QandO

May 18, 2004

Overreaction
Posted by McQ

One bit of fallout from Abu Gharib will be new strictures on how we can 'prepare' a prisoner for interrogation. Arnold Ahlert of Newday already sees an overreaction in that regard which may be detrimental to our ability to get timely information from them. Note his outrage and sarcasm with which I pretty much agree:

Sleep and sensory deprivation, and body "stress positions," are now "prohibited interrogation techniques," according to the latest release from the U.S. military.

To understand the monumental stupidity of this new initiative, imagine the following: We are lucky enough to capture one Abu Musab Zarqawi - a Jordanian militant with al Qaeda connections, specialist in bio and chemical weaponry, suspected organizer of much of the Iraqi resistance movement and alleged beheader of American civilian Nick Berg.

Now add the latest policy: No asking questions until the terrorist gets his refreshing eight-hour snooze - with the "night-light" on, if he so desires. After that, possibly a comfortable chair.

Got the picture? A man who would have volumes of knowledge about the world's most lethal terror organization, who likely knows where the next several attacks on U.S. soldiers will occur, a man who might even know where chemical and bio weapons are being stockpiled for use against Americans - and we'll treat him with kid gloves.

Why? To satisfy the "sensitivities" of those who are still incapable or unwilling to recognize the true nature of the enemy we face, even after 9/11 and a videotaped decapitation.

Milk and cookies, too?

Sleep and sensory deprevation (isolation) have been techniques both approved and used under the Geneva Conventions. In fact they're techniques used in US police interrogation today. I have no real problem with eliminating "stress positions", because they are indeed ripe for abuse (too much lattitude for "interpretation" which is what I think we'll find was one of the problems at Abu Ghraib).

These techniques are used to "sweat" the prisoner, i.e. put pressure on him, stress if you will. Sleep deprevation has the effect of making a prisoner more likely to make a mental mistake under interrogation as they just don't think as clearly as when fresh. And, it provides an incentive to provide the information required by the interrogator: "talk and we let you sleep".

Sensory deprevation or isolation, has essentially the same effect. Done in combination and the time it takes to 'prepare' a prisoner for interrogation is minimal. Once the prisoner breaks, it usually isn't necessary to do this again (psychologically, most give up after the break and provide info necessary on demand).

All this to point out that now, in typical fashion, we're overreacting and tying the hands of our people, vs. identifying and fixing the problem and then, under much stricter supervision, resuming interrogations using proper techniques for "softening up" the prisoners beforehand.

Fix the problem, review the techniques in question, write strict guidelines for their use and then supervise their use closely.

But don't tie interrogators hands to the point that our troops in the field pay for this overreaction with their lives because we allowed our desire for positive world opinion to take precidence over gathering vital intelligence that could save them.

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