To the Editor:

Ali Soufan effectively answers the question of whether our nation’s use of torture “worked” (“What Torture Never Told Us,” Op-Ed, Sept. 6). But this is a question that we shouldn’t be asking.

We have domestic laws and international treaties that make torture illegal. Senior government officials are not above the law, even if breaking the law “works.” And we settled the question of whether waterboarding is torture when we prosecuted Japanese officers for using this enhanced interrogation method on our soldiers during World War II.

The questions we need to answer now are “Who was responsible for breaking these laws?” “How can they be brought to justice?” and “How do we make sure this never happens again?”

Andrew Greenblatt

New York, Sept. 7, 2009

The writer is a lawyer.