Top Interrogators Delcare Torture Ineffective in Intelligence Gathering

[sneakatoke]

This is a long read (by internet forum standards) consisting of a few articles. They are either written by experts or include the testimony of experts.

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/medi...008/alert/313/

NEW YORK—Fifteen former interrogators and intelligence officials with more than 350 years collective field experience have declared that torture is an “unlawful, ineffective and counterproductive” way to gather intelligence, in a statement of principles released today.
The group of former interrogators and intelligence officials released a set of principles to guide effective interrogation practices at the conclusion of a meeting convened by Human Rights First last week in Washington. The meeting participants served with the CIA, the FBI and the U.S. military.
The principles are based on the interrogators and intelligence officials’ experiences of what works and what does not in the field. Interrogation techniques that do not resort to torture yield more complete and accurate intelligence, they say. The principles call for the creation of a well-defined single standard of conduct in interrogation and detention practices across all U.S. agencies. At stake is the loss of critical intelligence and time, as well as the United States’ reputation abroad and its credibility in demanding the humane treatment of captured Americans.
The full text of the principles and brief bios of its signers follow below.
The group gathered together in Washington last week for two days to discuss the most effective ways to obtain timely and credible information from suspected terrorists and other individuals who threaten the security of the United States, during which time they also met with Presidential campaign advisors and Members of Congress to discuss these issues.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Summer, 2008
The principles below were developed by 15 individuals who served as senior interrogators, interviewers and intelligence officials in the United States military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The group met at a forum hosted by Human Rights First on June 17 and 18, 2008, in Washington, D.C. to discuss the most effective ways to obtain timely and credible information from suspected terrorists and other individuals who threaten the security of the United States.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We believe:
1. Non-coercive, traditional, rapport-based interviewing approaches provide the best possibility for obtaining accurate and complete intelligence.
2. Torture and other inhumane and abusive interview techniques are unlawful, ineffective and counterproductive. We reject them unconditionally.
3. The use of torture and other inhumane and abusive treatment results in false and misleading information, loss of critical intelligence, and has caused serious damage to the reputation and standing of the United States. The use of such techniques also facilitates enemy recruitment, misdirects or wastes scarce resources, and deprives the United States of the standing to demand humane treatment of captured Americans.
4. There must be a single well-defined standard of conduct across all U.S. agencies to govern the detention and interrogation of people anywhere in U.S. custody, consistent with our values as a nation.
5. There is no conflict between adhering to our nation’s essential values, including respect for inherent human dignity, and our ability to obtain the information we need to protect the nation.
Signed by:

• Frank Anderson

Frank Anderson worked for the CIA from 1968 until 1995. He served three tours of duty in the Middle East as an agency station chief, headed the Afghan Task Force (1987-1989), and was chief of the Near East Division. He now runs a consulting practice that focuses on the Middle East.

• Jack Cloonan

Jack Cloonan served as a special agent with the FBI from 1977 to 2002. He began investigating Al Qaeda in the early 1990’s and served as a special agent for the Bureau's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 2002.

• Colonel (Ret.) Stuart A. Herrington, US Army

Stu Herrington served thirty years as an Army intelligence officer, specializing in human intelligence/counterintelligence. He has extensive interrogation experience from service in Vietnam, Panama, and Operation Desert Storm. He has traveled to Guantanamo and Iraq at the behest of the Army to evaluate detainee exploitation operations, and he recently taught a three-day seminar on humane interrogation practices to the Army’s 201st MI Battalion, Interrogation, during its activation at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas.

• Pierre Joly

Pierre Joly has more than 39 years of military intelligence experience. He currently serves as the Vice President of Phoenix Consulting Group where he leads more than 350 employees involved in providing human intelligence training to members of the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies of the United States. Immediately before joining Phoenix he served as the Chief of Controlled Operations at DIA from 2005- 2006 and the Chief of Operations for the Iraq Survey Group in Baghdad from 2003-2004.

