14 December 2005

Former White House advisor says that torture may be necessary

This guy raises the "ticking time bomb" scenario to justify the use of torture in some situations. Never mind the fact that this argument has been discredited.

From Yahoo! News:
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A former top adviser to President George W. Bush on Iraq policy said on Monday there are instances when torture may be appropriate.

Commenting on an issue that has roiled Washington and affected the U.S. image abroad, Robert Blackwill, who was deputy national security adviser during Bush's first term, said:

"Of course torture should not be widespread and of course there should be extraordinarily stringent top-down requirements in this respect. But never? ... I wouldn't say never," he told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Blackwill, answering questions from the audience, said that when he taught a class for executives at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the case which caused the most "confusion" involved a fictional detainee whose organization was threatening to detonate a nuclear weapon in New York City.

"You have reason to believe he knows where it is. Do you torture him? ... It does seem to me that circumstances matter here and ...I'm not an absolutist in this regard," he said.

[...]

Blackwill, who resigned from the administration to join a consulting firm in November 2004, is still well-regarded among many in the administration for his analytical insight, including on both Iraq and India.

When he resigned, the National Security Council issued a statement saying Bush and then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice held him in "the highest regard."
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