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Throughout his campaign and in the weeks following his victory, President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear that the question of whether America should torture suspected terrorists in its custody could 鈥� and should 鈥� be rekindled.

Upon taking the oath of office eight years ago, President Obama banned waterboarding as a form of torture. Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that he would like to bring it back, along with techniques that are 鈥渕uch stronger鈥� and 鈥渟o much worse.鈥�

鈥淒on鈥檛 tell me it doesn鈥檛 work 鈥� torture works,鈥� Trump told the Sun City retirement community in South Carolina last February. 鈥淏elieve me, it works. OK, folks?鈥�

Though Trump has moderated his comments somewhat since then 鈥撎齧ost notably after learning that his pick to head the Defense Department, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, opposes waterboarding 鈥撎齢e听continues to insist听he has not changed his mind. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 so important to the American people, I would go for it,鈥� he said of reinstating waterboarding.

It suggests American policy on so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs,听could be听at another pivot point. But would a Trump administration essentially return to a Bush-era policy that saw Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, waterboarded 183 times?

The answer,听analysts say,听depends on whether Americans鈥櫶齜elieve the assessment overwhelmingly reached by the intelligence community: Specifically, that EITs are ineffective and likely even counterproductive.听

Yet听a small听but tenacious听group of advocates听continues to argue that听they have a place in an interrogator鈥檚 toolkit.听

Critics call these advocates a 鈥渢orture lobby鈥� and worry that they could gain influence in a Trump administration听by a thin-end-of-the-wedge argument: that EITs, used sparingly,听are sometimes necessary.听

That is the case put forward by James Mitchell, the psychologist who won a听$180 million听Central Intelligence Agency contract to use methods like waterboarding on Mr. Mohammed.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to be the poster boy for waterboarding. I don鈥檛 like it,鈥� but it鈥檚 effective 鈥渋f it鈥檚 done properly,鈥� he says, adding that听he听is not advocating听torture, which he doesn鈥檛 consider waterboarding to be.听

Mohammed wouldn鈥檛 have talked otherwise, he insists. 鈥淭he fact is, on the worst of the worst, those people who know the most about those folks who are trying to kill us, there needs to be some sort of strategy. We have to think it through.鈥澨�

Where Americans stand

Polls suggest听most听Americans might side with Mr. Mitchell.听A 2014 ABC NEWS/Washington Post poll found that 58 percent say that torture of suspected terrorists is sometimes or often justified, and 19 percent say that it can be justified, albeit rarely. One fifth rule it out entirely.

This poll came on the heels of the release of a 500-page executive summary of an investigation of the CIA detention program. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found no proof that EITs stopped a single terrorist attack.听

The findings are backed by a considerable body听of research and recent field experience that suggests EITs don鈥檛 work,听analysts add.

鈥淭here was so much false and fabricated information coming out of these interrogations 鈥� though I hesitate to call them interrogations because it discredits professional interrogators 鈥� that we wasted time and resources, and the threat level kept going up and up because of fabricated information,鈥� says Mark Fallon, an interrogator and former deputy assistant director for counterterrorism at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.听

That experience, as well as the momentum of the past eight years under President Obama, might make it difficult to reverse policy.

There is considerable resistance within the CIA听, too, to reinstating EITs听鈥撎齣n some cases from moral trepidation, in others from a fear of legal consequences.

鈥淢ultiple investigations, grand juries, and congressional star chambers have a way of doing that to you,鈥� retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, told NBC News last February. If Trump wanted the CIA to resume waterboarding, he said, then he would have to 鈥渂ring [his] own damn bucket.鈥�

You guys are wimps

Mitchell听says he too has felt burned by government investigations fueled by 鈥渙bsessive political correctness."听That said, he adds that he personally witnessed cases of abuse within the CIA听among some听who听wanted to use EITs as punishment for disrespect (which Mitchell says he did once) or because the interrogators mistakenly believed a detainee was withholding information.听