• Brigadier General (Ret.) David Irvine, US Army

General Irvine enlisted in the 96th Infantry Division, United States Army Reserve, in 1962. He received a direct commission in 1967 as a strategic intelligence officer. He maintained a faculty assignment for 18 years with the Sixth U.S. Army Intelligence School, and taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law to soldiers, Marines, and airmen. He retired in 2002, and his last assignment was Deputy Commander for the 96th Regional Readiness Command. General Irvine served 4 terms as a Republican legislator in the Utah House of Representatives, has served as a congressional chief of staff, and served as a commissioner on the Utah Public Utilities Commission.

• Steven M. Kleinman

Steve Kleinman is an active duty intelligence officer who has twenty-five years of operational and leadership experience in human intelligence, special survival training, and special operations. He has served as a case officer, as a strategic debriefer, and as an interrogator during Operations JUST CAUSE, DESERT STORM, and IRAQI FREEDOM. He previously served as the DoD Senior Intelligence Officer for Special Survival Training and is currently assigned as the Reserve Director of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance at the Air Force Special Operations Command. As an independent consultant, his engagements have included serving as a senior advisor to the Intelligence Science Board's Study on Educing Information and as a member of the faculty for the U.S. Army Behavioral Science Consulting Team Course.

• Dr. George Mandel

Dr. George Mandel, born in Berlin, Germany, came to the US in 1937. He was inducted into the U.S. Army in 1944, and after basic training was transferred to Camp Ritchie, MD, for training in military interrogation because of his knowledge of German. He was then transferred to P.O. Box 1142, outside of Washington, D.C. where he conducted interrogation of German scientists brought to this country as prisoners of war. After a brief stint at Fort Strong, outside of Boston, he returned to 1142 to continue his previous work in military intelligence until the end of the War in Europe. After discharge in 1946 he returned briefly to 1142, and then entered graduate school at Yale University, specializing in organic chemistry. After receiving his Ph.D. he began his career in biochemical pharmacology, at George Washington University School of Medicine, starting as Research Associate in 1949, and promotion to the ranks to Professor. He became chairman of the Department of Pharmacology in 1960, stepped down from that position in 1996 and currently is working there as Professor of Pharmacology & Physiology. His research work has been in drug metabolism, cancer chemotherapy and carcinogenesis.

• Joe Navarro

For 25 years, Joe Navarro worked as an FBI special agent in the area of counterintelligence and behavioral assessment. A founding member of the National Security Division’s Behavioral Analysis Program, he is on the adjunct faculty at Saint Leo University and the University of Tampa and remains a consultant to the intelligence community. Mr. Navarro is the author of a number of books about interviewing techniques and practice including Advanced Interviewing which he co-wrote with Jack Schafer and Hunting Terrorists: A Look at the Psycopathology of Terror. He currently teaches the Advanced Terrorism Interview course at the FBI.

• Torin Nelson

Torin Nelson is a veteran Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Specialist and interrogator with 16-years of experience working with military and government agencies. He has worked in major theaters of operation in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Nelson has worked in tactical and strategic environments, both as a soldier and civilian advisor. Primary assignments include the 66th Military Intelligence and 300th Military Intelligence Brigades. He has also worked for the US Army Intelligence Center, Southern European Task Force (SETAF), the On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA, later DTRA), Combined Joint Task Force 170 (later CJTF-Gitmo), CFLCC (Iraq), CJTF-76 (later -82/-101) (Afghanistan), NATO (IFOR, SFOR, and ISAF), as well as numerous military to military joint training exercises. Mr. Nelson is one of the founding members at the Society for Professional Human Intelligence (SPHI). He is currently working in the Middle East as a senior interrogator and mentor.

• William Quinn

William Quinn served in the United States Army from 2001 to 2006 as a human intelligence collector, interrogator, and Korean linguist. He was deployed to Iraq from February 2005 to February 2006 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and was stationed at Abu Ghraib and Camp Cropper. Will is currently studying International Politics and Security Studies at Georgetown University and is a cadet in Army ROTC.

• Buck Revell

Mr. Revell served a 30-year career (1964-1994) in the FBI as a Special Agent and senior executive. From 1980 until 1991, Mr. Revell served in FBI Headquarters first as Assistant Director in charge of Criminal Investigations (including terrorism); then as Associate Deputy Director he was in charge of the Investigative, Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and International programs of the Bureau (1985-91). In September 1987, Mr. Revell was placed in charge of a joint FBI/CIA/U.S. military operation (Operation Goldenrod) which led to the first apprehension overseas of an international terrorist. Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Revell served as an officer and aviator in the U.S. Marine Corps, leaving active duty in 1964 as a Captain. He currently serves as the President of an international business and security consulting group based in Dallas.

• Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson served a twenty-year career in a variety of tactical, operational, and strategic assignments including Ranger, Special Forces, and clandestine special operations units. His experience includes service with the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. Ken has extensive experience in CIA and Israeli interrogation methods and is a member of the U.S. Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

• Roger Ruthberg

Roger Ruthberg served as an interrogator in the U.S. Army for 22 years. He conducted interrogation and counterintelligence operations during Operations Desert Storm, Joint Endeavor, and Iraqi Freedom. He currently works as an instructor in debriefing operations on contract to the Department of Defense.

• Haviland Smith

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA case officer and Station Chief who served for 26 years. He served in East and West Europe and in the Middle East. He also served for three years as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff at the Agency, as well as a tour as Executive Assistant to the DDCI.

• Lieutenant General (Ret.) Harry E. Soyster, USA

Lieutenant General Soyster served as Director, Defense Intelligence Agency during DESERT SHIELD/STORM. He also served as Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, Commanding General, U.S. Army, Commanding General, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command and in the Joint Reconnaissance Center, Joint Chiefs of Staff. In Vietnam he was an operations officer in a field artillery battalion. Upon retirement he was VP for International Operations with Military Professional Resources Incorporated and returned to government as a Special Assistant to the SEC ARMY for WWII 60th Anniversary Commemorations completed in 2006.

[sneakatoke]

An article by one of the signees of the above statement of principals.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07294/826876-35.stm

Recently revealed White House memos have raised the ugly question yet again: Is torturing prisoners captured in the Global War on Terrorism an effective and permissible use of our nation's might?
I served 30 years in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer, which included extensive experience as an interrogator in Vietnam, in Panama and during the 1991 Gulf War. In the course of these sensitive missions, my teams and I collected mountains of excellent, verified information, despite the fact that we never laid a hostile hand on a prisoner. Had one of my interrogators done so, he would have been disciplined and most likely relieved of his duties.
Since my retirement, I have twice answered the Army's call, journeying to Guantanamo and Iraq to evaluate interrogation procedures. Subsequently, when the terrible tsunami of verified reports of detainee torture by American soldiers overwhelmed the dikes, the Army asked me to assist in training a new battalion of Iraq-bound Army interrogators in non-coercive interrogation techniques.
As regular readers of these pages may recall, I am a native Pittsburgher, the product of a superlative education at Mt. Lebanon High School and Duquesne University. I was commissioned through Army ROTC at Duquesne after completing a liberal arts curriculum. Fundamental concepts of right and wrong were basic building blocks of this education.


