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CNN Talkback Live

Torture: Should It Be an Option When Dealing With Terrorists?

Aired November 07, 2001 - 15:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOIE CHEN, HOST: Truth serums. Torture racks. A 24-hour hard rock assault.

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CHEN: Should the U.S. do whatever it takes to force suspects in the 9-11 attacks to talk?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to be a little less soft, a little less sensitive, and get a little more creative.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some sort of moderate torture, if you will, or some physical force that is needed, in order to save lives.

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CHEN: Too barbaric for America? How far would you go to choke out the truth?

(APPLAUSE)

CHEN: Did somebody say choke out the truth? Nobody's got any trouble talking here! Welcome. Good afternoon, and welcome TALKBACK LIVE: "America Speaks Out."

There are ways to make the enemy talk, but should U.S. investigators go all the way when dealing with suspected terrorists? Is torture an option in time of war?

Let's get right into it today. Our guests today begin with Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at the on-line magazine "Slate." She has written an article titled "Tortured Justice." Good title there, Dahlia.

Hussein Ibish is with us as well. He is the communications director for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. Also with us this afternoon, Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis. He's vice president for policy at the Family Research Council.

Welcome to all of you.

Hussein, I'd like to begin with you and ask you, is this different? Is it a time of war, and is it an opportunity to use all means necessary to get the answers that are needed?

HUSSEIN IBISH, ARAB-AMERICAN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE: No. We still have laws, which we have to obey. There is a very important investigation going on, and it's crucial that it succeed. But it has to be conducted according to the law. The Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and laws against assault would all prevent the use of torture, of what was euphemistically being called in your intro, "moderate physical pressure," or anything of the kind.

And we have enshrined as part of our basic law, our Constitution and the legal systems that we inherited from the British Common Law system, the principle of not forcing someone to incriminate themselves. We take it seriously when we say you have the right to remain silent when you're arrested, and I don't think we can just shred the Constitution because the United States was attacked.

CHEN: I just want to ask the audience here, yes with Hussein on that? It's a Constitutional issue?

(APPLAUSE)

CHEN: All right, another word on that. Dahlia, is it different today?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, SLATE.COM: I think I would want to take issue with one point there, and that point is, this is not necessarily an investigation to get people to incriminate themselves. We are currently holding hundreds of individuals who may have significant information about where Osama bin Laden is.

We don't want to torture them to get them to a position where we can try them. We want to torture them because we are trying to search for a rabbit in the desert, and any piece of information we can get from them is crucial. And I think that distinction is important. No one has suggested torturing people to bring them to trial.

IBISH: But legally, there is no difference. I mean, legally, when we say you have the right to remain silent, either we have that right or we don't have that right. You cannot fudge it, and you cannot start to make little exceptions here and there, or the right will evaporate in no time, and no one will have that right, under any circumstances.

CHEN: Wait, I let the audience on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on Dahlia's position, there are certainly exceptions -- audience?

(APPLAUSE)

CHEN: A little more tepid support, Dahlia. We'll see if you can get things going here on that. Colonel Robert Maginnis, I want to get you in here on this as well. You're trained by the Army. You know things that are taught to our folks serving in the military. The logic on that is, what is taught to our service people if they ever face a situation where they are being tortured for answers?

RETIRED LT. COL. ROBERT MAGINNIS, U.S. ARMY: Well, Joie, there are a couple things here. Geneva Convention, we're signatories to that. There are pages on how to treat POWs. The difficulty, obviously, is we abide by that and sometimes our enemies don't.

Code of conduct, that we teach every soldier in basic training, is very clear. You only give so much information, and you try to evade and escape, should you be captured. So when you consider those issues, as far as the military is concerned, if you capture someone, frankly, they're treated under the uniform code of military justice, and you can't cut their nose off or cut their toes off. You have to treat them humanely.

So there are very strong strictures, when it comes to how to treat prisoners and how to conduct yourself, should you become a prisoner. Now, if you want to change that, and that might be part of this debate, you'll need to go to Congress. And Congress and the president need to agree on this.

CHEN: Just out of curiosity, Colonel Rob, I mean, is there something that happens -- if you are taken prisoner, is someone in the Army told, look, maybe you should come up with a lie to tell your interrogators, just to get you out of the situation?

MAGINNIS: It really depends upon the position that you're in. There are people in the past that have been captured from this country -- or in some armed forces, say, in Vietnam, or World War II, et cetera -- that you know, have misled people, and that's part of deception. And you can do that. You're expected to try to escape.

Now, it's interesting, in fact, under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, you can actually be court marshaled after the fact, after the escape, if you, as a leader, say, a lieutenant or a sergeant, allowed somebody to be misused under your authority, and you didn't do something about it.

So, you know, we really put our people in a pretty tight box when it comes to how they conduct themselves and how we protect people that we capture.

CHEN: Interesting point of comparison.

Want to get someone on the telephone line now. This is Anne from Virginia. Anne, make your position known to our audience.

CALLER: Yes, basically my position is -- and I guess there's not a person out there that isn't feeling the same, that we all felt on September 11th and from there on out -- I'm an American, I'm patriotic. I love the country. But if we say, OK, let's torture these people to get the truth out, to save lives, we have become them. We are now no longer innocent people with no blood on our hands. We have blood on our hands.

