Monday, August 24, 2009

Abusive interrogations?

http://tinyurl.com/lwxu3t
CIA report: 'Inhumane' tactics used on detainees By STEVEN R. HURST and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON – CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of one detainee at the height of the Bush administration's war on terror and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted, newly declassified documents revealed Monday as the government launched a criminal investigation into the spy agency's "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane" practices...****One has to wonder about the abusiveness of "threats" that had no chance of being carried out. The only ones for whom the threats might have had any credibility were those from Saddam's Iraq or present Iran where such things were/are actually done. Anyone knowledgeable about Western societies would have accorded scant credence to such.Then they cite another example:the report describes at least one mock execution, which would violate U.S. anti-torture laws. To terrify one detainee, interrogators pretended to execute a prisoner in a nearby room. A senior officer said it was a transparent ruse that yielded no benefit to interrogators.****It wasn't a mock execution of the prisoner and it is acknowledged that the ruse was "transparent." This is in the category of CIA jokes: Two men and a woman are up for a CIA field job. The first is told that his spouse is tied to a chair in the neighboring room. He is given a gun and told to execute her to prove that he can follow orders. He immediately says that he cannot and is disqualified. The second guy takes the gun, goes into the room and nothing happens. Finally, he emerges teary-eyed and says that he couldn't do it and he is also disqualified. The third applicant, a woman, takes the gun and goes into the room. The examiners hear repeated shots and finally a tremendous hullabaloo. The woman emerges sweaty and disheveled and says "the damn gun had blanks so I had to beat him to death with the chair."****
Investigators credited the detention-and-interrogation program for developing key intelligence. One CIA operative interviewed for the report said the program thwarted al-Qaida plots to attack the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, derail trains, blow up gas stations and cut the suspension line of a bridge. "In this regard, there is no doubt that the program has been effective," investigators wrote, bolstering an argument by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others that the program saved lives.
But it's unclear whether so-called "enhanced interrogation" tactics contributed to that success, according to the report...Measuring the success of such interrogation is "a more subjective process and not without some concern," the report said.
****No, it's completely likely that saying "Please. Pretty please, Pretty please with sugar on top." would have sufficed.****

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