Forty-plus years ago, as fall winds coursed across the Bluff, ethics professor Dr. Arthur Schrynemakers, in a voice of Dutch-accented English that still rings in my memory, declared to my freshman class that ethical principles were absolute. Right was right; wrong was wrong. When he pointed his finger at those of us in the front row and thundered that it was ethically impermissible to commit an evil act and attempt to justify it because that evil act might lead to some future good, we listened -- and some of us remembered.
Coming from this background, it has been disappointing to observe the ongoing debate about torture in interrogation, usually carried out be people who have never interrogated a soul. Nor is it easy to accept that the current debate is framed pragmatically by the question, "Does torture work or not?"
In a recent interview with NPR's Terry Gross, I told her that 10 years ago the notion we would even be having such a dialogue was unthinkable. Somehow, perhaps blinded by the horrors of 9-11 and its aftermath, or by that barrage of chilling video footage of hooded executioners snuffing out the lives of journalists, civilians and soldiers, we have lost sight of other equally relevant questions: Is torture right or wrong? Is the brutalizing of helpless prisoners a practice that will advance or harm our nation's position as it wages a just war against Islamist extremists?
One can almost hear the late Dr. Schrynemakers expound on this question. Wagging his finger, he would note that government sanctioning of mistreatment of prisoners by its intelligence officers is an essentially evil act committed in the name of self-defense, which has propelled our great country down a slippery moral slope and imperiled us further.
Treat captives as guests
I and other authentic practitioners of the interrogation art respect our adversaries, however wrong we may deem their cause. We know that obtaining information from a captive who is motivated by his beliefs, his country, his honor or perhaps by the very human desire to live a full life with his family, is an elusive task that requires a patient, systematic approach.
One has to "go to school" on each captive. Who is he? Can I communicate with him in his language? What are his core beliefs? His loves? Hates? Fears? Where do his loyalties lie? Does he have a family, an inflated ego, perhaps some other core vulnerability? Does he have a hobby or some passion that might get him talking? What do we know about his activities before he fell into our hands? What about his religion? Sect? Tribe? Culture? Or the history of his movement? What have other captives in our hands said about him? Did he have documents or a computer that were seized with him? What drives this unique individual?
Professional interrogation is thus a developmental process, requiring extensive preparation. It requires in-depth assessment of the prisoner, all complemented by a healthy measure of guile, wits and patience.
Seasoned interrogators know that an important first step is to disarm one's adversary by resorting to the unexpected. Treat a captured general or colonel with dignity and respect. Better yet, treat a sergeant like he is a colonel or general.
In interrogation centers I ran, we called prisoners "guests" and extended military courtesies, such as saluting captured officers. We strove to undermine a prisoner's belief system, which we knew instructed him that Americans are unschooled infidels who would bully him and resort to intimidation, threats and brutality. Patience was essential. We rejected the view that interrogators could merely "take off the gloves" and that information would somehow magically flow if we brutalized our "guests." This notion was uninformed and counterproductive, not to mention illegal, and we made sure our chain of command understood that bowing to such tempting theories would result in bad information.
Persuasive? I'd always thought so, and it certainly worked for us in contingency after contingency in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. But when I explained these immutable principles to an auditorium of young Army interrogators last year, one reaction puzzled me. "Sir," a young soldier queried, "that 'tender-loving-care approach' sounds all well and good, but it takes time. What do we do when the chain of command sends out a requirement and says they need the information by the end of the day, and that thousands of lives may depend upon it?"
The very question tells us that intelligence professionals have failed to educate their commanders that detainee interrogation is not like a water spigot. "Give the inquisitors the freedom to push the envelope of brutality and good information will follow" seems to have become the watchword since 9-11.
It also tells us that our young soldiers take away lessons from today's pop culture. Self-styled "experts" on interrogation frequently cite the "ticking bomb scenario" (featured on shows like "24") to justify the Jack Bauer-like tormenting of a prisoner. According to this construct, it is necessary and acceptable to torture in the name of saving an American city from "the next 9-11." This has a magnetic appeal to legions of Americans, among them future soldiers.
But the so-called ticking time bomb scenario is a Hollywood construct that I never encountered in my 30-year career. Even so, it has become the rallying cry of many well-intentioned but ethically challenged military and civilian personnel. And it has been hawked by a large constituency of senior government officials, from the White House to the Department of Justice to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, and is most recently evidenced in the surfacing of a January 2005 memo, written almost a year after Abu Ghraib, that characterizes face slapping and waterboarding as acceptable conduct.
Keep the gloves on
When a professional interrogator sits across from a captured Iraqi general who possesses information about the Iraqi nuclear program, or who knows why Saddam did not toss nerve gas at our massed forces, the interrogator knows he is facing a formidable adversary, an educated, trained professional strongly inclined by his Iraqi patriotism and survival instincts to deny his interrogator such information. The interrogator's challenge in such situations is to assess and manipulate the situation, somehow persuading his captive to make disclosures in spite of the prisoner's visceral fear of the consequences if he helps the enemy. The role of the interrogator is, in essence, that of a recruiter. The prisoner must be convinced that if he reveals state secrets, his captor will handle his trust with discretion and take care of him.
Generations of professional interrogators have possessed such skills, and used them to obtain information vital to our country. Those who have not mastered these techniques fall back on the ultimate admission of incompetence and resort to brutality. Once this moral frontier is crossed, captives on the receiving end of such treatment respond to their survival instincts. Spurred by cunning and fueled by the hatred stoked by their tormentor's brutality, they respond as our American aviators responded in the Hanoi Hilton, showing their contempt by lying, invention, stalling -- anything to stop the abuse -- or by accepting death before dishonor.
For 30 years, I was fortunate to work with talented professionals. We benefited from good training, including the need to adhere to the law. We never felt pressured "to take the gloves off" and mistreat our captives. On the contrary, our chain of command encouraged good treatment, and there was never a thought of traveling down the wrong road.
Regrettably, such an approach may not have satisfied a number of our senior leaders since 9-11, but it would surely have pleased Dr. Schrynemakers. It was a good approach then, and it remains so.


