Truth Extraction

[fajrdrako]

I came across this article online and since it doesn't seem to be easy to find I'm copying it here. Seems to me that there's plot-fodder in this.

The Atlantic Monthly | June 2005

The Agenda Intelligence - Truth Extraction

A classic text on interrogating enemy captives offers a counterintuitive
lesson on the best way to get information by Stephen Budiansky


.....

Six months before the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison broke into public view, a
small and fairly obscure private association of United States Marine Corps
members posted on its Web site a document on how to get enemy POWs to talk.

The document described a situation very similar to the one the United States
faces in the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan: a fanatical and
implacable enemy, intense pressure to achieve quick results, a brutal war in
which the old rules no longer seem to apply.

Marine Major Sherwood F. Moran, the report's author, noted that despite the
complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile
and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to
extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all
had one thing in common in the way they approached their subjects. They were
nice to them.

Moran was writing in 1943, and he was describing his own, already legendary
methods of interrogating Japanese prisoners of war. More than a half century
later his report remains something of a cult classic for military
interrogators. The Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association
(MCITTA), a group of active-duty and retired Marine intelligence personnel,
calls Moran's report one of the "timeless documents" in the field and says
it has long been "a standard read" for insiders. (A book about the Luftwaffe
interrogator Hans Joachim Scharff, whose charm, easygoing manner, and
perfect English beguiled many a captured Allied airman into revealing
critical information, is another frequently cited classic in the field.) An
MCITTA member says the group decided to post Moran's report online in July
of 2003, because "many others wanted to read it" and because the original
document, in the Marine Corps archives, was in such poor shape that the
photocopies in circulation were difficult to decipher. He denies that
current events had anything to do with either the decision to post the
document or the increased interest in it.

But it is hard to imagine a historical lesson that would constitute a more
direct reproach to recent U.S. policies on prisoner interrogation. And there
is no doubt that Moran's report owes more than a little of its recent
celebrity to the widespread disdain among experienced military interrogators
for what took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo when ill-trained personnel
were ordered to "soften up" prisoners. Since the prison scandals broke, many
old hands in the business have pointed out that abusing prisoners is not
simply illegal and immoral; it is also remarkably ineffective.

"The torture of suspects [at Abu Ghraib] did not lead to any useful
intelligence information being extracted," says James Corum, a professor at
the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the author of a
forthcoming book on counterinsurgency warfare. "The abusers couldn't even
use the old 'ends justify the means' argument, because in the end there was
nothing to show but a tremendous propaganda defeat for the United States."

Corum, who recently retired as a lieutenant colonel after twenty-eight years
in the Army and Reserves, mostly in military intelligence, says that Moran's
philosophy has repeatedly been affirmed in subsequent wars large and small.
"Know their language, know their culture, and treat the captured enemy as a
human being" is how Corum sums up Moran's enduring lesson.

Part of why Sherwood Moran became such a legendary figure among military
interrogators was his cool disregard for what he termed the standard
"hard-boiled" military attitude. The brutality of the fighting in the
Pacific and the suicidal fanaticism of the Japanese had created a general
assumption that only the sternest measures would get Japanese prisoners to
divulge anything. Moran countered that in his and others' experience,
strong-arm tactics simply did not work. Stripping a prisoner of his dignity,
treating him as a still-dangerous threat, forcing him to stand at attention
and flanking him with guards throughout his interrogation—in other words,
emphasizing that "we are his to-be-respected and august enemies and
conquerors"—invariably backfired. It made the prisoner "so conscious of his
present position and that he was a captured soldier vs. enemy intelligence"
that it "played right into [the] hands" of those who were determined not to
give away anything of military importance.

In his report (written in the form of a letter of advice to interpreters
newly assigned to interrogation duty) Moran stressed that he would usually
begin an interrogation by taking almost the opposite tack.


I often tell a prisoner right at the start what my attitude is! I consider a
prisoner (i.e. a man who has been captured and disarmed and in a perfectly
safe place) as out of the war, out of the picture, and thus, in a way, not
an enemy … Notice that … I used the word "safe." That is the point: get the
prisoner to a safe place, where even he knows … that it is all over. Then
forget, as it were, the "enemy" stuff, and the "prisoner" stuff. I tell them
to forget it, telling them I am talking as a human being to a human being.

