Topic: Blurring Of U.S. Interrogation Policy Complicates Challenge

Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
January 6, 2008
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By Dennis Wagner, Arizona Republic
FORT HUACHUCA - A squad of U.S. soldiers enters a small "Iraqi village" in the southern Arizona foothills, automatic weapons ready. Their eyes nervously scan the civilians in Middle Eastern garb, watching for enemy combatants.
Later, in a shack near the center of town, two interrogators question a bearded man caught with a video camera with footage of missile attacks launched by insurgents.
One of the soldiers peppers the captive with questions to no avail.
"Can I go?" the man finally asks in a thick Arabic accent. "Or actually, perhaps you can answer some questions for me?"
Asked about the images on the camera, he smiles. "It is happenstance, yes?" he says. "Coincidence."
The intelligence collectors press ahead with the give and take. They are in a mock village with paid actors - a field exercise at the Fort Huachuca Military Intelligence Center and School, the nation's largest center for interrogation training.
As in Iraq, there is no guarantee that the terrorist suspect will talk. But there is one certainty: No one here will contemplate using torture as an interrogation technique.
The Army, which runs Fort Huachuca, insists it will not tolerate abuse or coercion in interrogations and is instilling that philosophy in its trainees.
In exercises at Fort Huachuca, interrogators instead are taught "persuasive methods," such as psychological ploys and ruses to coax or pressure suspects into divulging information in the war on terror.
"You can torture someone all day long, and it's not a reliable way to get information," says Lt. Col. Jeff Jennings, commander of the 309th Military Intelligence Battalion. Torture often elicits bogus intelligence, he said.
Most experts seem aligned with the Army position, yet a national debate continues over the value of coercive questioning. In the presidential campaign, for example, Sen. John McCain, who was brutalized as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, condemns torture, including waterboarding, or simulated drowning, saying it produces false intelligence and sabotages America's stand for righteousness. By contrast, Rudy Giuliani refuses to label waterboarding as unlawful, saying: "It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it."
The challenge for hundreds of men and women at Fort Huachuca's HUMINT school is to navigate the gray area between torture and tough questioning.
Use of coercion
Interrogations are difficult in any war, but since 9/11, the challenge has been compounded by a blurring of U.S. law and policy covering detainee treatment. Public records describe how the Bush administration used new legal interpretations and executive orders to sanction increased levels of duress in seeking intelligence. In a few instances, the CIA even resorted to waterboarding, historically treated as a war crime by international law and the United States.
Public records and congressional testimony explain how America's embrace of coercive methods evolved: In 2002, President Bush relied on a Justice Department opinion to assert that Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan were not prisoners of war and had no right to Geneva Conventions protections. The government then adopted a secret memo from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which redefined torture as life-threatening pain equivalent to sensations of organ failure, impairment of bodily function or death. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, dietary harassment, religious humiliation and the exploitation of phobias. Over time, public disclosures unveiled results of the new approach:
*Internet video revealed physical abuse and sexual humiliation of detainees at the Army's Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003. The abuse was attributed primarily to guards at the prison, military intelligence officers, CIA agents and civilian contractors. Guards appeared to take sadistic pleasure in pouring cold water on naked detainees, sexually taunting them and using military dogs to threaten attack.
*A federal rendition program shuttled detainees to hidden sites in Europe and the Middle East for intensive questioning at the hands of non-American inquisitors.
*Accounts of waterboarding emerged at the Guantanamo detainee camp in Cuba. The technique, which places a bound prisoner upside down in water, was employed by CIA agents who later destroyed the video evidence. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey last week ordered a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes.
Despite the controversies, some experts insist that coercion should remain an option for interrogators as it could save American lives.
Retired CIA agent John Kiriakou claims that when interrogators at Guantanamo were unable to crack a key al-Qaida suspect, Abu Zubaydah, they finally resorted to waterboarding. Kiriakou said in interviews that Zubaydah broke down within 35 seconds, divulging information on "maybe dozens of attacks."
Because videotape was destroyed and records are classified, Kiriakou's claim cannot be verified.
Frank Gaffney Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy, says he has been told that two key al-Qaida figures gave up critical intelligence when confronted with so-called "enhanced interrogation." He argues that "aggressive" methods are "absolutely essential and should not be ruled out," adding: "War is an evil. . . . It requires us to do evil things."
At Fort Huachuca, Lt. Col. Jennings insists there is no uncertainty among his instructors and students: The Army does not condone torture or train its interrogators to use such practices.
A new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, written at Fort Huachuca, has passages designed to prevent a repeat of Abu Ghraib. Interrogation requires soldiers to abide by the Geneva Conventions, general laws of war, federal statutes and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, all of which prohibit torture. The manual expressly forbids waterboarding and many other coercive methods employed during the war on terror.