CHEN: Dahlia?

LITHWICK: Anne, I couldn't agree more. But I think something we've really glossed over in this discussion is that there is a massive continuum of what we're talking about, when talk about -- quote -- "torture." And I think, long before we get to the point where we get blood on our hands, which is what you're concerned about, we can really think about things like sodium pentothal, truth serum.

We can think about, as you suggested, loud music, sleep deprivation. Threats to family brought down Abu Nidal, the famous terrorist from the 1980s.

(CROSSTALK)

IBISH: I mean, this is horrible. Look, we just had some sort of endorsement of threatening people's families. I think that is just absolutely despicable. "Talk, or we'll kill your children"? No way!

Now, when it comes to sodium pentothal, let me tell you. First of all -- there are two problems. First of all, like with torture, truth serums give you information, but it's not going to be very reliable, so we don't use it.

Plus, in a Congressional hearing about a year and a half ago, the general counsels for both the INS and the FBI were asked, "why don't we use truth serum," with regard for suspects who might have information that -- about national security.

And they both said, "because it's against the law. The Constitution forbids it." And I think that -- it's not enough to go to Congress, actually, as the colonel is saying. If we want to go down this road, we need sweeping Constitutional amendments that will basically gut the Bill of Rights.

(CROSSTALK)

CHEN: Colonel disagrees. What about that sodium pentothal thing, Colonel?

MAGINNIS: I think there's evidence, that quite frankly, the courts would uphold. Under certain circumstances, using something like sodium pentothal. Specifically, if you give someone use immunity -- in other words, "we're not going to use the information we get from you to prosecute you. We have a pending national tragedy, we believe you have the necessary information." We convince the authorizing authority that we have compelling reason to probable cause, that you understand or have information that's going to help us deter this, we should be able to proceed.

Keep in mind, for 40 years, oral surgeons in the United States have used sodium pentothal or some related drug in their clinics around this country. It's not that incredible dangerous, and in fact, all it does is really relax you, and cause you to be less inhibited.

It's not always totally reliable, obviously, the information we get. But you know, as was said earlier, we want to piece together a puzzle here. They may give us just the little bit that's going to be enough to push us over and allow is to stop them.

CHEN: Maybe we should just give them a shot of Jack Daniels. That will loosen their tongues up, too.

(CROSSTALK)

CHEN: All right. We've got have take a break here, take a pause in the action. Hold the bus, we'll be back. Up next here: Does the end justify the means?

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CHEN: America, ready to speak out and TALKBACK LIVE, here. This is a subject that's gotten a lot of attention, a lot of heat in our studio audience, here. A word from Betty about using torture.

BETTY: I disagree totally with the torture method with the people that we have in custody right now.

CHEN: Because?

BETTY: Simply because, where do we draw the line? If we're going to torture these because of the situation on September 11th, what happens with another situation with a rape. Are we going to torturer that person, or are we going to torture murderers? You know, it's going to continue.

(APPLAUSE)

CHEN: Catherine (ph), from Kansas.

CATHERINE: These rapers, they didn't kill 6,000 or -- how many people died? If it was your brother, would you still feel the same? If it was my brother, I wouldn't torture him. I'd find a way to kill him. Because he -- you know, innocent people died.

BETTY: I truly believe the principles on which this country was built, and the Constitution.

(APPLAUSE)

BETTY: And we established those freedoms so that we would have the freedoms that we are expressing here today.

CATHERINE: Our fathers, our founding fathers who are there, they didn't ever, ever imagine what would happen to the World Trade Center.

BETTY: I agree with you totally. I never thought that I would live to see this happen. But I still believe that if we allow this to happen, with this situation, what is the next situation, and what are we going to do with it? CHEN: But hang on a minute here, Betty. What happens if you find out, you strongly suspect that Catherine and her gang are packed up and ready to do some harmful thing? Ready to drive a truck full of explosives, and the only way you're going to be able to find out when that's going to happen, where that's going to happen, who might die in that, is to torture her and get an answer out of her? Does it work then? Does it make a difference then?

BETTY: I don't think so. Because I still think the country that we live in is for freedom. And if we start acting like the other countries, then we are no better than they are.

(APPLAUSE)

CHEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is from Minnesota, talk to us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we sure these people are guilty? And if they're not, what if -- Katherine, your son was in that group of people, or in custody? Would you still say to torture them?

CHEN: Hang on a minute here. Just need to tell our viewers what you're looking at on the air. You see Tony Blair, prime minister of Britain. He has just landed here at Andrews Air Force Base.

He's going to stop in and see the president of the United States. They're going to continue their talks. As you know, Prime Minister Blair has been a strong supporter of the U.S. war, and the action in the war on terrorism. Tony Blair, arriving at Andrews today.

Want to get back to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) comment. What you're saying is, look, if you're going to torture, you almost have to assume that they're guilty, before you start torturing them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still think, and I agree with the lady who just said, we cannot do that in this country. This country is founded on principle.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came from India, because this is different. OK, India and Pakistan always fight about religion. This country is built that we could do what you want to do in a set of rules. And we have to follow those rules. And we cannot torture people.

