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Introduction
Much of the torture debate that has intensified as a result of practices used in the War on Terror concerns 'what works', specifically which controversial interrogation techniques succeed in producing intelligence. The torture debate centres on discussions of what is permissible or justifiable. These discussions include which methods fall foul of international human rights law and whether some forms of treatment given to interrogatees is simply never morally permissible. A common feature of the debate - and one, which this article addresses - is whether methods that might be described as torture help collect intelligence during interrogation. Claims that such methods do or do not work underpin many an argument about their permissibility and justifiability. However, these claims are sometimes based on assumptions about the practices concerned. Greater understanding of intelligence will help this important debate that concerns the welfare of present and future prisoners. Contrary to some portrayals by the media, film and TV, interrogation and torture are not synonymous. Interrogation seeks intelligence or other information and does not always involve torture, whereas torture can have a variety of purposes, including but not limited to interrogation. By focusing on intelligence rather than torture, this article will draw attention to the differences between the two. It seeks to increase the amount of attention paid to this dimension of the practices that are the subject of the torture debate.
The torture debate has already increased interest in intelligence matters. The public enquiries that identified the intelligence community's failings regarding alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq have further encouraged this growth in interest.1 Nonetheless, discussion of interrogation is still dominated by a focus on torture. Of course, the use of torture in conjunction with interrogation deserves discussion, and this article intends to further this discussion. Yet, it will be argued that injecting greater understanding of the intelligence dimension will make for more realistic judgements about what practices should be used. To achieve this, the article will examine some of the practicalities of interrogation and the wider intelligence machine provided by the body of literature from the discipline of intelligence studies, and that provided by the waterboarding and interrogation of terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
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