What is Petraeus Doing?

Conor Friedersdorf:

Asked about "enhanced interrogation techniques," Gen. David Petraeus has always insisted that the U.S. should question detainees in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual. It's a position he reiterated even when asked about a "ticking time bomb" scenario.

That changed when Gen. Petraeus testified Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee, answering various questions as part of the confirmation process for the top job at the CIA.

The LA Times reported on the exchange:

In the vast majority of cases, Petraeus said, the "humane" questioning standards mandated by the U.S. Army Field Manual are sufficient to persuade detainees to talk. But though he did not use the word torture, Petraeus said "there should be discussion ... by policymakers and by Congress" about something "more than the normal techniques." Petraeus... described an example of a detainee who knows how to disarm a nuclear device set to explode under the Empire State Building.

Adds the Associated Press:

Petraeus said lawmakers should consider setting policies that would require authorization from the top, implying that the president would be consulted on whether to use enhanced interrogation techniques and lower-level officials would not be under pressure to make the decision in a "ticking time bomb" situation.

Are we meant to believe that a nuclear device under the Empire State Building and a captured terrorist able to defuse it wouldn't presently trigger a call to the President of the United States? "Petraeus hardly reversed course and endorsed torture," Spencer Ackerman writes. "But there are many Republicans in Congress who thought Obama made a big mistake by banning it. If Congress revisits the interrogation debate at Petraeus' behest, torture might very well return to U.S. interrogations."

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you believed strongly enough in a cause that you would try to launch a terrorist attack, and you knew when the attack was going to take place, wouldn't you try to resist torture or give false information in an attempt to allow the attack to occur.  Not only is the ticking time bomb scenario not very likely, it is the one situation I would think would be the easiest to resist giving in to torture, or in wasting your target's valuable time with wild goose chases.  Plausible lies would render torture in such situations as counterproductive relative to any other time.  One good lie could allow enough time to elapse to allow the planned attack.  Please, lets all grow a pair and not cower around worrying about how we might have to use torture to stop an imaginary attack.  I can't believe Petraeus wandered back into this discussion.