Another Look

Waterboarding, anyone?

Interesting response below in that Bush claimed it was the abusive tactics that led to our getting intelligence from high-value targets. Once again, it seems our uniformed brass are refusing to lie. This is from the transcript of the 9/6 DOD briefing on DOD and Army new interrogation standards for regular Geneva Convention-covered enemy forces and for enemy combatants. Will all the people who have been so eager to give up civil liberty to "protect the homeland" realize this was just another power grab by a power mad group of paranoids? Or do we still believe the hype? I say we reserve waterboarding for the people in DC who can tell us where the almost $400 billion we spent in Iraq went, or why we went there in the first place. After all that, the credibility of our deterrent capacity is nil as a result, as Iran and North Korea have shown. Wonder if Cheney/Lieberman are taking time from their Iran invasion plans to listen this time to the people who actually have worn a uniform?


They're here today to brief you on two documents that the department is releasing today. The first is the Defense Department directive for detainee programs, and the second is the Army field manual for human intelligence collector operations.


SPEAKERS: CULLY STIMSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR DETAINEE AFFAIRS

LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOHN KIMMONS (USA), ARMY DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INTELLIGENCE


QUESTION: General and Mr. Stimson, some of the tactics that were used, in particular in Guantanamo Bay, that were considered by investigators to be abusive when used together are now prohibited, for example, the use of nudity, hooding, that sort of thing.
In looking at those particular tactics and now not being able to use them, does that limit the ability of interrogators to get information that could be very useful? In particular on one detainee in Guantanamo Bay, some of those tactics that are now prohibited were deemed to be very effective in getting to that information.
Also, are there going to be safeguards to prevent whether it be interrogators or commanders from interpreting the tactics that are approved in ways that could be abusive, as some of those tactics were derived from standard interrogation tactics?

KIMMONS: Let me answer the first question. That is a good question. I think -- I am absolutely convinced -- the answer to your first question is no. No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that.
Moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress, through the use of abusive techniques, would be of questionable credibility, and additionally it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can't afford to go there.
Some of our most significant successes on the battlefield have been -- in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically all of them, have accrued from expert interrogators using mixtures of authorized humane interrogation practices in clever ways, that you would hope Americans would use them, to push the envelope within the bookends of legal, moral and ethical, now as further refined by this field manual.
We don't need abusive practices in there. Nothing good will come from them.

STIMSON: And let me add another piece to that. Obviously, because of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the Army Field Manual now is in effect law, the law of the land.
I can tell you, I'm not an interrogation expert. I'm just a lawyer who happened to end up in a policy job. But as a prosecutor in my former life, and when I spend time in Guantanamo talking to the interrogators there, they'll tell you that the intelligence they get from detainees is best derived through a period of rapport-building, long-term rapport-building; an interrogation plan that is proper, vetted, worked through all the channels that General Kimmons is talking about, and then building rapport with that particular detainee.
So it's not like Sipowicz from the TV show where they take them in the back room. You're not going to get trustworthy information, as I under it, from detainees. It's through a methodical, comprehensive, vetted, legal and now transparent, in terms of techniques, set of laydown that allows the interrogator to get the type of information that they need.

posted by Andy Mais @ 12:27 PM