That was then U.S. President George W. Bush's emphatic response in 2005 when asked about how his government questioned terrorist suspects in U.S. custody. The release of four previously secret memos by the U.S. Justice Department reveals — in excruciating detail — just what U.S. interrogators were doing to get information from those detainees. It is not pleasant reading. The techniques that were permitted seem to meet most definitions of torture. Equally troubling, however, is the assertion that such behavior is justified if it provides needed information. That logic is a disturbing rationalization, and threatens to undo the principles that underpin our basic understanding of human rights and justice.

The four memos were written by top lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department during the time period of Aug. 1, 2002, to May 20, 2005, and they provide a legal analysis of and justification for "enhanced interrogation techniques" that some consider torture. Those memos go into considerable detail about what is permitted. The authors signed off on waterboarding (covering a suspect's mouth with a towel and pouring water over his mouth to simulate drowning), walling (slamming a suspect into a flexible false wall), sleep deprivation, dousing with water, forcing them to sit or stand in painful positions for long periods of time, liquid diets, and other techniques alone or in combination and over an extended period of time.

While these acts may shock the conscience of ordinary people, the authors concluded that they did not constitute torture because "they did not cause severe or permanent mental or physical pain akin to organ failure or death." That is a novel interpretation of torture, and one that is at odds with almost every other definition. For example, the 1984 Convention Against Torture (which the U.S. signed) defines torture as the "cruel, inhumane, or degrading" infliction of severe pain or suffering, physical or mental, on a prisoner to obtain information or a confession, or to mete out a punishment for a suspected crime.