Three men in custody

Question: What do these three men have in common?
A wounded North Vietnamese Army sergeant, captured only after he exhausted his ammunition, brags that his Army is "liberating" the South and refuses to cooperate under harsh treatment by South Vietnamese interrogators. He then provides Americans with information about his unit, its missions, its infiltration route. He even assists in interrogating other prisoners. Granted amnesty, he serves in the South Vietnamese Army for the duration of the war.
A captured Panamanian staff officer, morose and angry, initially lies and stonewalls his American interrogator but ultimately reveals his role in his leader's shadowy contacts with North Korea, Cuba, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He provides information about covert arms purchases and a desperate attempt to procure SAM missiles to shoot down American helicopters in the event of an American invasion.
An Iraqi general, captured and humiliated during Operation Desert Storm, is initially frightened and defiant but eventually cooperates, knowing that Saddam Hussein's penalty for treason was certain death. Before repatriation, the general hands his captor his prayer beads and a scrap of paper bearing an address, saying with emotion, "Our Islamic custom requires that we show gratitude to those who bestow kindness and mercy. These beads comforted me through your Air Force's fierce bombings for 39 days, but they are all I have. When Saddam is gone, please come to my home. You will be an honored guest and we will slaughter a lamb to welcome you."
Answer: All three were treated by their American captors with dignity and respect. No torture; no mistreatment.
-- Stuart Herrington

[sneakatoke]

Another article by one of the signees.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/28585/?page=1

Remarkably, of the nation's major newspapers, only the Wall Street Journal has editorialized in support of torture as a useful tool of American intelligence policy. Regrettably, that position does a huge disservice to the nation and its soldiers. There are really only three issues in this debate, and the Journal carefully turned a blind eye to all three: (1) is torture reliable, (2) is it consistent with America's values and Constitution, and (3) does it best serve our national interests?
No one has yet offered any validated evidence that torture produces reliable intelligence. While torture apologists frequently make the claim that torture saves lives, that assertion is directly contradicted by many Army, FBI, and CIA professionals who have actually interrogated al Qaeda captives. Exhibit A is the torture-extracted confession of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al Qaeda captive who told the CIA in 2001, having been "rendered" to the tender mercies of Egypt, that Saddam Hussein had trained al Qaeda to use WMD. It appears that this confession was the only information upon which, in late 2002, the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state repeatedly claimed that "credible evidence" supported that claim, even though a now-declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report from February 2002 questioned the reliability of the confession because it was likely obtained under torture. In January 2004, al-Libi recanted his "confession," and a month later, the CIA recalled all intelligence reports based on his statements.
Exhibit B is the case of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi deemed a "high-value" target by the CIA. After being beaten to an extent that he had several broken ribs, he was subjected to a form of crucifixion known as "Palestinian hanging." Forty-five minutes later, he was dead, never having revealed whatever vital, ticking-bomb information his American interrogator was seeking.
If there is reliable evidence that torture has, in fact, interrupted ticking time bombs and saved lives, the gravity of the crisis created by the administration's free-wheeling torture policy demands straight answers which can be weighed and evaluated by a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission whose membership might include interrogators, jurists, theologians, national security specialists, military leaders, and political leaders. The damage to our national interests and the dismal record of war candor by this administration has made "trust us" an insufficient justification for such a profound change in American law and moral values.
The Journal claims that Abu Ghraib was an anomaly -- that it has become a "torture narrative" that erroneously blames the CIA for the abuses depicted in the infamous photographs. The Schlesinger report was cited for the conclusion that the perpetrators were merely a group of sadistic, poorly trained Reservists. This argument, however begs the question; the rationale for the McCain amendment rests not upon Abu Ghraib, but upon the cascading stream of documented reports from other places in Afghanistan and Iraq in which brutal torture has been either authorized or winked at by several different military and civilian chains of command.

