By Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer, U.S. Army
Best Defense guest columnist
Most Americans do not realize the sheervolume of literature that exists showing that torture is a great tool forextracting false confessions but an extremely poor tool for collectingintelligence. Here's my Top 10:
1. TheBlack Banners, by Ali Soufan. From my of the book in theArmy's Military Review: "Soufandescribes multiple interrogations in which he earned the trust and cooperationof Al-Qaeda operatives, only to have psychologists and amateur interrogatorsfrom the CIA destroy this rapport through brutality. He reports that once theyused harsh techniques, detainees stopped providing substantial intelligence."Soufan, an Arabic-speaking FBI interrogator, dispels the myth that al Qaedaterrorists are "hardened" to withstand traditional interrogation approaches.Getting al Qaeda members to talk, he demonstrates, is rarely difficult for askilled interrogator who uses rapport-based approaches and who understandstheir language,cheap jordans, culture, and religion.
2. Stalking the Vietcong, by Colonel(Ret.) Stuart Herrington. Although primarily known as a counterinsurgencyclassic (this book is one of the recommended readings in the famous 2006counterinsurgency manual), this memoir describes how Colonel Herringtonconvinced a senior South Vietnamese official to use rapport-based approachesrather than torture. The result was not only far more reliable intelligence,but often, the "turning" of enemy soldiers so that they actively collectedagainst their former units. Incidentally, in a more recent essay, he writesabout what he learned from his 2002 and 2003 inspections of Gitmo and AbuGhraib, respectively. This essay, which is his foreword to my own book ontactical-level interrogations in Iraq, is as important as any on the subject.You don't need to buy my book to read it. It's available online .
3. How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S.Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man inIraq, by Matthew Alexander and John Bruning. From my of Alexander'ssecond memoir,cheap jordans free shipping, Kill or Capture, for Military Review: "In his ?rstmemoir, How to Break a Terrorist,Alexander described how he used the power of personal example to teach his teamthat they could be far more effective if they convinced (rather than coerced)their sources to talk. Thanks to his good efforts -- and to those he led -- hisunit quickly began to produce results. Most notably, his team coaxedintelligence from sources that led to the successful U.S. air strike againstAbu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq."
4,cheap jordan shoes. The Interrogator: The Story of HannsJoachim Scharff, Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe, by Raymond Toliver.Nazis are invariably depicted in movies as cruel torturers. Historical realityis different -- surprisingly so, in light of the Holocaust and how many Nazistreated members of "races" they deemed inferior. The Nazis' most successfulinterrogator, Hanns Scharff, "methodically and deliberately treated hisprisoners with dignity." Some eyewitnesses reported that Scharff never evenraised his voice in questioning. Instead, he enjoyed great success by buildingrapport with captured Allied pilots. After the war, the U.S. Air Force paid himthe ultimate compliment by inviting him to America to teach theirinterrogators.
5.Mission: Black List #1: The Inside Storyof the Search for Saddam Hussein -- As Told by the Soldier Who Masterminded HisCapture, by Eric Maddox and Davin Seay. From the book's Amazon website: "Maddox's candid and compelling narrative reveals the logicbehind the unique interrogation process he developed and provides an insider'slook at his psychologically subtle, nonviolent methods. The result is agripping, moment-by-moment account of the historic mission that brought downBlack List #1." You will hear more about this book in 2014: It is being madethis year into a movie starring Robert Pattinson.
6. None of Us Were Like This Before, by Joshua Phillips. Phillips explores the causesand harmful effects, not just of American soldiers recently torturing forinformation, but of their abusing detainees in general. The book isparticularly important for those researching military suicides and "moralinjury," a PTSD-like condition that derives from the cognitive dissonance that occurswhen people see or do things that conflict with their own deeply held values. In one chapter, Phillips investigates the utilityof torture and, after a survey of literature on the subject, concludes that there seems to be no real evidence that torturegathers intelligence well. In one of my favorite paragraphs, Phillips cites theapparent "patina of pseudo-science" that was passed on by the mere presence ofpsychologists at torture sessions, making it appear to others as if there werea scientifically valid basis for torture (even if these psychologists often didlittle to actually influence interrogation plans).
7. TheHistory of Camp Tracy: Japanese WWII POWs and the Future of StrategicInterrogation, by Alexander D.Corbin. Corbin tells the story of a remarkably successful interrogationfacility established during World War II at Camp Tracy, California, for thequestioning of Japanese POWs. Camp Tracy interrogation teams consisted of oneCaucasian and one Nisei, thus enabling teams to leverage language skills,cultural knowledge, and physical appearance to build rapport. In making thecase that interrogators today should pay close heed to lessons learned at thisfacility, Corbin describes the similarities between Islamic radicals today andzealous Japanese warriors willing to conduct suicide attacks for their GodEmperor. From the foreword: "The use of torture or ��physical coercion' was notnecessary; in fact, the opposite was true: Camp Tracy interrogators found thatcourtesy and kindness overcame most Japanese reluctance and reticence."
8. Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey through Iraq, byTony Lagouranis and Allen Mikaelian. This book teaches interrogation throughcounter-example -- what wrong looks like. As an impressionable newinterrogator, Lagouranis had the misfortune of being assigned in 2004 to two ofthe worst places for interrogators in Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison and a facilityrun by one of Petraeus's brigades that was nearly as bad. Lagouranis'sKurtz-like descent into the heart of darkness is a cautionary tale for the U.S.military interrogation community. He summarizes his team's failure to collectintelligence through torture thus: "These techniques [EITs] were propagatedthroughout the Cold War, picked up again after 9/11, used by the CIA, filtereddown to army interrogators at Guantanamo, filtered again through Abu Ghraib,and used, apparently, around the country by special forces...If torture works-- which is debatable -- maybe they had the training to make sure it worked.But at our end of the chain, we had no idea what we were doing. We were just abunch of frustrated enlisted men picking approved techniques off a menu."
9. Slow Burn:?The Rise and Bitter Fall of AmericanIntelligence in Vietnam, by?Orrin DeForest and David Chanoff. This memoir describeshow DeForest, a CIA interrogation officer in Vietnam, employed the "art ofsympathetic interrogation" at the war's most successful joint interrogationcenter. He also describes the critical need of interrogators for access torobust databases and supporting analysis. The book makes the compelling casethat if intelligent rapport-based methods supported by robust analysis had beenthe norm rather than simple, brutal, and ignorant tactics, U.S. and SouthVietnamese intelligence would have enjoyed far greater success in the war.
10. Field Manual 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations,which can be downloaded online. The accumulated practical wisdom of generationsof U.S. military interrogators has been collected into the latest iteration ofthis book-length manual. Here's what they have to say: "Use of torture isnot only illegal but also it is a poor technique that yields unreliableresults, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source tosay what he thinks the HUMINT collector wants to hear." Not the most excitingreading, but indispensable if you want to understand how the vast majority ofU.S. military interrogators really think.
LieutenantColonel??is a who hasserved in various command and staff positions in?, Kosovo, Germany, the United Kingdom,cheap jordans free shipping, the United States,and, most recently, Afghanistan. He is the author of the Command and GeneralStaff College Foundation Press's inaugural book,?. The views expressed in this article are thoseof the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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