Monday, April 16, 2007
A Clarification
Per Dave W's suggestion in the comment thread to this post, let me be absolutely clear about something--Interrogators don't actually have the authority to turn any prisoner over to Iraqi police or military units that will, often, abuse them. Those transfers are made way above the head of the interrogator.
Having said that, it's in the interest of the interrogator (and the detainee, actually) to make the detainee believe that this is in the interrogator's power. It's an approach technique: make the detainee believe that the interrogator has the power to control what happens to him.
The fact remains that it is illegal and contrary to U.S. policy to send anyone to a place where American forces have reason to believe that he will be abused. But since the transfer of authority in June 2004, we're technically guests in their country. America doesn't make the rules there, even though we exercise wide influence over the internal laws of that country. In point of fact, everyone arrrested by us or by the Iraqis is subject to Iraqi law and goes before an Iraqi judge. It's their system, and we can't tell them, "no, you can't have custody of your own prisoner." We don't send them so much as they take them.
Large, continual efforts have been made to train Iraqi forces to treat detainees humanely, and there have even been cases where Americans have rescued Iraqi prisoners from Iraqi prisons where they were being mistreated. But the abuse most likely continues, and legally our hands are tied to stop it, except in cases like the one I just linked to. This is one of the many legal gray areas that results froom a battlefield that is also a population center, where there is no "front line" and the streets are patrolled by both the military and the civil police. It's a horrible situation to be in, but it's where we are in Iraq. That's just how things are in assymetrical wars.
One way to curb the abuse would be to aggressively pursue and punish abusers, be they American or Iraqi. So far I haven't seen a lot of evidence that this is happening, but I do know that the commanders over there are very, very afraid of another abuse scandal happening on their watch, so the message has gotten across to some extent. The real change in U.S. practices won't come until those at the top (Rumsfeld, Cheney and General Miller, for instance) are prosecuted for their role in the grotesque abuses of prisoners and the flagrant violations of international law that they authorized. I'm not holding my breath, though.
http://www.forret.com/tools/trackback.asp?title=A Clarification&blog_name=Decline and Fall&url=http://www.declineandfall.net/2007/04/clarification.html
Having said that, it's in the interest of the interrogator (and the detainee, actually) to make the detainee believe that this is in the interrogator's power. It's an approach technique: make the detainee believe that the interrogator has the power to control what happens to him.
The fact remains that it is illegal and contrary to U.S. policy to send anyone to a place where American forces have reason to believe that he will be abused. But since the transfer of authority in June 2004, we're technically guests in their country. America doesn't make the rules there, even though we exercise wide influence over the internal laws of that country. In point of fact, everyone arrrested by us or by the Iraqis is subject to Iraqi law and goes before an Iraqi judge. It's their system, and we can't tell them, "no, you can't have custody of your own prisoner." We don't send them so much as they take them.
Large, continual efforts have been made to train Iraqi forces to treat detainees humanely, and there have even been cases where Americans have rescued Iraqi prisoners from Iraqi prisons where they were being mistreated. But the abuse most likely continues, and legally our hands are tied to stop it, except in cases like the one I just linked to. This is one of the many legal gray areas that results froom a battlefield that is also a population center, where there is no "front line" and the streets are patrolled by both the military and the civil police. It's a horrible situation to be in, but it's where we are in Iraq. That's just how things are in assymetrical wars.
One way to curb the abuse would be to aggressively pursue and punish abusers, be they American or Iraqi. So far I haven't seen a lot of evidence that this is happening, but I do know that the commanders over there are very, very afraid of another abuse scandal happening on their watch, so the message has gotten across to some extent. The real change in U.S. practices won't come until those at the top (Rumsfeld, Cheney and General Miller, for instance) are prosecuted for their role in the grotesque abuses of prisoners and the flagrant violations of international law that they authorized. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Labels: GWOT, interrogation, Iraq, torture
