Bond in Newsweek

Sen. Kit Bond, a member of the Senate select committee on intelligence, is quoted in a Newsweek piece out this week examining the use of torture in intelligence gathering.

Details are hard to come by, but Sen. Kit Bond, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, told NEWSWEEK that "enhanced interrogation techniques" worked with at least one high-level Qaeda operative, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to thwart a plot. Bond would not say which one…

As a member of the intelligence committee, Sen. Bond is party to a great deal of classified reports and briefings regarding not only the techniques used to gather intelligence, but also the use and usefulness of the information.

The piece is a companion to the cover story written by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), "Torture's Terrible Toll", criticizing the use of torture or one of its more friendly synonyms, "torture-light" or "enhanced interrogation techniques".

While the practitioners may not be modern-day Torquemadas, the use of the word torture is accurate, though potentially prejudicial. Some of the techniques used (e.g. "waterboarding") have historically been referred to as torture, though they are less severe than other potential methods.

Matthew

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