Boo Radley
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But...does anyone consider it a preferred method? I believe it is considered one of the last resorts, used extremely rarely- considering that probably tens of thousands of individuals in Iraq and Afghanistan have been questioned at some point or another over the last decade, I would imagine waterboarding (to say nothing of torture) has been performed on far less than even 1% of the subjects. It seems to be another tool in the toolbox, used extremely rarely at best. Not the standard welcome-to-this-interrogation-before-we-get-started-put-this-over-your-head that many like to imagine it to be.
I would imagine for effectiveness.
I don't believe that's true. It has been proven repeatedly to be largely ineffective, especially compared to other methods. As for who it was applied, to, I'm not sure we can say with certainty the percentage. We know a couple died in AFghanistan, and it appears at elast one of them was likely innocent with nothing to share. We know that al Libi gave us misinformation and that we used it in our rationale for invading Iraq. We've been told KSm gave us information, but we've seen nothing specific. What we do know is he and our interogators tell us he gave a lot of misinformation, and that we did not get the OBL intel until long after the IET stopped. This suggests more traditional methods got the intel the EIT did not.
The litasture says tortureis great for confessions, regardless of guilt. However, the vast majority of litature says it is not effective in getting information. Other methods are considerably much more effective. Now, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so one can never say never. But, when you add it's ineffectiveness with the moral and legal issues, it should be something avoided.