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The interrogation of suspects, witnesses, and others is an essential source of information in the struggle against terrorism. It is accordingly important for the United States to perform this function well. This paper considers how we might think about the costs and benefits of different aapproaches to interrogation and how we might balance costs and benefits to support decisions affecting U.S. interrogation effort. As will become clear, any weighing of costs and benefits faces key uncertainties and areas of ignorance - most important, little rigorous information exists about the relative effectiveness of diferent techniques for educing information, and difficulties appear in identifying and weighing many qualitative benefits and costs. This discussion underscores the need for a stronger empirical foundation to support the choices of all kinds that we must make to perform this function well