Did torture work?

One of the supreme ironies emerging from the death of Osama bin Laden seems to be the story line that U.S. intelligence never would have found him without enhanced interrogation techniques, otherwise known as torture, used against detainees captured in, of all places, Iraq.
Barack Obama, of course, won election on a platform that opposed both torture and the war in Iraq.
I’ve read a couple of commentaries to that effect today. The truth is, it’s not quite that cut-and-dried.

Read this Associated Press story. Yes, information that led U.S. forces to bin Laden’s courier, and subsequently to the man himself, originally came from detainees in secret prisons. When al-Qaida leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured, he confirmed the name of a courier. Later, Hassan Ghul, who was captured in Iraq, provided information linking the courier to top al Qaida leaders.
Secret prisons and torture are not the most popular parts of the U.S. war on terror. There were many stories through the years quoting experts who said torture doesn’t provide reliable information and leads to more violence against Americans. But Tuesday’s AP story had this to say:
“The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.
“‘We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,’ said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.”
Mohammed underwent waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning. Later in the story, however, it becomes clear that Mohammed didn’t give this information as a result of waterboarding. It came out during a normal interrogation much later.
The Iraq connection is a bit fuzzy, too. Ghul was captured in 2004. By then, terrorists had begun infiltrating Iraq to take advantage of a power vacuum there, caused by the U.S. invasion, and to attack U.S. forces. Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaida.
The arguments over torture and the war in Iraq will continue. Nothing revealed so far about bin Laden’s death provides a definitive conclusion about either. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the war on terror, and the interrogation of detainees in secret prisons, were essential to locating him.
What is certain, though, is that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s statement, when asked whether bin Laden’s death justified torture, that “nothing justifies the kind of procedures used,” needs some clarification. Does she really mean nothing? Not even getting the man responsible for the lives of thousands of Americans?
Clearly, the arguing over tactics in the war on terror will go on.