There's no shortage of interrogation technique experts who'll openly contradict Dick Cheney, Marc Thiessen and the other notable torture advocates. Add another to the list:
Michael Sulick, head of the CIA�s National Clandestine Service, told a student audience last week that the spy agency has seen no fall-off in intelligence since waterboarding was banned by the Obama administration.
"I don�t think we�ve suffered at all from an intelligence standpoint," Sulick told students and some faculty members at Fordham University, his alma mater, on March 25. "But I don�t want to talk about [it from] a legal, moral or ethical standpoint." (Link)
Sulick is a thirty year veteran of the CIA. Sulick's National Clandestine Service has responsibility for managing the CIA's spy handlers, counterspies, covert action specialists, and elements of the FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency.
Once again, this is exactly why there needs to be a commission to study the use of torture by the U.S. Rather than continue to have the matter unresolved - with some believing torture is effective and a legitimate and legal tool and others who'll testify torture is ineffective, immoral, illegal and, in fact, counterproductive - the use of torture needs to be addressed and resolved.
As it stands now, torture is not a legal issue, but only a policy issue.
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