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Originally Posted by andygrif
As I said before, this doesn't seem to be anything to do with interrogation, so what I have to say is largely off topic...but:
How do you extract information in a combat situation?
In my opinion you do this by breaking people down to the point where they tell you what you want. No soldier, Iraqi, Yank or Brit, is going to spend one night in prison and confess all.
You break people down by telling them lies (such as your government's not coming to save you), by humilation, by repetition - making the prisoner believe that there is no other way but to tell their captor the truth.
It ain't pretty, and we mere mortals in the real world rarely get to fully know what happens....but happens it does, and I imagine always will.
The other point to remember is the atrocioties that have been inflited on western troops by Iraqi inteligence over the years - which went a lot further than the story reported today. Two wrong don't make a right, of course, but if this kind of behaviour is intrinsic in the phsyche of the Iraqi forces, then surely it is the only language that has any impact.
But like I said, it looks like this was nothing to do with intel, just a bunch of good for nothing squadies with too much time on their hands - and should be punished accordingly.
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Read my post again - you are preaching to the converted, as it were. Apart from the electrocution picture, they are all pictures which are about humiliation as opposed to getting information out of someone. Humiliation can be used to interrogate someone, but extremely rarely. It is very much a long term process (and the coalition need information about insurgents now, not in a few weeks). Humiliation tends to be used to condition prisoners, rather than extracting information.
I mean. If I was captured, and you wrote a rude word on me. I would not care. Ask me to feign/even have sex with someone/anyone/everyone, it's not the end of the world. I would be humiliated, but it wouldn't make me reveal information. However tie me to a chair hold a knife 2 inches from my eye and say I have 5 seconds to start talking, or else..., and i'll pretty much start talking. Successfully interrogating a suspect means threatening them with some measure of physical pain, not just some painless humiliating/degrading act.
These Iraqis probably did undergo some real interrogation at some point, but I believe the pictures were just for 'fun'.