The Washingtonian featured an interesting interview with Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent responsible for capturing the Pakistani who shot five people, killing two, outside CIA headquarters in 1993.
Four years later, Garrett captured Mir Aimal Kansi in Pakistan and brought him back to the US for trial. Kansi was convicted and executed in 2002.
Reporter Harry Jaffe asked Garrett what he thought about the role of torture in obtaining useful information:
Let’s talk about terrorism and torture. What does your experience tell you about extracting useful information?
It taught me that how you treat people, how you approach people is crucial—it doesn’t make any difference what part of the world you’re in. If you want people to talk to you, if you want them to be truthful, they have to bond with you on some level—feel like they can trust you. Sometimes it takes a lot of time, but that’s how you get people to talk.
What about methods that use coercion and torture?
I think by and large this is not a good idea because first of all it creates mistrust. It demonstrates that this is how you treat people. It always will work against you, because the next person you torture is going to get out, they’re going to tell people what happened to them, and then you’re going to have to deal with a relative or tribal leader or somebody from his or her community.
And long-term it works against you in maintaining and collecting information. You reap what you sow.
His answer mirrors that of other investigators and interrogators who deal with terrorism-related cases. Not only does torture not work, they say; like Garrett, they agree that torture creates more problems than it solves.
Unfortunately, it’s still the case that primetime television shows like 24 depict torture as the only method that results in reliable information. Too many people see these shows and believe them to reflect “reality.” Torture is not only morally abhorrent and illegal — it doesn’t work.