Polling soldiers about torture

Ed Morrissey points to a piece in the Washington post which discusses a study on the soldiers' views on torture.

A strong majority of troops in Iraq disavow the use of torture, even to save the life of their fellow soldiers, a new study shows. Only 10% in the anonymous survey admit to even mild forms of abuse, such as unnecessarily destroying private property. One might consider that good news, but the Washington Post takes the glass-one-third-empty approach in reporting it:

More than one-third of U.S. soldiers in Iraq surveyed by the Army said they believe torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. Four in 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.

As the Captain points out, this means most of the soldiers in Iraq don't support torture, even in principle, and only one in ten admits to using heavy-handed tactics. In a comment, I mentioned a piece in the New York Times which stated that Iraqi soldiers were "softening up" prisoners before turning them over to US forces, and these prisoners were giving up information that was saving lives -- locations of places where IEDs were being manufactured, for example. I couldn't help wondering how many soldiers would feel honor bound to disregard this information, in a sort of "exclusionary rule".