Brit Hume ignored evidence that torture by U.S. is "recruiting tool" for terrorists
Brit Hume falsely suggested there is no evidence that the United States' use of torture has served as a "recruiting tool" for terrorist groups. In fact, military and FBI interrogators have stated that terrorists have employed the United States' use of torture and harsh interrogation techniques as a recruiting device.
During the April 19 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume falsely suggested there is no evidence that the United States' use of torture has served as a "recruiting tool" for terrorist groups. Responding to the suggestion from NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson that terrorist groups will no longer be able to point to U.S. interrogation techniques to boost recruitment, Hume stated: "Oh, as a recruiting tool? Where's the evidence of that?" In fact, military and FBI interrogators have stated that terrorists have employed the United States' use of torture and harsh interrogation techniques as a recruiting device. For instance, using the pseudonym Matthew Alexander, an Air Force senior interrogator who was in Iraq in 2006 wrote: "I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq."
Alexander further wrote in his November 30, 2008, Washington Post op-ed that "[i]t's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse."
