The San Francisco Chronicle May 08, 2004
Harsh treatment of prisoners called futile
Experts say it's better to win their trust
By Matthew B. Stannard
Those who play the psychological cat-and-mouse games of military interrogation say the sexual abuse and humiliation allegedly committed in the name of intelligence gathering at a Baghdad prison isn't just controversial and possibly criminal -- it also doesn't work.
And whatever information is gained from the methods interrogators used at Abu Ghraib prison, its value is more than outweighed by their consequences, according to four military and government interrogators whose experiences cover more than three decades of conflict.
"Basically, they were amateurs," said Frank Snepp, a former CIA analyst and an interrogator during the Vietnam War. "I can't even come up with a theory for what they were doing."
A report of a U.S. Army investigation conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba documented "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted upon detainees at Abu Ghraib, purportedly to set "favorable conditions" for subsequent interrogation.
Photos of the abuse show Iraqi detainees stripped naked, hooded and arranged in a number of sexual or humiliating positions. The report relates instances of detainees being punched, slapped, sodomized with a broomstick or chemical light, and threatened with electric shock, loaded weapons and dogs.
The report links those abuses to military intelligence and privately contracted interrogators, whom the report says "actively requested" that military police guards operating in their secretive wing of the prison "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Friday on the abuses, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the abusive actions "do not appear to be aberrant conduct by individuals but part of a conscious method of extracting information. If true, the planners of this process are at least as guilty as those who carried out the abuses."
Sgt. Javal Davis, one of the military police officers who have been criminally charged with abusing prisoners, testified that interrogators told guards to "loosen this guy up ... make sure he gets the treatment," and later complimented the guards' efforts, saying, "Good job, they're breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They're giving out good information."
But all four of the interrogators who spoke with The Chronicle strongly doubted that the Abu Ghraib interrogators got much useful information out of their subjects after they had been "softened up" by the techniques shown in the photographs.
"Humiliation will only generate resentment," Snepp said. "If you break somebody on the basis of what you've done to their self-esteem, you can't trust any of their information."
The kinds of abuse documented in the photographs would have been particularly useless in interrogating Iraqis, who have a strong taboo against appearing nude before others or engaging in homosexual acts, said another interrogator, active during the Cold War, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"It's incredibly dumb. This guy's not going to want to talk to me after I've done to him the worst thing I can do to a Muslim," he said. "No interrogator worth his salt would do this."
Which is not to say such techniques -- and worse -- haven't been used in the past by both the U.S. military and U.S. law enforcement. A 1983 CIA manual given to anti-Marxist forces in Central America included a chapter dealing with "coercive techniques," including blindfolding, stripping and inflicting pain.
Nor is Abu Ghraib the first place U.S. forces have been accused of using illegal methods of interrogation in the current conflict in Iraq. In August, Lt. Col. Allen West with the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit was accused of allowing subordinates to beat an Iraqi police officer he suspected of having information about a pending insurgent attack, then firing a pistol near the man's head. West eventually was relieved of duty and fined $5,000.
During his administrative hearing, West's fellow interrogators described their frustrations with the limited number of interrogators available and the low quality of information most detainees possessed.
"I felt our hands were tied behind our backs," said Capt. Sheri Day, a military intelligence officer. "It didn't take the detainees long to figure out our techniques and procedures. ... They know we had to stay in certain boundaries because we're Americans. They know they could sit all day long and not say anything and eventually walk free."
A 1987 Army field manual specifically bans torture and encourages interrogators to use flattery, feigned sympathy and small gifts such as cigarettes and coffee to build rapport.
"The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the U.S. government," the report warns.
The current manual is classified, but techniques like those recommended in the 1987 manual are still used and still work, said David Robinson, a former instructor at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., who was active during the first Gulf War and recently turned down an offer to be a contract interrogator in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"The most effective technique is the direct questioning, where you just ask questions," he said. "It works typically 80 percent of the time."
