation of the government memoranda setting forth the policy, and the ensuing debate, has precipitated retrenchment already. Revising the policy formulated two-and-a-half years earlier in the wake of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed in December 2004 that torture is “abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.” That repudiation of the prior policy, however, does not end the controversy, since fundamental questions nonetheless remain: why the rush to condone torture and other coercive, abusive interrogation methods in the first place? Was there some finding or conclusion that traditional interrogation methods, consistent with established military or international standards, had failed, or would prove insufficient?