Every soldier, Moran observed, has a "story" he desperately wants to tell.
The interrogator's job is to provide the atmosphere that allows the prisoner
to tell it.


Begin by asking him things about himself. Make him and his troubles the
center of the stage, not you and your questions of war problems. If he is
not wounded or tired out, you can ask him if he has been getting enough to
eat; if he likes Western-style food … You can ask if he has had cigarettes,
if he is being treated all right, etc. If he is wounded you have a rare
chance. Begin to talk about his wounds. Ask if the doctor or corpsman has
attended to him. Have him show you his wounds or burns. (They will like to
do this!) …


On [one] occasion a soldier was brought in. A considerable chunk of his
shinbone had been shot away. In such bad shape was he that we broke off in
the middle of the interview to have his leg redressed. We were all
interested in the redressing, in his leg, it was almost a social affair! And
the point to note is that we really were interested, and not pretending to
be interested in order to get information out of him. This was the prisoner
who called out to me when I was leaving after that first interview, "Won't
you please come and talk to me every day." (And yet people are continually
asking us, "Are the Japanese prisoners really willing to talk?")

Moran spoke fluent Japanese, but more important, he was thoroughly familiar
with Japanese culture, having spent forty years in Japan as a missionary. He
used this knowledge for one of his standard gambits: making a prisoner
homesick. "This line has infinite possibilities," he explained. "If you know
anything about Japanese history, art, politics, athletics, famous places,
department stores, eating places, etc. etc. a conversation may be relatively
interminable." Moran emphasized that a detailed knowledge of technical
military terms and the like was less important than a command of idiomatic
phrases and cultural references that allow the interviewer to achieve "the
first and most important victory"—getting "into the mind and into the heart"
of the prisoner and achieving an "intellectual and spiritual" rapport with
him.

Moran's whole approach—and Hans Joachim Scharff's, too—was built on the
assumption that few if any prisoners are likely to possess decisive
information about imminent plans. (And as one former Marine interrogator
says, even if a prisoner does have information of the "ticking bomb"
variety—where the nuke is going to go off an hour from now, in the classic
if overworked example—under duress or torture he is most likely to try to
run out the clock by making something up rather than reveal the truth.)
Rather, it is the small and seemingly inconsequential bits of evidence that
prisoners may give away once they start talking—about training, weapons,
commanders, tactics—that, when assembled into a larger mosaic, build up the
most complete and valuable picture of the enemy's organization, intentions,
and methods.

Moran's report had an immediate impact. The Navy and the Marines recruited
second-generation Japanese-Americans to teach an intensive one-year language
course for interrogators that included a strong emphasis on Japanese
culture. James Corum notes that the graduates of this course were among the
most effective interrogators in the Pacific Island campaigns of 1944 and
1945: Marine interrogators deployed to the Marianas in June of 1944 were
able to supply their commanders with the complete Japanese order of battle
within forty-eight hours of landing on Saipan and Tinian.

In contrast, in late 2002 the military's Southern Command had so few
interrogators and interpreters that it was forced to employ inexperienced
and untrained civilian contractors to perform these jobs at Guantánamo. The
officer in charge of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu
Ghraib had no interrogation experience himself and no skilled interrogators
or interpreters working underneath him. He, too, turned to civilian
contractors. Government auditors criticized these deficiencies in early 2004
and noted that several of the firms that supplied civilian contractors had
no experience in such work. Yet the shortage of military interrogators
continues, and the Department of Defense continues to employ people outside
the military for some of this work. "They let a bunch of out-of-control
contractors, CIA freelancers, untrained military-intelligence people, et
cetera get turned loose under the promise and pressure of getting quick
results," Corum told me.

One of the most striking points Moran made was that those interrogators who
tried the hardest to break down the morale of POWs were actually revealing
their own fear—"fear that the prisoner will take advantage of you and your
friendship." This, he noted, was "the same idea that a foreman must swear at
his construction gang in order to get work out of them."