I know one of my -- Robert said, the Geneva Convention treaty we have. We cannot just go out and torture anybody, because that's against constitution.

CHEN: Dahlia, go back to you out there in our audience, away from the set here at TALKBACK LIVE. The circumstances are different, but doesn't the Constitution, don't our values remain the same?

LITHWICK: There is no question, and you're not going to find, I don't think, anyone who will advocate this is Constitutional or illegal. I think the issue is, among the hundreds of people that we are holding, there are between four and six who have vital information. And I think if you want to ask a...

CHEN: We think.

LITHWICK: We think -- one of whom wanted to learn how to fly planes, but not land them. Vital information that would be incredibly helpful to tracking down Osama bin Laden.

And I would just say this: before you think about the morality of doing days of silence or sleep deprivation, as quote/unquote torture, think about the morality of bombing innocent women and children in Afghanistan, which is what we are currently doing. And I would say those people have a far more attenuative relationship to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, than people that we are currently holding in New York...

CHEN: Colonel, that's an interesting point. I mean, both of you, that really is an interesting point. Is torture different from war? I mean, war you're targeting somebody in particular. You're bombing, you're blowing them up. What's the difference between killing them, and cutting off a foot?

MAGINNIS: Especially given that this is not a declared war, Joie. We are killing people, and we're killing innocent people by mistake, in Afghanistan. But I wanted to return to something if I can, to something that was said earlier.

You know, we do a lot of things in this country with court approval, because our Constitutional right aren't absolute. Case in point: we force an alleged rapist to be tested for AIDS so that we can tell the rape victim the results to protect herself. We force students to go through drug tests to protect them and their fellow athletes. And we also force pregnant drug users into jail, in order to protect the unborn. So we do a host of things that are a bit unusual.

IBISH: But all those things have been ruled to be lawful by the Supreme Court. And there is no doubt, as my colleague here has just said, that everybody agrees that torture and sodium pentothal, or these other methods that are being considered or proposed, are in fact, illegal, given our current state of laws.

It's really sort of shocking to hear somebody say that. Well, our government will abandon the law, disregard the Constitution, as well as all these human rights instruments, like the treaty against torture and the Geneva Convention, and other documents of that kind, in only four or five cases, so it will be OK.

Believe me, if you justify it in this case, there will be another case involving drug dealers and major shipments of cocaine, there will be all kinds of cases involving the Mafia. Either we do it or we don't do it, and that's...

CHEN: A slippery slope.

IBISH: Absolutely.

CHEN: We have another idea from Randall. He's on the telephone line now, from Mississippi. Randall, you there?

CALLER: Yes, I'm here.

CHEN: All right, what's your idea?

CALLER: Well, there was a European nation that had arrested some terrorists, and they tortured them for a few days and got nothing out of them. Now, when they threatened to send them to Israel, they started talking.

CHEN: Colonel, why is that? What is it about Israel? IT's Israel's Mossad, I think, that's the question. What is it about the Mossad that scares people so?

MAGINNIS: Well, they're incredibly brutal. I'm familiar with some of their tactics. Keep in mind, it's against the Geneva Convention for us to extradite someone to Israel for that purpose.

CHEN: So we can't farm them out to someone else?

MAGINNIS: We can't farm them out, in order to get information from them. So we need to be very careful about that.

CHEN: Hussein?

IBISH: The reality is, nobody really is scared of Israel. I mean, the number of bombings, the amount of conflict, in the occupied territories, especially, but also in Israel's (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Their methods clearly don't protect them from the work of people who would use these kind of tactics.

And certainly, when you see young Palestinians in the streets with stones, fighting Israeli tanks with stones, obviously the might of Israel doesn't deter people from using all kinds of means.

CHEN: Dahlia?

LITHWICK: I don't think the issue here is the might of Israel or people's fear of Israel. I think the caller's point is an excellent point, which is that the United States has benefited from the fruits of torture for a long time. That we apprehended the 1993 World Trade bombers because of torture that happened in the Philippines.

We have probably apprehended the millennium bombers -- we don't know for sure -- based on interrogations that happened in Egypt and Jordan, countries that are very comfortable torturing during interrogations.

And so I think it's a little bit hypocritical to say we won't do it stateside, but we sure are happy when people in Egypt, or Jordan, or Israel or the Philippines share information with us, that forecloses human tragedy of epic proportions.

(CROSSTALK)

MAGINNIS: Unfortunately, in Operation Phoenix and other things, during Vietnam, we used some of these techniques, and if you like, we can talk about those later.

CHEN: All right. We're going to have to do that after the break.

Just a word from Elaine in West Virginia: "Our Constitution is there to protect us, not to protect persons' whose ultimate aim is to do us as much harm as possible, and create chaos in our country."

Interesting point from Elaine. Thanks to you.

Dahlia Lithwick, Hussein Ibish, thank you both for joining us. We're going to keep Colonel Bob on for a minute. Still ahead here: Could a little torture be a good thing? We'll be back. We've got a news update, as well. Stand by.

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