Writing for the National Review this morning, Rich Lowry asserts that the KGB techniques employed by U.S. interrogators against alleged terrorists produced valuable intelligence. Or, to put it his way, “Yes, Harsh Interrogations Worked.”

Now, before we dig into this, let’s provide some standards here. In order to say that torture works, according to me, and according to Lowry, it has to have produced actionable intelligence that was not and could not have been obtained any other way. Fair enough? Okay, now let’s examine Lowry’s claims:

The IG report doesn’t flatly assert that the enhanced interrogations were responsible for this intelligence haul, but the facts make it obvious. Top terrorists were withholding information prior to the application of the toughest techniques, and were compliant afterward. Surely, their decision to talk didn’t result from a sudden fit of conscience. According to the report, KSM was “an accomplished resistor,” who provided mostly “outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete” information until he was waterboarded. Subsequently, he became the “most prolific” source of important leads.

This is flatly untrue. First of all, as Spencer Ackerman points out, the Inspector General’s report actually muddles the techniques so that it’s hard to tell what directly led to what. Furthermore, the preponderance of the evidence is that what actionable intelligence that was received by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was more likely the result of the rapport-based, violence-free interrogation of Deuce Martinez.

He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called “knuckledraggers.”

Mr. Martinez came in after the rough stuff, the ultimate good cop with the classic skills: an unimposing presence, inexhaustible patience and a willingness to listen to the gripes and musings of a pitiless killer in rambling, imperfect English. He achieved a rapport with Mr. Mohammed that astonished his fellow C.I.A. officers.

A canny opponent, Mr. Mohammed mixed disinformation and braggadocio with details of plots, past and planned. Eventually, he grew loquacious. “They’d have long talks about religion,” comparing notes on Islam and Mr. Martinez’s Catholicism, one C.I.A. officer recalled. And, the officer added, there was one other detail no one could have predicted: “He wrote poems to Deuce’s wife.”

Now, as Ackerman again points out, this isn’t dispositive, but it does appear to be true that Mohammed didn’t begin producing until after the torture stopped.

Let’s take a look at some of Lowry’s other claims:

The IG report said detainees in the interrogation program made the CIA aware of plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan; to fly hijacked aircraft into Heathrow Airport; to derail a train in the U.S.; to blow up gas stations in the U.S.; to fly an airplane into the tallest building in California; and to collapse bridges in New York. If any of the planned attacks in the U.S. had come off, many of the same critics braying about the CIA’s interrogation program would be outraged about its failure to “connect the dots.”

If you read the IG report, you will find that yes, these plots were asserted. What’s less clear is whether these plots actually existed. After all, as blogger emptywheel points out, there were real terrorist attacks that occurred after the torture of high value detainees–the London bombings, the Madrid bombings, and the Bali bombings–and the CIA appears to have not had an inkling of them. At least, not from the detainees who were tortured.

Here’s more claims of Lowry’s about the efficacy of torture:

According to the IG report, KSM’s cooperation led to the arrest of a truck driver in the U.S. named Iyman Faris who was plotting attacks on New York landmarks

Yes, Mohammed’s cooperation led to Iyman Faris, but it’s not clear whether that was a result of torture. Additionally, Faris actually called off a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge prior Mohammed’s capture (mostly because, as far as I can tell, he thought it would be too hard), and worked as a double agent for the FBI after he was found out.

of a sleeper operative in New York named Saleh Almari

This is nonsense, too. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was arrested on December 12, 2001, which was before Mohammed had been captured.

of an operative named Majid Khan who had easy entree into the U.S.

Majid Khan was not arrested because of the testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was arrested because of the testimony of Iyman Faris. And, I might add, that testimony was later recacanted, and Faris claims that he was coerced into turning Khan over. Khan is currently held at Guantanamo Bay and has not been convicted of anything.

and of two Pakistani businessmen whom KSM “planned to use to smuggle explosives into the United States.”

The two Pakistani businessmen in quesiton were Saifullah Paracha and his son Uzair Paracha. While Uzair Paracha was convicted of “providing material support to al-Qaeda,” there was no evidence of explosive smuggling. Indeed, it appears that the plot he’s accused of is smuggling Majid Khan into the country. Naturally, the biggest bit of evidence was Paracha’s own confession, which he claims was coerced. Sayfullah Paracha is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, where among the charges against him is the claim that he smuggled a nuclear weapon out of Pakistan. And if you believe that, I have a deed to the Empire State Building that you can have for a low, low price. Now, even if the Paracha’s are deadly terrorists, it’s worth noting that as far as I can determine, none of the evidence against him consists of testimony from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other detainee who was tortured.

Lowry goes on to say that, thanks to torture, even more terrorists were found.

Overall, according to another CIA document released last week, “detainees in mid-2003 helped us build a list of 70 individuals — many of who we had never heard of before — that al-Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations.” In the War on Terror, learning the identities of these operatives is almost the equivalent of the ULTRA program breaking German codes in World War II.

Please note two things this evidence does not include: (1) that this information was obtained because of torture and (2) evidence that these 70+ individuals were actually terrorists rather than just names that they threw out.

Indeed, Rich Lowry doesn’t truly provide any evidence at all that torture works, does he? That is, nowhere in this document does he demonstrate clearly that the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other detainees definitively led to the prevention of any terrorist plots or any actionable intelligence that could not have been obtained through other means.