Of course there always is the danger that some types will take advantage of
your friendliness. This is true of any phase of life, whether you are a
teacher, a judge, an athletic trainer, a parent. But there is some risk in
any method. But this is where the interpreter's character comes in … You
can't fool with a man of real character …

Moran was saying that an interrogator who is genuinely tough has the
confidence to know that he will always keep the upper hand, even while being
nice. "Enlightened hard-boiled-ness," he called this attitude. And he
concluded that "strange as it may seem to say so," the most important
characteristic of a successful interrogator is not his experience or even
his linguistic knowledge; it is "his own temperament" and "his own
character."

Comments

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

yes.
I've known this. (Not this actual report but the higher effectiveness of the nice and empathic appraoch in interrogation).
I guess the counterargument of the proponents of the 'hard method' would be that such a way costs time and if you need to know where a bomb is going of in the next 30 minutes or even 24 hours in a city you cannot built up raport and if burning of someones testicles that is a small price to pay.
But those laying the bombs will be so high on their conviction that they can surely stand the electrodes for a limited amount of time and the relative innocents (people who might sympathise, press leaflets, carry food or guns) who don't know the crucial information about where the bomb is, no justification of pressing time can be brought up.

I guess the human response to the position of power, the way many people act if they get the opportunity to torture (especially if they sincerely believe that the ones on the other end are Evil). I mean, if history teaches us one thing, violence is a strongly recuring theme in human culture. And I tend to think that has everything to do with human psychological make-up.

Note, I am absolutely in favour of a non-violent interrogation method, not only because of its higher eficiency, but also because I am a striving pasifist. And I think all violence influences the human mind (for the worse). Getting back soldiers in society who have had to guard and torture prisoners of war. It will be a burden for such a society. For the victims to return (if ever) to the bossoms of their family, it will only have fosterd hate. Bringing back a heavy burden on allready very troubled societies.

I am so upset anyone ever thought it a good idea to approach things this way.

Yes I am bleeding heart (what the hell do you think your heart is for, it is a bloodpump!!) but since others might feel less inclined to be persueded by what they perceive my soft argument, the hard numberdriven argument of efficiency might, just might, be more effective?

(Sorry for ranting so in your commentbox)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, I enjoyed your rant heartily, and I agree. I too am a pacifist, but it feels like an uphill job: when I was young, I was able to believe in human progress, but the last decade has been seriously demoralizing - particularly the past few years. Not only are there more villains than ever, the people who ought to be the good guys don't behave much better. I see certain things happening internationally that I like - the shrinking and bonding of the world - but all the time there are more people who want to throw bombs, or hate each other for religious or historical reasons, or simply because of perceptions of haves and have-nots.

There are so many problems and so few solutions that I am always encouraged to find an article like this that does present a rational argument for doing things in a non-violent way. As you say, it may not always be practical, but if it is effective, and if it is practical sometimes, it might actually be useful.

I don't think we'll make people less aggressive and I don't think we should necessarily try - the plot of Serenity comes to mind here - but there are things we can do to help cope.

Too many people take it for granted that the violent way is the only way, or the default way - we have to get beyond that.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I think there is a crucial difference in scale, and also in nature of the violence. Protecting yourself and your loved ones from an immediate attack (either by a hungry animal or an angry human) is fine and ok. That is part of survival instinct. But celebrating violence, torturing, planning machines that will destroy hunderds or millions. Those are things I think are wrong. Even though they might be 'part of human nature' (for nature is a construct and so is my idea of wrong, doesn't mean I will not wholeheartedly believe in it).

And no, I don't think we can evolve ourselves (by design) out of the bad aspects of our violent nature. But I am absolutely convinced that we can do things (and as a world society) are doing things to feed the bad side. So, I guess I am an optimist in saying I believe it could percievably be better. And I do my best to hope.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's much doubt that things could be better; and we have the means to improve things.... I think that the general direction of society is to the better: as we get to know each other better internationally, both on a personal scale (like a conversation on LJ) and on a national scale (like familiarity with another culture), there is an incrased likelihood of friendship developing rather than enmity, and more incentive to overcome the difficulties. Moreover, I think that if we can improve the standard of living of everyone, the things that follow naturally are all conducive to a more peaceful society: better health, better and longer education for all, later marriages and fewer children, crime prevention, access to sufficient food and even luxuries - not only do we have more potential for peace than we used, but the scale of that potential is growing.

Doesn't mean we'll get there, but in some ways it's happening.