Description

After September 11, 2001 the Bush Administration decided that the most important intelligence about terrorism would come from the interrogation of captives suspected of terrorism. As a result, many detainees were subject to harsh interrogation techniques that at times amounted to torture. Here, James P. Pfiffner authoritatively examines the policy directives, operational decisions, and leadership actions of the Bush Administration that reversed centuries of U.S. policy on the treatment of enemy prisoners. He shows how the serious reservations of career military lawyers about these policies were overcome by the political appointees of the Bush Administration. Pfiffner then analyzes the philosophical and legal underpinnings of the policies and practices that have led to the denunciation of the United States’ policies by its allies and adversaries throughout the world. Looking ahead, Pfiffner anticipates Obama administration policy changes to restore U.S. credibility and accountability. In all, Torture as Public Policy is a model of detailed policy analysis that demonstrates how greatly public policy matters beyond the back corridors of bureaucracy.

Torture as Public Policy is a model of detailed policy analysis that demonstrates how greatly public policy matters beyond the back corridors of bureaucracy. This book:

• Connects all the dots from the White House down to the operational level concerning U.S. torture policy during the Bush administration.
• Is meticulously documented, relying heavily on official U.S. memoranda and Pentagon reports. Its findings are based on official U.S. documents.
• Examines the torture issue as public policy, but also brings out the ethical, moral, and sociological aspects of torture policy.
• Offers a model of policy analysis and explains how policy was made from the first intentions to implementation to rejection of the policy by the Obama administration.
• Provides in-depth analysis of how the president and political appointees in the Bush administration were able to overcome objections of civilian and military public administrators in enforcing their priorities.
• Is completely up to date through the release of the Bybee and Bradbury memos, the ICRC Black Site Report of 2007, and CIA policy changes.

Author Info

James P. Pfiffner is University Professor in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. His major areas of expertise are the Presidency, American National Government, and public management. He has written or edited twelve books on the presidency, including Power Play: The Bush Administration and the Constitution (2008), and he has published more than 100 articles and chapters in books, professional journals, reference works, and the popular press. While serving with the 25th Infantry Division (1/8 Artillery) in 1970 he received the Army Commendation Medal for Valor in Vietnam and Cambodia.

His professional experience includes service in the Director’s Office of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (1980-81), and he has been a member of the faculty at the University of California-Riverside and California State University-Fullerton. In 2007 he was S.T. Lee Professorial fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of London.

Reviews

“This important new book is extremely well-documented. It presents the case that torture was official U.S. policy, not the result of a few bad apples. It invokes the doctrine of command responsibility and makes a compelling case that Bush and many of those who worked for him actively initiated the policies that led to the torture of prisoners. This is strong stuff.”
--S.G. Mestrovic, author of The Trials of Abu Ghraib and expert witness at the Abu Ghraib courts martial

"Jim Pfiffner is a decorated soldier and dedicated scholar, who combines knowledge about the chain of command with understanding of Pentagon and Department of Justice policymaking. His discussions of command responsibility and the ethical issues involved in torture make this book the last best word on this shameful chapter in our nation's history."
--Richard M. Pious, Barnard College, author of Why Presidents Fail (2008)

"In this engrossing and superbly detailed account, Professor Pfiffner guides us through a sinister and disturbing sequence of events, orchestrated at the highest level of ou government, by which brutality became a sanctioned tool of American policy. Torture as Public Policy is an important step in helping us understand what went wrong--a prerequisite to putting the United States back on course toward the moral high ground."
--Michael Archer, author of A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered and Shadow Governor: The Life and Times of Nevada's William J. Raggio (2010)

"Thorough, insightful, combines passion and analysis in the best traditions of scholarly political science and public intellectual discourse; an important contribution even in a croded field."
--Bruce W. Jentleson, Duke University