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During the War on Terror, the Bush Administration authorized the US Central Intelligence Agency to employ ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to extract intelligence from alleged terrorists. Many organizations contended that ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were torture. Given that torture is morally reprehensible, the policy was constantly contested. This article argues that the Bush Administration attempted to legitimate the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ by making torture normal work. The Bush Administration did so by designating torture as legal, thus using a formal system of power that is publicly respected to validate and normalize their actions. Furthermore, by embedding torture in mundane organizational practices and rationalities, ‘enhanced interrogation’ was made to appear to be as ordinary as any other federal program. Hence, the article demonstrates how the legal system, as well as commonplace aspects of organizations can be employed by political elites to attempt to manage controversy around extreme policies by making them appear normal. However, a discourse of normality did not necessarily remove the taint from torture or create the results the political elites desired.
