Several weeks ago, Eric Maddox, once an American interrogator stationed in Iraq and now a student in the Olin Business School’s Executive MBA program, told his story to a captivated crowd in Emerson Auditorium. As one of the most decorated interrogators in the world, Maddox knows what works in the interrogation room and what does not.

Maddox’s incredible story may have lasted over an hour, but the most lasting impression on me was a 75-second response he gave to a 10-second question. Remarkably, throughout his entire retelling of his story, he never once brought up the contentious topic undoubtedly perched in the back of everyone’s mind. Finally, for the final question of the question-and-answer session, one brave soul brought up the taboo topic and asked the question everyone was pondering: what was Maddox’s view on torture?

Maddox’s answer was simple and straightforward yet still very appealing. He explained that the best way to render torture interrogation obsolete is to attack it at the source—that is, to make interrogators feel confident in the effectiveness of their interrogation techniques without it and not feel like they ever need to resort to torture.

Having helped locate the “ace of spades” of Iraqi targets, Saddam Hussein, one would imagine that Maddox employed a method of torture such as waterboarding. Oddly enough, Maddox said that is not the case and that he did not resort to torture himself. Whether intentionally or not, Maddox provided convincing evidence that torture is not required to extract high-value information from prisoners.

If Maddox was able to locate Hussein without needing torture, maybe this will be the proof needed to eliminate the ineffective method from the interrogation room for good. Recent studies and commentary have argued that torture is very ineffective for obtaining reliable information. When suspects are being tortured, sooner or later they will provide whatever answer they believe the interrogator is seeking. Problematically, the prisoners know just as well as anyone that the only way to end the torture is to provide any answer to the interrogator, whether true or not.

One of Maddox’s main points during his story was that interrogation techniques taught by the Central Intelligence Agency do not work. According to him, the CIA sends interrogators into the field without the tools they require to adequately do their job. Therefore, the priority for reform should be to restructure the CIA’s interrogation program and teach more effective interrogation techniques, creating better-trained operatives. While this idea is surely easier said than done, Maddox explained that creating operatives who can effectively interrogate prisoners without the need for torture would eliminate the need for the widely inaccurate and unpredictable practice.

America signed the Geneva Conventions in 1949, agreeing to bar the use of torture during interrogation, but war and conflict have certainly changed since then. Our enemy is no longer an aggressive nation with whom we can negotiate. Still, more than half a century after signing the Geneva Conventions, with the recent release of harrowing internal documents such as the CIA Torture Report, the controversy of torture has been especially germane in contentious political debates.

When considering how to interrogate prisoners, there is a plethora of factors that go into which methods should be used. If simple questioning or more traditional methods prove to be ineffective, can interrogators use torture? Ideally, the answer should always be no, for several reasons.

First, torture interrogation is a flagrant violation of basic human rights, which is why America has signed the Geneva Conventions forbidding its use. America should continue to observe the Geneva Conventions precisely as it was written and intended, no matter who the enemy is or whether or not they comply with the protocol. For one thing, two wrongs don’t make a right.

More importantly, America is a nation that proudly proclaims that its values of human rights and decency should be enjoyed by all people, and allowing us to abandon such fundamental principles on which our nation was founded because of a few terrorists is far from the values we, as Americans, claim to hold so dear.

Editor’s note: This article has been amended to clarify the Geneva treaty banning torture.