Not surprisingly, those with experience say no.
I have yet to speak with an experienced, successful interrogator who advocates mistreating their subjects. As personally satisfying as it may seem to beat the hell out of detainees, it doesn't usually get you what you want -- accurate, reliable information that you can trust and upon which you can act.
In Vietnam the Provincial Interrogation Centers routinely used skilled Vietnamese interrogators to obtain accurate, detailed information on the organization, personnel and structure of the Vietnamese Communist Infrastructure -- exactly the type of information Guantanamo should be producing by the pound on radical Islamic terrorism.
I think we make a major strategic error when we support such would-be macho men as we see in this administration showing their supposed toughness by advocating torture, when we know it doesn't work.
- Retired Army Lt. Col. Terry Daly, a veteran of military intelligence operations in the Vietnam War.
Or to put it another way: President Bush has a weak person's idea of what strength is; and a dumb person's idea of what intelligence is.