The four-question torture exam
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While serving as an adjunct professor of intelligence studies at the Jesse Helms School of Government at Liberty University, John Kiriakou worked alongside a senior colleague who had taught there for thirty years and had himself been a CIA officer early in his career. One day the colleague showed him the final examination he set his students. "It was such a powerful exam. It has stuck in my mind all these years. It was just a handful of questions."

The questions

The first is the ticking-bomb scenario in its standard form: "You have captured a bona fide terrorist. You know that a bomb is going to go off in a major American city. You have two hours to get the information and defuse the bomb. Do you torture this man? Yes, no, explain yourself."

The second removes the prisoner as the object: "Fifteen minutes later, the guy is a true believer. He didn''t give you anything. But you have his wife in custody. Do you beat his wife in front of him just to get him to give you the information? Remember, American lives are on the line. Yes, no, explain yourself."

The third repeats the move: "The wife''s a true believer too, but you have their children in custody. Do you beat the children, or threaten to beat the children? Yes, no, explain yourself."

The fourth changes the examiner. "You''ve died and you''re at the gates of heaven, and Peter refers you to God himself, and he says: now you explain yourself. What do you tell him?"

Why it lands where it does

The exam''s design places the ordinary justification, that American lives are at stake, at every step, and then withdraws the audience that the justification was written for. Kiriakou pairs the exam with his own account of what the program actually did with the third question: he was unaware of any children being beaten, but says the threat was made "quite frequently".

See also

- Liberty University
- Ticking time bomb scenario
- Enhanced interrogation techniques
- Military Ethics
- Moral Injury
