Tuesday, January 29, 2008
CIA Doesn't know What It's Doing
Spencer Ackerman has a written really interesting piece in the Washington Independent about the CIA's lack of experience in interrogations. Counter to what most of us assumed, they haven't been doing it that long, and they aren't the "experts" in interrogation most have assumed.
The article suggests that the CIA consulted with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel--all countries who we already knew tortured--to develop its interrogation program. Nut I doubt that their use torture as an interrogation technique was as influenced by their consultation with Egypt, et al as this article suggests. The fact is that everyone who has ever seen a movie where the interrogator "does what has to be done" thinks they know what they're doing. I've been an interrogator for almost 15 years, and I would say that a good 50% of the people I meet who learn that about me imagine they know how I do my job. I've seen many, many completely untrained people go into the booth or offer their two cents, and that advice is always, EVERY TIME, to get vicious. These CIA agents were given the green light to do anything they wanted, and they licked their lips at the opportunity to play vigilante. They knew they could do some research into best methods, but that isn't nearly as fun as shaking your head as you lament that "desperate times call for desperate measures," is it?
So the problem isn't just that the CIA didn't have any sort of real interrogation program (I can't independently verify that, but it doesn't surprise me in the least), it's that everyone thinks they know how to interrogate, so when interrogators were needed, people volunteered themselves. The fact that there was no real oversight just confirms what Ron Suskind, Seymour Hirsch and others have been saying.
http://www.forret.com/tools/trackback.asp?title=CIA Doesn't know What It's Doing&blog_name=Decline and Fall&url=http://www.declineandfall.net/2008/01/cia-doesnt-know-what-its-doing.html
Surprising as it may be, the CIA has never really been in the interrogation business. After 9/11, it turned its back on its own limited history of interrogations and never consulted those in the U.S. with solid experience in that difficult art. Even in the seven years since it has built an interrogation capability mostly from scratch, the agency has never applied the best practices in behavioral science to improve its regimen. The result has been to privilege brutality out of ignorance, which, according to many experts and insiders interviewed, means that interrogation practices that produce faulty information are now at the very heart of the U.S. efforts against a mysterious and still-unfamiliar enemy.
The article suggests that the CIA consulted with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel--all countries who we already knew tortured--to develop its interrogation program. Nut I doubt that their use torture as an interrogation technique was as influenced by their consultation with Egypt, et al as this article suggests. The fact is that everyone who has ever seen a movie where the interrogator "does what has to be done" thinks they know what they're doing. I've been an interrogator for almost 15 years, and I would say that a good 50% of the people I meet who learn that about me imagine they know how I do my job. I've seen many, many completely untrained people go into the booth or offer their two cents, and that advice is always, EVERY TIME, to get vicious. These CIA agents were given the green light to do anything they wanted, and they licked their lips at the opportunity to play vigilante. They knew they could do some research into best methods, but that isn't nearly as fun as shaking your head as you lament that "desperate times call for desperate measures," is it?
So the problem isn't just that the CIA didn't have any sort of real interrogation program (I can't independently verify that, but it doesn't surprise me in the least), it's that everyone thinks they know how to interrogate, so when interrogators were needed, people volunteered themselves. The fact that there was no real oversight just confirms what Ron Suskind, Seymour Hirsch and others have been saying.
Labels: GWOT, interrogation, torture
