Pentagon Okayed Tough Questioning Methods

By Dana Priest and Joe Stephens

In April 2003, the Defense Department approved
interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay
prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns
of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and
"sensory assault," including loud music and bright
lights, according to defense officials.

The classified list of about 20 techniques was approved
at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Justice
Department, and represents the first publicly known
documentation of an official policy permitting
interrogators to use physically and psychologically
stressful methods during questioning.

The use of any of these techniques requires the
approval of senior Pentagon officials — and in some
cases, of the defense secretary. Interrogators must
justify that the harshest treatment is "militarily
necessary," according to the document, as cited by one
official. Once approved, the harsher treatment must be
accompanied by "appropriate medical monitoring."

"We wanted to find a legal way to jack up the
pressure," said one lawyer who helped write the
guidelines. "We wanted a little more freedom than in a
U.S. prison, but not torture."

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "These
procedures are tightly controlled, limited in duration
and scope, used infrequently and approved on a case-by-
case basis. These are people who are unlawful
combatants, picked up on the battlefield and may
contribute to our intelligence-gathering about events
that killed 3,000 people."

Defense and intelligence officials said similar
guidelines have been approved for use on "high-value
detainees" in Iraq — those suspected of terrorism or
of having knowledge of insurgency operations. Separate
CIA guidelines exist for agency-run detention centers.

It could not be learned whether similar guidelines were
in effect at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison outside
Baghdad, which has been the focus of controversy in
recent days. But lawmakers have said they want to know
whether the misconduct reported at Abu Ghraib — which
included sexual humiliation — was an aberration or
whether it reflected an aggressive policy taken to
inhumane extremes.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. military
and the CIA have detained thousands of foreign
nationals at the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as
well as at facilities in Iraq and elsewhere, as part of
an effort to crack down on suspected terrorists and to
quell the insurgency in Iraq. The Pentagon guidelines
for Guantanamo were designed to give interrogators the
authority to prompt uncooperative detainees to provide
information, though experts on interrogation say
information submitted under such conditions is often
unreliable.

The United States has stated publicly that it does not
engage in torture or cruel and inhumane treatment of
prisoners. Defense officials said yesterday that the
techniques on the list are consistent with
international law and contain appropriate safeguards
such as legal and medical monitoring. "The high-level
approval is done with forethought by people in
responsibility, and layers removed from the people
actually doing these things, so you can have an
objective approach," said one senior defense official
familiar with the guidelines.

But Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights
Watch, said the tactics outlined in the U.S. document
amount to cruel and inhumane treatment. "The courts
have ruled most of these techniques illegal," he said.
"If it’s illegal here under the U.S. Constitution, it’s
illegal abroad. . . . This isn’t even close."

According to two defense officials, prisoners could be
made to disrobe for interrogation if they were are
alone in their cells. But Col. David McWilliams, a
spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said stripping
prisoners was not part of the permitted interrogation
techniques. "We have no protocol that allows us to
disrobe a detainee whatsoever," he said. Prisoners may
be disrobed in order to clean them and administer
medical treatment, he said.

Several officials interviewed for this article,
including two lawyers who helped formulate the
guidelines, declined to be identified because the
subject matter is so sensitive.

With the proper permission, the guidelines allow
detainees to be subjected to psychological techniques
meant to open them up, disorient or put them under
stress. These include "invoking feelings of futility"
and using female interrogators to question male
detainees.

Some prisoners could be made to stand for four hours at
a time. Questioning a prisoner without clothes is
permitted if he is alone in his cell. Ruled out were
techniques such as physical contact — even poking a
finger in the chest — and the "washboard technique" of
smothering a detainee with towels to threaten
suffocation. Placing electrodes on detainees’ bodies
"wasn’t even evaluated — it was such a no-go," said
one of the officials involved in drawing up the list.

During the Pentagon debates, one participant drew on
his memory of a scene from the movie "The
Untouchables," in which a police officer played by
actor Sean Connery bent the rules to persuade mobsters
that they should provide evidence against Mafia kingpin
Al Capone. Much like the officer, the participant
suggested, interrogators could shoot a dead body in
front of a detainee, then suggest to him that is what
they did to people who refused to talk.

Pentagon lawyers declared the technique out of bounds,
and it was discarded.

The guidelines were the product of three months of
discussion between military lawyers, medical personnel
and psychologists, and followed several incidents of
abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo.

In late 2002, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, until
recently commander of the detention operation at
Guantanamo Bay, asked the Pentagon for more explicit
rules for interrogation, four people involved in the
process said.

"They don’t want to be in the situation where we are
making things up as we go along," said one lawyer
involved in the sessions.

"We wanted to outline under what circumstances we could
make them feel uncomfortable, a little distressed,"
another lawyer involved said. During the discussions,
"the political people [at the Pentagon] were inclined
toward aggressive techniques," the official said.
Military lawyers, in contrast, were more conservative
in their approach, mindful of how they would want U.S.
military personnel held as prisoners to be treated by
foreign powers, the official said.

Mark Jacobson, a former Defense Department official who
worked on detainee issues while at the Pentagon, said
that at Guantanamo and the Bagram facility in
Afghanistan, military interrogators have never used
torture or extreme stress techniques. "It’s the fear of
being tortured that might get someone to talk, not the
torture," Jacobson said. "We were so strict."

Interrogation teams routinely draw up detailed plans,
which list all techniques they hope to use. These plans
are passed to superior officers for discussion and pre-
approval, Jacobson said.

"I actually think we are not aggressive enough" at
times in interrogation techniques, he said. "I think we
are too timid."

In a March 11 interview at his office at the Guantanamo
Navy base — one of his last interviews before leaving
to take over detention facilities in Iraq — Miller
said that his interrogators treated prisoners humanely
and that the operation had yielded important
intelligence.

On Thursday, the U.S. military acknowledged that two
Guantanamo Bay guards had been disciplined in cases
involving the use of excessive force against detainees.
Detainees released from the facility have given
disparate accounts of their stay there, some praising
the food and free schooling, others claiming that
guards roughed them up.

Two Afghans died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan in
December 2002. Both deaths were classified as homicides
by the U.S. military. Another Afghan died in June 2003,
at a detention site near Asadabad, in Kunar province.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11017-2004May8.html