In the aftermath of the take down of Osama Bin Laden, there has been much debate and speculation on the nature of the intelligence used to finally track him down. Front and center has been the role played using controversial interrogation techniques. On 5 May I participated in a press call sponsored by the National Security Network and the Center for American Progress. The stated purpose was “to help explain the methods used by the military and intelligence officials” and “to examine these practices and policies and how they fit into the United States’ overall counterterrorism and foreign policy.”
Participating in the call were Major General (Retired) Paul Eaton, National Security Network Senior Advisor, Ken Gude, Managing Director for National Security at CAP, Matthew Alexander, Air Force Officer and interrogator who led the interrogation team that tracked down the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and Glenn L. Carle, former CIA Clandestine Service officer and Deputy National Intelligence officer for Transnational Threats.
Before continuing on, it’s probably useful to better define what the discussion revolved around. What are enhanced interrogation techniques? According to Glenn Carle it’s a “euphemism for torture”. While participants in the press call didn’t specify details of what types of torture was and/or is still being used, my underlying assumption going in was they were primarily referring to water boarding. According to a 2005 ABC news report by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, enhanced interrogation techniques consist of the following:
“1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.”
Of all of these techniques, water boarding is the most controversial. The ABC report provided some more insight on the procedure: “According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.”
Without exception all of the participants on the press call said these techniques did not work. Glenn Carle stated: “They do not work; they are – they cause retrograde motion from what you’re seeking to accomplish. They increase resentment, not cooperation. They increase the difficulty in assessing what information you do hear is valid. They increase the likelihood that you will be given disinformation and have opposition from the person that you’re interrogating, across the board. Not a good thing.”
Matthew Alexander stated:
“I never saw enhanced interrogation techniques work in Iraq; I never saw even harsh techniques work in Iraq. In every case I saw them slow us down, and they were always counterproductive to trying to get people to cooperate. In going back to the definition of ‘works,’ any time we talk about enhanced interrogation techniques, we need to talk about the long-term negative consequences, such as the fact – that I witnessed in Iraq – which was it was al-Qaeda’s number-one recruiting tool and brought in thousands of foreign fighters who killed American soldiers…I’ll be the person to go on record and say that we do know that other interrogation techniques would have worked and produced more info definitively. And why do I say that? Because we have Saddam Hussein, who was captured without using them, and we have Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who my team tracked down and killed, without using them. We have an entire generation of interrogators from World War II, Vietnam, Panama, first Gulf War – all who did their jobs without enhanced interrogation techniques. So there’s no doubt in my mind that we could have done more without enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Glenn Carl commenting on his experience while a CIA clandestine officer stated:
“I refused directly, out of hand, that I – myself – using any physical measures at the time. But I had been trained from the get-go – I’d been trained that psychological measures worked. This is disorienting someone’s diurnal – disrupting diurnal rhythms, things of that nature. I found, however, that the guidance manual that goes back to the famous KUBARK or KUBARK Manual that goes back to the Korean War in the early ’60s was quite prescient. I found it, actually, very, very good, and it says these measures will increase resentment and will not increase a willingness of the person or the likelihood that the person will share information. That was exactly my experience, and I just found it appalling, frankly, that we would use them. And then I did a little research, and the origin of the program – the American techniques – come from two sources: the GI experience in the Korean War with the North Koreans and the Soviets’ intelligence service, the NKVD, in the 1930s with the show trials. The objectives of each of those times was to extract a confession, to break a person to sign a piece of paper, not to obtain intelligence. And through a strange transformation somehow our government decided that, or some experts decided that these were effective means of obtaining information. Nothing could be further from the truth. It didn’t work, it had the opposite effect, and my personal experience of making a person more likely to cooperate, all it did was increase resentment and misery, but not make someone more likely to share information.
Major General (Retired) Eaton stated:
“When I get in arguments with those who endorse enhanced interrogation techniques, they say, I’ll do anything I need to do to achieve a tactical gain, while dismissing the strategic problem associated with dehumanizing – which is what happens when we use these EITs; you’re dehumanizing the subject that you’re detaining. When we look at WWII and the hundreds of thousands of Germans and Italian prisoners who gave up to American military power to the thousands upon thousands of Iraqis who gave up, who surrendered during Gulf War I, these are men that we did not have to kill. They knew that
they would be better treated by the American soldier than their own forces would treat prisoners. So they surrendered.”
Think I’ll end here for now. Don’t like to make these blogs too long. Will continue tomorrow with highlights from the press call. Will also cover the views of those who don’t agree. Michael Mukasey, the Attorney General from 2007 to 2009 wrote an excellent oped in the Wall Street Journel on May 6th. I’ll also throw in my thoughts on the topic. As always my views are my own.