鈥淪ome things happened inside of the CIA that weren鈥檛 part of that program that were wrong,鈥� and, beyond that, were 鈥減robably torture,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭here were people in the building who wanted to continue鈥� waterboarding, 鈥渁nd they wanted to use it more often.鈥�

He recalls waterboarding Abu Zubaydah, a detainee at Guant谩namo Bay who was accused of being a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden. After three days, Mr. Zubaydah, who had previously lost an eye in CIA custody, started answering questions. Mitchell and his colleagues told CIA higher-ups that waterboarding was no longer necessary.听

The response? 鈥淭hey said, 鈥榊ou guys are [wimps], he鈥檚 turned you, there鈥檚 going to be another attack and you鈥檒l have blood on your hands. If you aren鈥檛 going to do it, we鈥檒l send people who will,鈥� Mitchell recalls.听

Mitchell solved the dispute by agreeing to waterboard Zubaydah one more time with 鈥渙ne very senior CIA person鈥� present. After watching the session, the CIA officials concluded that 鈥淗e just doesn鈥檛 know anything else about what鈥檚 going on, and they gave us permission to not do it [to him] anymore.鈥澨�听

Torture critics point听to听this anecdote, as well as to听the 183 times Mohammed was waterboarded,听as a clear case of overzealous criminality听and the danger of opening the door to EIT techniques generally. There will always be those who abuse them, they say.听Mitchell听insists it sounds worse than it is. Though interrogators were permitted to pour water over the mouths of detainees like Mohammed for a total of 40 seconds, Mitchell says he soon concluded that that length of time was 鈥渏ust too much.鈥�

鈥淚 decided it should be somewhere between three and 12 seconds, and the average time was about eight seconds,鈥� he says.

Still, waterboarding was never his favorite enhanced interrogation technique. 鈥淚 liked walling,鈥� Mitchell says, which involved building a wall with a wrestling mat of sorts, and another piece of plywood behind it to act as a 鈥渃lapper,鈥� he explains. 鈥淲hen you bounce somebody鈥檚 shoulders, it makes a horrible racket and the inner ear gets swishy and a little bit dizzy,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f it is done properly 鈥� if you control the neck 鈥� the worst that happens is that they would get a minor abrasion.鈥�

Once detainees were 鈥渃ooperative,鈥� Mitchell says he preferred to move on to other intelligence gathering methods. 鈥淪o [Mohammed] had three weeks of EITs, and then never again, not even when they were trying to find out the location of bin Laden,鈥� Mitchell says.

Mitchell says that he also had 鈥済reat concerns about these guys 鈥撎齩nce they started working with us 鈥� getting sour because they were in isolation.鈥澨齋o he would conduct what he called 鈥渕aintenance visits.鈥�

鈥淲e would just stop by and play board games with them or go to the basketball court and play basketball or go to the gym and lift weights with them or watch a movie with them.鈥�

Mohammed liked to give lectures with a dry erase board. 鈥淲e would go and listen to him lecture, so he鈥檇 have something to do when he wasn鈥檛 servicing intelligence requirements, and occasionally something useful came out of that,鈥� Mitchell says.

鈥淗e is probably the brightest person I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen some pretty bright people.鈥�

French fries and calls to mom

The usefulness of rapport-building techniques is precisely the point, says Mr. Fallon, the Naval investigator who also served as chairman of the High-Value Research Group that Mr. Obama established in 2009 to study the effectiveness of interrogation approaches.

Mitchell, he notes, comes to the issue as a Search Escape, Rescue, and Evade (SERE) clinical psychologist for the Air Force. The program teaches US troops to resist torture. But a resistance survival program based on other nations鈥� torture techniques should not be the basis for the US interrogation, says Fallon.

Mohammed鈥檚 behavior shows why, he adds.听

鈥淲hen we first had detainees at Gitmo [Guant谩namo], we couldn鈥檛 shut them up. You think [Mohammed] wasn鈥檛 proud of what he did? He could spout about how great he was, things he did to the Evil Satan United States,鈥� he says.

