Forty-nine percent of Americans oppose the use of torture no matter the circumstance, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll (48 percent believe the United States should consider torture on a case basis). The country also is split on whether President Obama should investigate the treatment of terrorism suspects under the previous administration (51 percent want an inquiry, 47 don't).
At the same time, the intelligence community's perception that fear will be removed from the equation has caused morale to plummet. "At its lowest point since the days of the Church Committee in the 70s," is the consensus I gathered from a range of intelligence community sources (most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity/information for background use only). One source said that Al Qaeda members are happy with the new U.S. policy that essentially has opened our interrogation playbook to them. Fred Rustmann, who was a CIA operations officer for twenty-five years, says that the terrorists "feel as if they've been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card."
"Al Qaeda becomes dangerous when they have a feeling of security," former Homeland Security Advisor Kenneth Wainstein told me. "We've seen that movie before with Afghanistan, in the 1990s, when they built up the infrastructure they used for 9/11."
"Now, when an Al Qaeda recruit is going through his version of SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] training camp, he is being told exactly what his interrogation will be like if he is captured," Rustmann says. "He has no fear of it. He knows that he'll come out okay. He knows that any threats to run him over to a country that will torture him are false. He knows he will not be killed or physically or mentally harmed. There will be no scars on his body or psyche when the interrogation is over. The most he'll endure will be days or weeks of discomfort. He'll be able to hold out. He won't break. There will be no incentive for him to betray Al Qaeda plans and intentions, or to give any information other than his name, rank and serial number."
While careful to draw a line at cruelty, Rustmann adds, "There has to be incentive for the prisoner to answer the interrogator's questions. If there is no incentive, the prisoner will simply stonewall the interrogator. And particularly when there is no time for lengthy rapport building and recruitment, fear is the best incentive for cooperation."
"The hope is that our liaison counterparts will do the heavy-lifting," Rustmann says.
The Pakistani ISI interrogation tactics reputedly make those employed at Guantanamo seem like spa treatments.
Rustmann notes: "People always think that the CIA will find a way to get things done, despite the laws. That may have been the case in the old days, but not today. They won't risk their careers and possible jail time."
Of course, fear is not the only way to gain our enemies' cooperation.
Some are swayed by ideology -- The City Upon a Hill has a good track record. Some are motivated by ego, the chance to avenge a grudge against one's superior, for example. And then there is, historically, the CIA's greatest sales aid: The Almighty Dollar.
With these tools, CIA officers will attempt to recruit Pakistani and Afghanistani locals -- even locals who hate the West -- in order to learn the whereabouts of Al Qaeda camps and destroy them.
"We have been successful recruiting from strength and not having to coerce people into cooperating," Rustmann says. "You need to give them a way to rationalize their behavior. Give them an excuse -- a better life for their families, for instance. They may still hate you. But they'll work for you -- there are a lot of workers in America who hate their bosses."
But such penetrations are rare, and time-consuming ("a year or more," Rustmann estimates). Also, as Rustmann puts it, "It's the hardest sales pitch you'll ever make in your life: inducing someone to willingly betray his country. And that's a Russian or a Frenchman, not a religious fanatic like an Al Qaeda jihadist."
Still, there is an excellent historic precedent for penetration on a fee basis: It worked in, of all places, Afghanistan in 2001.
"Along with Delta and Special Forces, the CIA officers were the first into Afghanistan, handing out money," Rustmann recalls. "That's how we got the Northern Alliance on our side. It was like a rent-an-army, and not a lot of money: two dollars a day was a great wage for a soldier. And you can buy fanatics too."