But even when it fails, the interrogators said, there are other methods within the bounds of the Geneva Conventions and international law: psychological techniques that cause confusion and disorientation, extending or withdrawing benefits from detainees such as contact with family or better rates of pay for prison work, or disorientation through sleep interruption or "positional stress" -- requiring a prisoner to remain in the same position for an uncomfortable length of time.
Those latter techniques typically require higher levels of authorization and special circumstances to be permissible within international law, the interrogators said. At a press conference this week, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commands Iraq's jails, confirmed that sleep deprivation and stress positions could be used in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay with authorization but said they were rare.
"In my experience with over 22,000 interrogations, I did not use sleep deprivation," he said. "I personally feel that it is not as effective a technique."
Some human rights organizations have questioned whether such techniques -- even with authorization -- are allowed under the Geneva Conventions or the Convention Against Torture, which defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession."
The best techniques, the interrogators said, involve convincing the detainee that the interrogator is a trustworthy friend -- the opposite of the techniques used at Abu Ghraib.
"Interrogation ... is like a love affair," Snepp said. "You've got to develop this rapport with your subject to make him feel safe and confident in you. To make him feel unsafe is absurd."
Professional interrogators in Iraq are still making good use of the legal techniques, said Lt. Col. Drew Ryan, commanding officer of the National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, which recently returned from Iraq -- a tour during which he visited Abu Ghraib but said he did not see any abuses.
His unit, ordered to conduct field interrogations that often involved speaking with Iraqis in their homes and businesses, made good use of the hands-off techniques, Ryan said -- and never found them wanting.
"Human beings really like to tell the truth," he said.
But the degree to which unauthorized interrogation practices were used at Abu Ghraib suggests the involvement of nonprofessional interrogators, Snepp said. He called their role "appalling" and holds the war's planners accountable.
"It was done too fast. They hadn't planned ahead. It's just that simple," he said. "It's part and parcel of the problems that have plagued this operation from the start."
All four interrogators said the activities shown in the Abu Ghraib photos were wrong, even if -- in Robinson's words -- the actual abuse was somewhat "milquetoast" compared to the worst historical abuses of prisoners of war. But, he added, the abuse was "way over the line. Anything sexual is right off the plan."
And the downside of using those techniques will likely outweigh any good information that came of them, the interrogators said.
Military officials say they are already reviewing the types of interrogation techniques permitted in Iraq and disallowing some, a process that Ryan and Robinson worried could become politicized and ultimately hamper legitimate interrogators from obtaining information crucial to fighting the war.
"We need to keep it away from the politicians and in the hands of the professionals who do this," Ryan said. "The system's not broken. It's the actions of a few individuals."
Future interrogators will also have to overcome the fear among possible intelligence sources that they too will suffer the abuse and degradation witnessed at Abu Ghraib.
"Any assurance you give a prisoner that he's going to be well-treated is going to be viewed with total skepticism," Snepp said. "You've got to come across as a human being, otherwise he won't fess up to you."
But the greatest consequence, Robinson said, may be the effect of the Abu Ghraib interrogations on the rest of the Iraqi people, the Muslim world and their willingness to fight and die against the Americans.
"To my mind that is the greatest crime: There are Americans that are going to die who know nothing about Abu Ghraib ... that are going to feel the retribution for this," Robinson said.
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RULES ON PRISONERS OF WAR
From the 1949 Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a party:
HUMANE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. An unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
QUESTIONING OF PRISONERS
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
PROHIBITION OF COERCION
No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties.
Source: Appendix J, 1949 Geneva Convention. The compete text of Appendix J, which is also cited in the 1987 U.S. Army Manual, can be found at www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/fm34-52/app-j.htm
The 1987 Army Manual can be found online at www.globalsecurity.org
The complete Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War can be found at U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Web site at www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htmChronicle correspondent Orly Halpern contributed to this report.E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, Sgt. Geoff Reil, an Army military police officer, pays an Iraqi prisoner in cigarettes for taking out the trash at Abu Ghraib prison. Experts say respectful treatment of inmates is more effective than abuse. / John Moore / Associated Press
© Copyright 2004, The Chronicle Publishing Co.