The Journal further distorts the facts by arguing that techniques such as waterboarding (which induces the sensation of drowning), leaving prisoners outdoors in freezing weather, and stress positions which can cause suffocation and collapse, are not really "torture," but are just "psychological techniques designed to break a detainee." There is, certainly, a psychological component to torture, but the real issue is whether what's done causes severe physical or mental pain or suffering. Of the crucifixion form of "psychological" pressure which the CIA worked upon Jamadi, one of the soldiers who cut him down said he had never seen anyone's arms positioned like that; "[I] was surprised they didn't just pop out of their sockets."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has endorsed the McCain amendments, and declared, "In the face of this perilous climate, our nation must not embrace a morality based on an attitude that 'desperate times call for desperate measures.' There can be no compromise on the moral imperative to protect the basic human rights of any individual incarcerated for any reason." Our embrace of torture is completely inconsistent with our commitment to equal justice and the rule of law.
The Journal assumes that only the worst of the worst will be subjected to torture when it comes to ticking time bombs. Not only is that assumption unfounded, based upon the widespread abuses in Iraq, it was tried and abandoned by the Israelis. Because it is impossible to confirm with advance certainty what any suspect actually knows, ticking bomb torture can be justified in virtually every interrogation. When Israel experimented with "torture lite," supposedly reserved for ticking-bomb circumstances, it was not long before 85 percent of all Palestinian detainees were being given the harshest treatment allowed. The capability to finely calibrate torture has eluded every democratic government which has tried it.
The inescapable fact is that America's standing in the world, and especially in the Middle East, has never been lower. The price we have paid for our misdirected torture policies has been incalculable. The Arab street may not always grasp the finer points of separation of powers or proportional representation; but everyone, everywhere, comprehends hypocrisy, and judges us for ours. If the torture advocates truly believe that the value of violently coerced information has been worth the plummeting drop in America's world stature, or that such information is worth the clear and present endangerment of captured Americans, it's time to justify the claimed value of torture to the nation in whose name it's being done. Not assumptions, not generalizations, not, "I can't explain because it's classified."
The president and vice president wish to chart a course of heretofore unacceptable savagery toward anyone even suspected of terrorism. If we are to become a nation where a president may torture anyone he wishes, it deserves a broad, sober, fact-based national debate.

[sneakatoke]

The author isn't an expert, but she interviews a couple military officers who are.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan11.html

Just for a moment, let's pretend that there is no moral, legal or constitutional problem with torture. Let's also imagine a clear-cut case: a terrorist who knows where bombs are about to explode in Iraq. To stop him, it seems that a wide range of Americans would be prepared to endorse "cruel and unusual" methods. In advance of confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales last week, the Wall Street Journal argued that such scenarios must be debated, since "what's at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians." Alan Dershowitz, the liberal legal scholar, has argued in the past that interrogators in such a case should get a "torture warrant" from a judge. Both of these arguments rest on an assumption: that torture -- defined as physical pressure during interrogation -- can be used to extract useful information.



But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I'm repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods ("Too Nice for Our Own Good" was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week's trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I've heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians "really know how to get these things done." I've heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I've heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway. "Liberals," argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, "have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective." But it's also true that "realists," whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else


By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."



Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."


Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity." It does "damage to our country's image" and undermines our credibility in Iraq. That, in the long run, outweighs any theoretical benefit. Herrington's confidential Pentagon report, which he won't discuss but which was leaked to The Post a month ago, goes farther. In that document, he warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees in Iraq, that their activities could be "making gratuitous enemies" and that prisoner abuse "is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry." Far from rescuing Americans, in other words, the use of "special methods" might help explain why the war is going so badly.



An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture.


Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.



Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well

[Jamtastic]

Really some intresting stuff, however, personally I would expect torture to be effective.

However, I can see where the accuracy of the information isn't as good because any information to get it to stop will do, also torturing someone who ultimately doesn't know anything won't do a hell of alot of good.

I'm not for torturing every day, but if it came down to it, the heat of the moment save the world or die, well of course, desperate times call for desperate measures, but thats about it.

