The 411 on 911 or The Skinny on a Fat Book

If you believe The New York Times, the solution to the intelligence problems in Iraq could be solved by sending a bunch of polite lawyers to Baghdad.

Personally, I don't recall any situation that was improved by battalions of lawyers.

My solution is to dispatch copies of the Manhattan Yellow Pages.

Seriously. After years of studying techniques used by New York detectives, British soldiers in Belfast, dirty war practitioners in Latin America and Tiananmen Square colonels; having conducted thousands of investigative interviews and swapping trade craft with journalism colleagues from Salvador, Sulu Islands and San Sebastian, Spain, I am sure that what every interrogator needs their own copy of the Manhattan Yellow Pages.

Let me explain:

A front page story in the May 30 (Wednesday) edition of The New York Times trumpeted:

"Advisers Fault Harsh Methods In Interrogation: Intelligence Techniques Called Amateurish"

The account trashed current Iraq intelligence operations saying that five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration's intel ops hadn't come up with any more sophisticated methodology than doling out stern beatings. Given how terribly wrong everything is going in Iraq, there is no reason to doubt that the interrogation program is lousy.

Let's start from scratch: The goal of interrogation is to develop useful information. A NYPD detective needs to know who robbed the bank; a SAS sergeant during the troubles in Belfast needed to know who detonated the bomb; a Salvadoran colonel wanted to know who should be "disappeared" for humming L'Internationale in their sleep. U.S. intelligence in Iraq needs help in sorting the good guys from the bad guys.

One thing the Times got right is that torture is not the solution. Not only is in-discriminant violence immoral it is impractical and often produces the wrong result. People will say practically anything when their genitals are hooked up to a car battery. I mean a guy will chant The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in four part harmony just to get them to turn off the freaking juice.

Torture is more effective in inflicting pain than eliciting truth.

"I never tune 'em up unless I'm sure dat dey are guilty and I gotta close the case before the lawyers show up," a New York City cop told me about his signature interrogation style, which involved black leather gloves, matching cowboy hat and boots and a series of blows to the kidneys that eventually resulted in bloody urine and a signed confession. "I mean, you can always get somebody to confess to somethin' but if it ain't da right guy, what's da use? I mean, just 'cause some skell deserves a beating on general principles don't mean he did your crime."

The authorities in Belfast, knowing that raw violence would raise the ire of Irish American politicians, tended to go soft on the physical and heavy on the psychological. They had "white noise" which involved subjecting suspects to specific sound frequencies under the glow of harsh light. They created the "helicopter," in which a prisoner was threatened with being tossed from a chopper into the Irish Sea from a presumed great height. In actuality the blindfolded suspect was never more than four feet above Irish soil blasted by stereophonic recordings of whirring of chopper blades and jet streams from high powered ventilation fans.

In the days after the September 11 attacks, American intelligence rounded up all the usual suspects throughout the Middle East and relied heavily on assistance from Egyptian authorities who seemed to have a stronger stomach for techniques too vile to describe in detail. "If a guy wouldn't crack quickly, we'd turn him over to the Egyptians;" said a veteran intelligence operative. "Those guys 'll do stuff that'd make me sick to my stomach."

That "stuff" included dog bites, sexual assaults, tooth extraction, eyeball laceration and more.

"It works pretty well if you're looking for a discrete piece of information," the Op told me. "For instance, 'Whose basement is Ahmed hiding in?' But if you're looking for information on strategy or tactics, the Egyptian method is relatively worthless. Even if the bad guy ever knew anything valuable, 20 minutes on the Egyptian Merry Go Around and he's lucky if he can remember his mother's name."

The New York Times article wrote glowingly of successful interrogation techniques used on German prisoners by the Allies in World War II, mentioning that the questioners had "graduate degrees in law and philosophy and spoke the language flawlessly."

What a great Times-ian solution; send in Harvard boys in suits and ties, read Virgil to some Islamic fanatic and he'll lead you directly to Osama's cave.

Which brings us back to the Yellow Pages.

Recently, the Sandi Group, a business operation run by an Iraq refugee turned multi-millionaire and a bunch of former U.S. Air Force intelligence officers (smart enough to realize the potential for personal gain during an ill conceived war), announced they were starting to assemble first-ever Yellow Pages for Baghdad. But even if they had four pages of ads for twice the number of businesses that were allegedly operating during John McCain's Magical Mystery Tour, it is unlikely that a Baghdad phone book would ever have the heft to do the job.

"This here is the most effective interrogation technique known to man," a veteran homicide detective said, tapping his gnarled fist on a Manhattan Yellow Pages directory that sat on his desk in a New York police precinct many years ago. The book weighed more than three pounds, even with the back cover torn off. The detective explained that when properly applied to a suspect's head, the book would send a shockwave that the spine and exploding in the feet, curling back the toes much like the death throe of the Wicked Witch of the East.

For academic reasons, I allowed him to demonstrate the technique on me. It was gentler than a slam, more like a pop. I didn't feel any pain in my head, but from the shoulders down every muscle and nerve writhed in agony. It worked like a shot of truth serum; I confessed to youthful indiscretions I had actually committed and found myself completely incapable of lying. Ten minutes later I was embarrassed at my confessions, a bit sore, but generally okay.

The method is gender-friendly; the blow to the head doesn't require a lot of strength. Training requires about two minutes ("Grasp book in two hands, hit subject on top of head. Ask questions.")

So before anyone starts writing any Rules of Etiquette for Interrogation, perhaps we should just send some Manhattan Yellow Pages to Baghdad.