In 2001, General Aussaresses confessed in his book "Services spéciaux, Algérie 1955–1957" (2001) to having engaged in torture and illegal executions, on direct orders from General Massu. Aussaresses declared that torture had been directly ordered by Guy Mollet's government. Paul Aussaresses was condemned for "apologism for war crimes" because he had justified the use of torture, claiming it had helped to save lives.[6] Although Aussaresses claimed that torture was an efficient way to fight against what he saw as FLN terrorism, recent historical research[2] demonstrates that, contrary to the popular "ticking time bomb scenario", torture was not used for short-term intelligence purposes.