'The freedom to be creative'

...a phrase used by one of the American practitioners in an excerpt trailed for The Torturer's Tale.

Congo, Greece under the colonels, and the present day U.S. provide the grist.

Congo, Greece (when it was a brutal military dictatorship), the United States.

Saddam Hussein, supported for two or three decades by the U.S. (and others), partly rose to the attention in the Ba'ath thanks to his creativity and virtuosity in the development and application of an alternative set of procedures. He used to offer some of his clients a menu to choose from, like a chef.