Coercive Interrogation Techniques, Essay Example

Coercive interrogation techniques used by law enforcement agencies, especially those dealing with counter-terrorism, seek to draw information out of unwilling suspects. Their critics (Human Rights First Staff, 2008) call these techniques torture. Even before President George W. Bush the United States launched its war on terror, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced its consideration of using intimidating interrogation techniques, such as the administration of truth serums, waterboarding, and cold cells.

The Bush administration coined another term to describe coercive interrogation techniques –enhanced interrogation techniques. This term refers to interrogation methods, adopted by U. S. Military Intelligence officials and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to extract (by force) information from suspected terrorists captured during the war on terror. These interrogation techniques brought a hail of criticism against U.S. policy from inside the United States and from foreign countries. The British government classified these techniques as torture, in the context of European law (Burns, 2010).

Because of such criticism, the United States eliminated the legal use of coercive interrogation techniques. This coincided with the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005. The act however, left in room for certain interrogation techniques in accordance with the Army Field Manual. As a method of curtailing future human rights abuses, the Obama administration formed a watchdog, the High Value Interrogation Group, to monitor all practices of detainee interrogation. This group began its work in January of 2010.

Coercive Interrogation Techniques and US Law

According to a 2008 bipartisan report, the harsh interrogation techniques employed by the military and the CIA had all been adopted from training manuals used to prepare United States Special Forces personnel to resist interrogation in the event that they, themselves, were captured by hostile forces. Such coercive interrogation techniques included painful stress positions, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, waterboarding (disallowed since 2003) and simulated drowning. For many, this report was startling. Most Americans ha no ideas that these practices took place.

Other coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA before the interrogation techniques of Guantanamo Bay became newsworthy, a common prison guard practices included purposeful slaps to various parts of the body. One such slap used by guards was the “attention grab.” The guard would grab the shirt of a prisoner and shake him or her forcefully. Another was the “attention slap,” which was also widely used. In this action, the guard would slap the face the prisoner in order to cause pain and trigger fear. The “belly slap” where a hard open slap was dealt to a prisoner’s abdomen, caused pain and triggered fear. Punches were not used because of their ability to cause internal injuries.

Other techniques included long time standing (40 hours +), while prisoners were handcuffed and shackled to the floor, and the cold cell, in which a prisoner was left to stand while naked at 50 degrees Fahrenheit with regular, cold water dousing. The most controversial was waterboarding (also called simulated drowning), where a bound prisoner with raised feet lay on an incline board with his or her face exposed to cold water. The gags made prisoners terrified of drowning. The Detainee Treatment Act passed by senate into law on December 14, 2005, curtailed the use of all these methods and specifically clarified that all interrogations techniques must be limited to, and only to, those authorized explicitly by the US Army Field Manual.

Benefits from Limiting Coercive Interrogation Techniques

It is important to understand that neither individuals, nor the military, nor the CIA, nor other interrogating agencies are objective enough to define correct and incorrect procedures of interrogations (Guiora, 2008). This is because law does not define the full extent of coercive methods of interrogation. When free reign rests with interrogators, there is a risk for human rights abuses. In February 2002, Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention, demanding humane treatment of war prisoners, did not apply to Taliban and Al-Qaeda detainees. In December of that same year, Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, also signed a memo approving the use of coercive and aggressive interrogation techniques on Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to critics, these two memos allowed the extensive abuses reported from the prison. These are the consequences of giving law enforcers the freedom to “torture” suspects during interrogation (Nathan, 2006).

It is informative to know that coercive methods of integration are not always productive. During a recent Associated Press interview (2008), Guantanamo Bay’s Joint Intelligence Group director, Paul Rester, reveled that most of the useful information they gathered was from detainees on whom they used non-coercive interrogation and questioning after rapport building. “The harsh interrogation techniques rarely produced worthwhile information,” Rester said.

Concurring with this assessment is the weight of science. Professor Shane O’Mara conducted a conclusive academic analysis at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience that reported how the prolonged stress CIA’s coercive interrogation methods impaired the memory of a terrorist suspect, diminished his or her ability to remember and give detailed information the CIA was interested in. This is further, scientific evidence that the harsh treatment of prisoners is not only a human rights violation, but a bad policy for getting desired information.

More importantly, the quality of information generated by coercive interrogation techniques is also in question, since the suspects will say anything the interrogators want to hear, just to stop the suffering. Former Vice President, Dick Chaney, recently said in Congress that Ibn al Shaykh al Libi, who ran a training camp for terrorists in Afghanistan before the infamous September 11 attacks, had confessed to CIA that Al-Queda used weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to train. This sole piece of circumstantial evidence became the justification of the US invasion of Iraq. The confession was forced. The information was flawed. No weapons of mass destruction have been located in Iraq. These and other facts help us to reach the conclusion that limiting the use of coercive interrogation techniques is beneficial for all concerned.

Negative Consequences of Limiting Coercive Interrogation Techniques

Nonetheless, limiting the use of coercive interrogation methods curtails the ability of intelligence agencies to act on those hell-bent on attacking our country with their wrath. Interrogators want to do their jobs and be good at doing their jobs. They need information from suspects. They also need guidance from our government as to allowed, effective techniques. We cannot afford for our interrogative practices to be promoted by our fears –they need support from tried and true and non-biased research-based information.

Time is so important an urgent in some cases that the law enforcement agencies do not have adequate allowance to use non-coercive interrogation methods. In instances when an attack is eminent, limiting the use of coercive interrogation techniques limits the ability of the security agencies to curb terrorism and such vices (Burns, 2010). It is a dilemma. Hard choices are made.

When law enforcement agencies are left without essential tools of gathering intelligence, their ability to defend national interests is curtailed. FBI and CIA practices have, in the past, allowed prisoners to be taken to other countries where rigorous and brutal interrogation techniques are allowed. This becomes an expensive duel, footed by the taxpayer just because the local laws do not allow a necessity (Guiora, 2008). The American people will probably never know the full extent of human rights violations that received endorsement from our government.

During Barrack Obama’s presidential transition, Intelligence chiefs and National Security advisors met at Langley, CIA’s headquarters, and discussed how a ban on coercive interrogation techniques limited intelligence gathering. They concurred that the intelligence community would loose greatly, especially while facing modern-day hardcore terrorism extremists. Vice President Cheney once said in a press interview, “people must be sensible about the responsibility of protecting American lives.” Protecting Americans “is a dirty, mean, tough and nasty business”.  The nations are facing the worst criminals ever indoctrinated in the world. Law enforcers must have the teeth to bite when only a bite can get the needed information to keep terrorists in check (Nathan, 2006). This is the other side of the issue.

Conclusion

The arguments above show that, although coercive interrogation techniques are not favored by human rights activists, they sometimes do become essential. Limiting their use by law enforcement agencies and the military hampers the intelligence-gathering ability of such agencies and reduces the effectiveness of their operations. Nonetheless, the interrogators do not need to feel that their evil actions can go unchecked. It is important that the coercive interrogation be limited to an extent that remains humane and effective in gathering sound intelligence.

References

Burns, J. (2010).  Britain Discloses Data on Ex-Detainee. New York Times. PA 1.

Guiora, A. (2008 February 10). Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation. New York: Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA.

Human Rights First Staff. (2008) Tortured Justice: Using Coerced Evidence To Prosecute Terrorist Suspects. New York: OECD Publishing.

Nathan, G. & Fleisher, W. (2006). Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques. New York. Academic Press.