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When the current U.S. President repeatedly says that "we do not torture," perhaps these kinds of acts are what he has in mind. But since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has, in the name of national security, attempted to carve out room for acts that brush up against the boundary line separating aggressive interrogation from torture, without (they believe) crossing over it. Called "enhanced interrogation techniques," "professional interrogation," "moderate physical pressure," or even (by outside analysts) "torture lite," these have included a variety of measures, some approved as policy by our government and others not publicly acknowledged or approved. But both independent and government investigators have discovered that such techniques have been used in U.S. detention facilities.

Among the sometimes approved measures have been prolonged standing, removal of detainees' clothing, sensory deprivation, hooding (often with smelly hoods), prolonged interrogations, use of dogs, forced shaving of beards, grabbing, poking, pushing, sleep manipulation and deprivation, and waterboarding (which refers to a variety of techniques designed to make a victim feel as if he were drowning).

Among the unapproved but practiced measures have been punching, slapping, and kicking detainees, religious and sexual humiliation, prolonged shackling, exposure to severe heat or cold, food or toilet deprivation, mock or threatened executions, and letting dogs threaten or in some cases bite and severely injure detainees.

The abuses appear to have been particularly prevalent in CIA interrogations, among private U.S. contractors serving the military, and among the underprepared and poorly trained military police at places like Abu Ghraib in Iraq. There are also profound worries and disturbing allegations about what is going on with "high-value" detainees in CIA interrogations at undisclosed locations.

Though Condoleezza Rice has said that prisoners in U.S. custody anywhere in the world should be afforded the same protections as if they were on U.S. soil, some still wonder about the significance of these assurances—and especially about what is happening to prisoners "rendered" by our government to other countries (many known to practice torture).

Furthermore, while all "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of detainees has been officially rejected by the administration (under pressure from Sen. John McCain and others), it is not clear who defines when treatment crosses that line. It also remains unclear how much latitude those on the front lines of interrogation have, and if and how they would be held accountable if they were to cross the line. In other words, there remain a number of loopholes for torture to be practiced in the war on terror.

Yet the prohibition on torture in international law admits no exceptions. The U.N. Convention Against Torture puts it this way: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."

The U.S. ratified this convention in 1994, before September 11, before we launched our war on terror. Despite the passage of the McCain Amendment against torture, many Americans and some leading administration officials continue to believe that acts tantamount to torture are morally permissible in the exceptional case posed by Islamist terrorism. As State Department official Cofer Black famously put it: "All I want to say is that there was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves came off."

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February 2006, Vol. 50, No. 2