James Pfiffner presents a series of perspectives on the use of coercive interrogation methods during the administration of President George W. Bush. His book is strongest—and makes its most significant contributions—when Pfiffner focuses on political and ethical issues, including the intersection of torture as a policy with notions of command responsibility for civilian leaders as well as within the military. The book's historical and legal discussions, by contrast, are less useful, in part because they rely largely on the work of other writers. The strengths of Torture as Public Policy, however, easily outweigh its shortcomings. Even as it provides a wealth of information, it also serves as a concise and useful overview of the issues that surround the debate over torture. For those reasons, the book would be valuable in classes that address national security, terrorism, human rights, and military law and culture.

Each of the six chapters addresses a different theme or issue. In addition to an overview of the Bush administration's policy to use coercive interrogation, the first chapter presents a historical framework for the book. Pfiffner discusses torture in the Spanish Inquisition and medieval law, and he traces its gradual replacement by other methods of proof. He also briefly notes the official and historical US policy against using coercive methods in wartime, points out that the United States played a leadership role in the post–World War II development of international human rights and humanitarian law, and discusses the State Department's ongoing practice of “publish[ing] accounts of prisoner abuse elsewhere in the world” as a way “to urge improvements in human rights in these countries” (p. 2).

Pfiffner's account of US and European policies against coercive methods is nonetheless incomplete. In the post–World War II period, for example, the British government used torture in Northern Ireland and Kenya, France used it in Algeria, and the American Central Intelligence Agency used torture in Vietnam and offered torture training to Latin American military and police forces. A broader engagement with the history of democratic torture would have allowed the author to make a more candid assessment of US torture policies (both formal and informal) beyond his repeated—and certainly well-warranted—stress on the disjunction between a history of official statements against torture and the development of an explicit coercion policy in the Bush administration. Relatedly (though not the focus of his project), a fuller historical accounting would have allowed Pfiffner to underscore his point that perceptions of “cultural differences” (p. 100)—including racial, ethnic, and religious differences—contribute to the use of torture.

The second chapter details the various formal policy decisions within the Bush administration that made prisoners vulnerable to coercive treatment. Thus, Pfiffner carefully outlines the steps by which the administration decided to use military commissions for prisoners who allegedly had violated the laws of war; determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to people captured in Afghanistan; and concluded both that various interrogation methods, including waterboarding, are not torture and that, in any event, the president could override existing criminal law. He then explains how the administration, in fits and starts, proceeded to approve a range of previously illegal methods for use on people labeled “detainees” or “unlawful enemy combatants,” rather than prisoners of war. A particular strength of this chapter is Pfiffner's focus on (and naming of) the many people involved in this process and the many levels at which these conclusions were developed. Equally important is his detailing of the ways in which some officials, such as high-ranking military lawyers who had strong concerns about the new policies, were kept at arm's length or excluded altogether. As he notes later in the book, although interrogators and lower-level commanders sometimes sought to use coercive methods, the approval of such interrogation techniques did not result simply from their requests. It “was much more of a two-way street, and pressure for intelligence originated at the top of the hierarchy” (p. 145).

Chapter 3 examines the implementation of the new interrogation policies. Pfiffner details specific interrogation practices, how they were used (including in what conditions and by whom), and how they spread from place to place, such that policies approved for small numbers of prisoners at Guantanamo became widespread at other locations, including Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He summarizes this extensive information with the following pointed sentences (p. 80): “Many of the instances of abuse and torture stemmed directly from the policies, instructions, and personnel decisions that came down the chain of command. The authorized methods of interrogation were harsh enough, but in the hands of young, inexperienced, undertrained, and stressed-out interrogators, these techniques were driven beyond even the brutality that was intended by policymakers. Beyond that, many of the actions of US guards constituted criminal behavior and were not based in any policy directive, but were condoned by the permissive atmosphere and the failure of military leaders to end the abuse.” Although these conclusions are not surprising, Pfiffner's meticulous analysis gives them firm grounding.

The fourth and fifth chapters explore a range of issues, including the utility of the “ticking bomb” scenario, the question of whether torture actually provides actionable intelligence information, problems with the control and administration of torture, and the Bush administration's novel interpretations of the law relating to torture (as well as its unsuccessful struggle to impose those definitions on the courts and on Congress). Here, Pfiffner is largely going over ground that others have discussed at length, but he provides able summaries, and his citations provide readers with access to many of these other discussions. Notably, his focus on military structure and the chain of command leads him to stress the fact that many of the soldiers who carried out the policy of coercion were not only “young, inexperienced, and untrained” but also effectively abandoned by their superiors who, instead of providing a structure and example of professionalism, “chose to ignore or suppress complaints about abuse and in effect condoned and encouraged the barbarity” (p. 102).

The last chapter analyzes the development of “command responsibility” and the application of this concept to the Bush administration's coercion policies. Pfiffner explains how administration officials sought to use legal opinions to create immunity from prosecution, but he also sets out the many ways in which officials knew or should have known about the consequences of their policies—and yet made few changes in those policies. The result is a powerful case for war crimes responsibility reaching high into the military and civilian leadership. Yet the author ultimately argues against criminal prosecutions, which he sees as risky, and in favor of a truth commission that might “clear the air by issuing an account of what happened and how it happened” (p. 165). It is difficult to see how such a commission could improve upon the work of Pfiffner and other writers. Indeed, after reading this book, one easily could reach the different conclusion that prosecution is an essential part of any meaningful form of accountability.