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http://www.msnbc.com/news/743825.asp?cp1=1 Making stubborn prisoners talk Army interrogation school’s methods push tactical envelope By Jess Bravin THE WALL STREET JOURNAL FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz., April 26 — “Has anybody talked to you about lying?” instructor John Giersdorf asks his freshman class. “We expect you to lie a lot. Your job is to convince someone to do something that could get him executed for treason.” THIS IS THE U.S. ARMY’S interrogation school, and Staff Sgt. Giersdorf, a veteran intelligence-operative who speaks Arabic, Czech and Russian, is teaching new recruits to extract information from al Qaeda and other captive foes. The job, he tells his students, “is just a hair’s-breadth away from being an illegal specialty under the Geneva Convention.” Interrogators — the Pentagon renamed them “human intelligence collectors” last year — are authorized not just to lie, but to prey on a prisoner’s ethnic stereotypes, sexual urges and religious prejudices, his fear for his family’s safety, or his resentment of his fellows. They’ll do just about everything short of torture, which officials say is not taught here, to make their prisoners spill information that could save American lives. Each year, 200 to 300 students enter the 16-week program at Fort Huachuca, an outpost in the Sonoran Desert that once housed U.S. cavalrymen pursuing Geronimo and Pancho Villa. Tallmadge Hall, a drab classroom building named for a Revolutionary War officer who spied on the Redcoats, houses 21 interrogation booths, where students practice their art as instructors watch on video monitors and grade them. The U.S. is facing a shortage of experienced interrogators, as well as intelligence officers trained in Middle Eastern and South Asian languages. As of last September, says the fort’s deputy commander, Col. John M. Custer (a distant relative of Gen. George Custer), there were only a handful of instructors here who could speak Pashto or Urdu, languages common in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A DIFFERENT BREED Interrogators also are finding that al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, with their fanatical hatred of the U.S. and apparent readiness to commit suicide for their cause, are a different breed than they’ve encountered in past conflicts. Some have responded, including Abu Zubaydah, the reputed al Qaeda leader who officials say prompted last Friday’s terrorism alert for Northeastern banks. But after months of interrogating prisoners in Afghanistan and at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials concede that it’s difficult to obtain information they can corroborate. The Fort Huachuca course culminates in 10 days of field exercises using generic foreign powers: a fictitious U.S. ally, the Republic of Arizona, and its totalitarian nemesis, the People’s Republic of New Mexico. On five outdoor acres, students recruit counteragents, interview sources and capture enemies and grill them, while occasionally dealing with distractions such as visiting reporters and human-rights groups — all played by fellow soldiers. The students, many under 20 years old, often enter Fort Huachuca fresh from basic training. About 80% pass the course, and then go on to language school. Instruction begins by making students aware of the intelligence-gathering skills they already have. Sgt. First Class Anthony Novacek likes to use a romantic example: “You’re down at Jimbo’s Beach Shack, approaching unknown females,” he tells recruits. Success involves assessing the target, speaking her language, learning her needs and appearing to be the only way she can satisfy them. Soldiers then study 30 techniques to make prisoners crack. One is the simple “incentive approach.” Around the world, “everyone smokes,” Sgt. Giersdorf tells students. “If you’ve ever talked to a captured Arab who hasn’t smoked for two hours, a pack of smokes can get you a long way.” Some incentives, however, can be pure deceptions. Sgt. Giersdorf says prisoners may be told they could be repatriated if they cooperate, or that their wounded friends might get the best medical care, even though interrogators know that neither would happen. Other techniques involve considerably more pressure. “Fear-up” employs “heavy-handed, table-banging violence,” an Army field manual says. “The interrogator behaves in a heavy, overpowering manner with a loud and threatening voice” and may “throw objects across the room to heighten the source’s implanted feelings of fear.” THREAT: A U.S. PRISON Interrogators can suggest plenty of things to frighten prisoners. One Federal Bureau of Investigation official says likely scenarios include being sent to a U.S. prison, where inmates might view terrorists as “lower than a child molester.” Equally threatening: repatriation to Afghanistan, to face justice under the new regime in Kabul. “Fear-down,” in contrast, targets terrified