“Ticking bomb” scenario Arguments in favor of executive use of foreign torture information frequently refer to variations on the so-called ticking bomb scenario. In the usual version of this hypothetical scenario, an alleged perpetrator of an imminent terrorist attack is in custody and will reveal information critical to preventing the attack if tortured. Experts in the fields of intelligence-gathering, law enforcement and human psychology have forcefully discredited the use of this hypothetical situation to justify torture. It rests on the impossible combination of perfect timing (the information will be obtained in time to defuse the bomb), perfect information (the person in custody definitely knows the location of the bomb and it could not have been moved and those conducting the torture are certain the person knows) and absolute certainty over the outcome (the person in custody will definitely provide the correct information once tortured and the bomb will subsequently be defused).34 Given the rarity of perfect timing, perfect information and absolute certainty in real life situations, reliance as a matter of policy on the ticking bomb hypothesis creates a significant risk that human beings will be brutalized on the basis of mere possibility or assumptions. In the words of historian Alfred W. McCoy, “[o]nce we agree to torture the one terrorist with his hypothetical ticking bomb, then we admit the possibility, even an imperative, for torturing hundreds who might have ticking bombs or thousands who just might have some knowledge about those bombs.”35 McCoy’s conclusion, also based on studies of the use of torture by the CIA in Vietnam and by the French in Algeria: “Major success from limited, surgical torture is a fable, a fiction. But mass torture of thousands of suspects, some guilty, most innocent, can produce some useful intelligence…Useful intelligence, but at what cost?”36 Several of the best known claims that torture produced information that has helped disrupt or prevent terrorist attacks have proven on closer examination to be false. The torture of Abdul Hakim Murad in the Philippines in 1995, cited by advocates of the ticking bomb scenario, is one example. Murad was subjected to torture at the hands of the Philippine police, but the vital information that led to preventing a plan to blow up trans-Pacific 34 For a detailed criticism of the ticking bomb scenario, see also Association for the Prevention of Torture, “Defusing the Ticking Bomb Scenario: Why we must always say No to torture, always,” 2007; David Luban, “Liberalism, Torture and the Ticking Bomb,” Virginia Law Review, Vol. 91, 2005, pp. 1425-1461; and Michel Terestchenko, “De l’utilité de la torture? Les societies démocratiques peuvent-elles rester des societés décentes?,” Revue du MAUSS, No. 28, 2006, pp, 337-366. 35 Alfred W. McCoy, “The Myth of the Ticking time Bomb,” The Progressive, October 2006, http://www.progressive.org/mag_mccoy1006 (accessed February 24, 2010). McCoy is the author of the book A Question of Torture: CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (2006). 36 Ibid. 15 Human Rights Watch | June 2010