鈥淲hen you start out with abuse, and听two months later听you鈥檙e playing basketball or chess and saying, 鈥業 made this amazing discovery,鈥� well, you may have done it two months earlier if you didn鈥檛 start with the abuse.鈥澨�

The value of rapport-building techniques is borne out in the past decade of research, as well as in his own practical experience, says Fallon, author of the forthcoming book, 鈥淯njustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檝e gotten good information with tea and cookies, with French fries and food, by allowing detainees to make a call home,鈥� Fallon says. 鈥淚f you started a conversation yelling at me, how likely am I going to be to respond?鈥�

For this reason, the most effective interrogators at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2001 were 鈥渢he folks borrowed from the FBI鈥� who used Mafia family-breaking techniques 鈥渢o figure out the network,鈥� recalls a former senior US Army officer. 鈥淭here was no need or inclination for EITs.鈥澨�

Cultivating some level of respect and trust goes a long way. One of the most helpful discoveries the听High-Value Detainee Research Group听has been the nearly forgotten work of a Nazi interrogator named Hanns Scharff.

Early on, he witnessed a brutal interrogation and decided that would not be his method. Instead, he would take the POWs in his charge on long walks, let them read US newspapers, and even allowed one pilot to take a plane up in the air and land it (with just enough gas in the tank to do both), so that they could debate the pluses and minuses of their country鈥檚 aircraft later in a bar he had built specifically for his prisoners.

After the war, Pentagon officials invited him to give lectures. It was hard work, he told them. He had to build extensive dossiers on each pilot and often made outlandish statements just so the POWs would feel compelled to correct him. In interrogations with 500 US and Allied pilots, he claimed to have elicited useful information from all but 20.

In a research experiment based on Scharff鈥檚 techniques, participants overwhelmingly believed that they had revealed far less information to their interrogator than they actually had.听

Paying a price

For his part, Mitchell agrees that it is often in 鈥渇ireside chats鈥� following interrogations 鈥撎齣n which he would tell detainees that the interrogation was over and he just wanted to get their input on how it went 鈥撎齮hat he has gleaned some of his best information.听

But such techniques听without waterboarding听would never work on Mohammed, Mitchell insists, because he would consider companionship听or snacks听鈥渢oo cheap鈥� a price to pay for sharing information.

Mitchell argues that many of the toughest detainees feel as though God has asked them to pay a suitable-enough price for sharing information with the enemy.听Only when they have paid it 鈥撎齣n the form of EITs 鈥�听can they feel more free to talk, reassured that God will forgive.听

But Mitchell concedes that EITs take a toll on the interrogators.听And so he tells听himself, he says,听that when patients are moaning during waterboarding 鈥渋t is a good sign: You don't do that stuff if you're suffering from some sort of airway problem.鈥�听听

The Senate report said the first waterboarding sessions with Zubaydah left him 鈥渃ompletely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.鈥�

While waterboarding is听鈥渉orrific,鈥澨齅itchell says, he and the president-elect reject听the moral argument frequently made by the military听that the US must treat its detainees the way it expects US forces to be treated.

鈥淒id somebody tell ISIS, 鈥楲ook, we鈥檙e going to treat your guys well. Will you please do us a favor and treat our guys well?鈥� They don鈥檛 do that,鈥� Trump said last March. 鈥淲e are playing by the rules, but they have no rules. It鈥檚 very hard to win when that鈥檚 the case.鈥� The current US ban on waterboarding, he added, is a sign of weakness.听

鈥淭here are some people who think that it鈥檚 better that hundreds die than we lose the moral high ground. But the government doesn鈥檛 exist so it can stack up bodies like cord wood to protect the government,鈥� says Mitchell, who published a book late last year on his experiences as an interrogator entitled, 鈥淓nhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Moties of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America.鈥澨�

鈥淭he American people need to have a debate about how they want to protect themselves,鈥� he adds.

On that, Fallon agrees. While he accuses Mitchell of pushing his ideas for profit,听he says Americans should have an open conversation about interrogation.

鈥淧eople died in CIA custody 鈥� we killed people. Atrocities were committed,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e need to talk about that.鈥