Abstract

Following the revelations about what had been going on in Iraqi prisons, run by American and British troops, there has been universal and justified condemnation. Moral philosophers will hardly need in the future to invent arguments against the utilitarian justification of torture or to look for examples of inuria in bello.Amid all the furore, one small but possibly significant phenomenon has been a steady procession of erstwhile supporters of the war, now seeking to distance themselves from the whole operation. Some are now saying that they had been wrong to support it in the first place.