Black Hawk Down' Author Offers His Thoughts on Report Detailing CIA's Use of 'Coercive Methods' to Interrogate Detainees

The author of "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War" said in a radio interview Wednesday that he was "not all that bothered" by the controversial interrogation techniques employed by the CIA after 9-11.

Mark Bowden, who also authored "The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden," told Public Radio International that the use of "coercive methods does and did produce very useful information."

That position stands in direct contradiction to the Democratic-led report released Tuesday that claimed the CIA provided misleading information to national leaders about the effectiveness of the program.

The popular author added that he wasn't too disturbed by the graphic details included in the report that described the controversial interrogation methods.

"You know, I'm not all that bothered by it," he told PRI.

Author Mark Bowden. (Image source: Twitter)

"I do think that it's a moral choice, one that in the vast majority of circumstances is the wrong one to make," Bowden continued. "I think that the institutionalization of torture was a huge mistake and advised that it would be years ago, before the Bush administration undertook it."

"I think that after the attacks on 9/11 there was a broad support for very aggressive national defense measures including intelligence efforts to try and head off further attacks," he added. "So in that climate, if you look historically, it's inevitable that there are going to be excesses during periods like those. And then there is some years later the inevitable corrective, where people take a more sober look in quieter times at what was done when we panicked."

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