[sneakatoke]

Thanks for reading, Jamtastic. I honestly wasn't sure if anybody would since it's pretty long. Anyways, I would've expected torture to be effective, too. Seems kind of like a no brainer. But on the other hand, I'm not in the military or the intelligence community or law enforcement, and here are all these people who are that are saying torture just isn't effective. I can't remember where I read the analogy, but one interrogator compared actionable intelligence gleaned from torture to a broken watch, saying "even a broken watch has the right time twice a day."

So while my gut says torture should be effective, I'm going to trust the judgement of these numerous and credentialed career military officers and interrogators and say it isn't.

[maxrule]

Originally Posted by Jamtastic

Really some intresting stuff, however, personally I would expect torture to be effective.

However, I can see where the accuracy of the information isn't as good because any information to get it to stop will do, also torturing someone who ultimately doesn't know anything won't do a hell of alot of good.

I'm not for torturing every day, but if it came down to it, the heat of the moment save the world or die, well of course, desperate times call for desperate measures, but thats about it.

I didn't read it all. I haven't got the time but I agree with you. I'm pretty positive that torture IS effective. You can completely control a person and make them do any thing you want if you hurt them bad enough.

I can all but guarantee that a person will either break or die and most obviously break. I mean how many ways can you think of to hurt someone or get in their heads?

I am not for torture in most circumstance of course. I can't stand the thought of any living thing suffering. But if entire future of western civilization was at steak I'd probably support it.

[CaliCoast]

Some people with a lot of experience with torture and "ticking time bombs" are the Israelis. They've even come out and said torture is not effective but sex, money and flattery work the best. I'm paraphrasing of course.

[G-MAN]

The thing about torture is you would say anything to get out of it, not everything true.

[sneakatoke]

Originally Posted by CaliCoast

Some people with a lot of experience with torture and "ticking time bombs" are the Israelis. They've even come out and said torture is not effective but sex, money and flattery work the best. I'm paraphrasing of course.

Really? Did not know that. I'm going to look into that, thanks!

[Nosketch78]

Originally Posted by maxrule

I didn't read it all. I haven't got the time but I agree with you. I'm pretty positive that torture IS effective. You can completely control a person and make them do any thing you want if you hurt them bad enough.

I can all but guarantee that a person will either break or die and most obviously break. I mean how many ways can you think of to hurt someone or get in their heads?

I am not for torture in most circumstance of course. I can't stand the thought of any living thing suffering. But if entire future of western civilization was at steak I'd probably support it.

Why are you offering an opinion that is proven wrong by articles which you refuse to read?


Ignorance at its best.

[CaliCoast]

Originally Posted by sneakatoke

Really? Did not know that. I'm going to look into that, thanks!

Look up Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side". Also check out this Frontline doc.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/view/

Another side story is that there were a lot of senior military and intelligence officials who fiercely opposed implementing a new policy of torture but those voices were drowned out with irrationality. Nothing new I guess .

[maxrule]

Originally Posted by Nosketch78

Why are you offering an opinion that is proven wrong by articles which you refuse to read?


Ignorance at its best.

It's an article, it proves nothing.

The article is bullshit if they claim that you can't control people by torturing them. That is flat fucking nonsense.

Millions upon million and millions more people through out history have been tortured in to control. That is a fact of history.

Have you never read the ART OF WAR?

Ask McCain; he was TORTURED and he broke. YOU WILL BREAK!

Saddam knew all about torture; he tortured his own people by the thousands.

Putting underwear on someones head and taking their picture is not torture. That's more like torment than torture.

Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/klein

[maxrule]

If underware on head and water boarding are true forms of torture; why did anyone ever bother to invent shit like this?

[Nosketch78]

Originally Posted by maxrule

If underware on head and water boarding are true forms of torture; why did anyone ever bother to invent shit like this?

Uh...because they chose to enter the profession of TORTURER and are obviously extreme sadists??! Waterboarding and psycological torture were designed for interrogation without leaving any marks. I don't think those tools would be very effective for that.


The pure ignorance that you're vomiting in this thread is astounding. Did you even look at a single one of those articles? They prove you wrong. But you still continue to fight for a practice in a thread that proves your opinion wrong, and you flat out refuse to accept it? This isn't even ignorance, it's stupidity. Oh, and you should know that John Mccain is 100% against torture, and has stated multiple times that it is inneffective and immoral.