An Interrogator Speaks: I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw In Iraq

Washingtonpost.com:

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.

I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.

Read the whole story: Washingtonpost.com

Comments

[research]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

TORTURE IS WRONG!

Torture Doesn't Get Advance tactical information, Tortured people Lie.

Torture creates Fanatical Enemies.

[Rog49Thomas]

Imagine the effects on those on the other side of the "interrogations".

Winning hearts and minds one jolt to the genitals at a time.

[lungfish]

"It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001."


Wow..... now that is an interesting statistic.

We need to have some serious inquiries into this, and the CIA Rendition program (apparently nearly 100 of the 200plus people who were snatched by CIA Goonsquad Duty Officer Rodriquez died in captivity - and we know that many of the people caught up in that program were innocent). It needs to be discussed thoroughly, in public.

I was raised to believe that my country had values that superceded torture and secret prisons...­.. and it turns out that its a corrupt and dishonest system that doesn't seem to ever come clean. Our President declared that we don't torture AND that the US Constitution is "just a %*#^@ piece of paper"....

[bascombe]

I was raised similarly. I feel similarly.

[Dupree]

Torture is a ideal that had been toyed with by the likes of Hitler. The strategy is to reduced the "enemy" to a subhuman category unworthy of natural affections or emotions..­.and cease seeing him/her as a fellow and equal occupant of earth....a­nd therefore one can easily dismiss their value and maim and torture emerges from the pit of Hell...the pathetic thoughts of men who forgot to see their image in the face of their fellow human beings. It is diabolical and evil. It serves no purpose but to give an expression for revenge or sick sadistic methods of psychosis undiagnosis. In the words of a very wise man...we will either learn to live together or die as fools.

[bascombe]

torture is as old as mankind and revenge. as long as the concept of power exists, so will torture.

[KillTheMessenger]

And it will always be wrong and it will always mean that children will one day have to apologize for their fathers.

Ours will have a lot of apologizing to do. Let's hope they can step up the the plate better than their parents could.

[dlinguist]

Woah woah woah., I am flat out going to say this: over half of this article is nonsensical. I was an interrogator, US Army, and way too much of this smells extremely wrong. Where do I start?

1. Air Force Intel guy? Former officer in the Air Force overseeing civilian contractors and army interrogators. Makes no sense. Why? Cause Air Force has no formal Interrogation process or training and officers don't involve themselves directly in interrogation regardless of branch of service.
2. 300 personal interrogations vs. 1000 overseen? Numbers are way wrong in more ways than I can count. You either interrogate or you supervise. You never should do both and certainly not in that sort of ratio. By involving yourself directly in interrogations, and then supervising them, you are predisposed to bias. Makes you an ineffectual interrogator and an ineffectual supervisor.
3. Al Qaeda vs. Sunni Iraqis. Huge mistake if you go into an interrogation predisposed to take some one as the first. Huge mistake if you allow yourself to fall into generalizing your subjects as the second. Reverse Stockholm Syndrome is something any Supervisor of Interrogation needs to look for.

And these are just the first things that came to mind. Not saying this didn't happen. Just saying that everything about this article reads wrong when it comes to effective interrogation. I agree with the conclusion, I am just astounded at the process.

[nobozos]

This guy could be working the counter at a donut shop, and I'd still agree with his conclusions.
George Bush, may he rot in hell, led a ridiculously terrified America into the abyss. We need people with morals to lead us out again. And I don't mean the hypocritical religious type of morality.
I mean the human kind.

[dlinguist]

You got me there. I agree with the conclusions too. Just wondering about the process, is all

[Grunty1]

The only question is if the interogated person was also "tortured"

[StillAmused]

For every ethical, principled military professional, there's a battalion of unprincipled, wild-eyed civilian ideologues selling the public fear and slogans and, it would appear, still working out the beatings they suffered as children on the playground.

Not good odds, Mr. Alexander, but thanks for the honesty and for trying. It counts.

[MajorKong]

We could have taken out al-Zarqawi in late 2002. His camp was in the Kurdish autonomous region of nothern Iraq, right under the no-fly zone. There were plans to take it out with an airstrike but they were shelved because that would have taken away one of our justifications for invading Iraq.

[Rog49Thomas]

Yes, I believe that was the area under the control of our good "allies" Brothers Barzani and Talibani.

But I believe you're wrong.

At that point AlQaeda was not active in Iraq.

It took Pan's invasion to do that.

[brooklyncitizen]

It isn't enough to be "rattled". Anyone complicit in these actions is guilty and should be charged with war crimes. We allpay a price for the torturing that the govt has engaged in...what happens to these interrogators many of whom are contract workers? well they come back here into our society and studies show this behavior isn't just turned off- but rather contributes to a climate of brutality wherever it can thrive- police departments, etc.

[dlinguist]

None of my people went into the police force, so be thankful there. However, the MP's that worked for us, they almost always did.

[nibblybits]

Does that mean you are complicit too because you haven't quit your job and spent your hours protesting in front of the Pentagon? Who decides who is complicit and who isn't? If the writer performed interrogations but not torture, should he still be punished?

[ajax2]

"What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work."

And it is criminal, abu Ghraib was criminal. If you were military, you had an oath to report these crimes and refuse to take part.

[dlinguist]

With you on that. I'd Article 15 an interrogator or an MP in a heartbeat for what happened there. Why? Cause history bears out, torture is 95% sadism, 5% effective.­. and the 5% "effective" is in fact completely useless.