prisoners. Interrogators try to calm them, asking about personal or family life, eventually interjecting the questions they really want answered. The technique “may backfire if allowed to go too far,” the manual cautions, raising a prisoner’s self-confidence to the point where he won’t feel he has to answer. When all else fails, there’s “pride and ego down,” where interrogators belittle a prisoner’s “loyalty, intelligence, abilities, leadership qualities, slovenly appearance or any other perceived weakness,” the manual says. “It’s the last ditch,” says Sgt. First Class Katrina Cobb. “After you’ve spent time insulting someone and it doesn’t work, they’re not going to talk.” Instructors say they sometimes are hamstrung by military regulations. During simulated interrogations, instructors portraying enemy prisoners are barred from using profanity, jumping wildly or making demeaning comments about a soldier’s race or sex. “We have to pull our punches all the time,” says one instructor, even though that leaves students unprepared for the unpleasantness of a real-life hostile interrogation. The students get a day’s training in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which govern the treatment of prisoners during wartime, and are cautioned that violating the treaty could bring prosecution. That means there are some lines they can’t cross — no truth serum, or physical or mental coercion, according to Army lawyers. On the other hand, even the International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors compliance with the treaty, says there’s room for interpretation. “The Geneva Conventions are not specific to the point of listing whatever forms of interrogations are or are not permissible,” says an ICRC spokesman, as long as they are not “degrading.” Thus, Sgt. Giersdorf tells students, “You can put a source in any position you want. You can chain his legs to the chair, you can handcuff his hands behind him,” force him to stand at attention or have military police thrust him to the ground. “If [a prisoner] says it hurts, is it torture?” he asks. “Yes,” say several students. “No, it’s not,” the sergeant corrects. America’s allies, he says, go farther, placing prisoners into what he calls “stress positions” until they talk. Those aren’t taught here, he is quick to add, but “if you work with the Brits or the Dutch or the Germans, they can show you all about it.” In an interview, he says, “I’ve known people in the U.S. Army who have used stress positions.” The Army judge advocate general’s corps keeps a lawyer on hand during interrogations, for quick decisions on the degree of physical or mental pressure allowed. “What we can get away with depends on them,” Sgt. Giersdorf explains. “One JAG officer might say it’s a go, another might say it’s torture.” ‘PRIDE AND EGO UP’ Depending on their personality, age and physical bearing, interrogators tend to prefer different approaches. “My favorite is ‘pride and ego up,’ ” says Spc. Carrie Clark, 26, of Stoneboro, Pa., because “you have to make them feel good, that you’re their best friend.” In it, a prisoner thought to have been “looked down upon for a long time” is flattered and made to feel that by providing information, he can “show someone that he does indeed have some ‘brains,’ ” the manual says. Some students enter the school with Hollywood-movie notions of what interrogators do. “My dad makes jokes all the time about putting bamboo splinters under your fingernails,” says a budding interrogator, Pvt. 2 Andrea Jones, 18, of Lincoln, Mont. “You have this idea of going into a room with a bald light bulb, and a guy who tortures you,” she says. Spc. Robert Houser, 24, of San Antonio says he was inspired by the aggressive manner of a television detective. “I love Andy Sipowicz on ‘NYPD Blue,’ ” he says. Despite such enthusiasm, instructors say today’s students often lack the “people skills” the trade demands. “All they know is hip-hop and Nintendo,” says Sgt. Novacek. Adds Sgt. First Class Kelly Sanders: “They don’t know how to initiate a conversation, or make small talk.” Other students flinch when they realize that the information they obtain will be used to kill people. “You’re trying to get a target to drop a 2,000-pound bomb on,” Sgt. Giersdorf tells them. “What did you think the Air Force was going to do with those grid coordinates?” Nevertheless, in class, students are starting to get a feel for the job. “While you’re talking to a source, can you load a gun or sharpen a knife?” one soldier asks eagerly. “Don’t get caught doing it,” Sgt. Giersdorf replies. “I mean,” he corrects himself, “don’t do it.” _________________________________________ Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ===== Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace. Weekly peace walks around Lake Merritt in Oakland. Starts & ends at the colonnade between Grand & Lakeshore Avenues, 3 P.M., every Sunday. 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