Comments on: The Interviewer

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Good interrogators have known about this technique for ages, Don. The KGB were past masters at it.

By: zoot

zoot — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

So why do we have Abu Ghraib?

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Bad interrogators? Morons? Cretins?

By: Al Bundy

Al Bundy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Rob, ‘bad interrogators’? No.

They weren’t an interrogator’s arsehole. They were a bunch of redneck hillbilly sadists straight out of Deliverance – assigned the arse-end job of prison warders. Interrogators are highly trained and respected professional intelligence officers.

It remains unfortunate that the media hysteria over Abu Ghraib has left people thinking that naked men cowering before the likes of Private England has anything whatsoever to do with military intelligence. Still, with the media persisting with the AG photo parade on nightly bulletins even now, the wider, and incorrect, perception will remain.

The WWII document here seems pretty much in line with modern interrogation methodology practised by Western forces.

By: Warbo

Warbo — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

“They were a bunch of redneck hillbilly sadists straight out of Deliverance – assigned the arse-end job of prison warders.”

So was it incompetence or malevolence that assigned them that job?

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

So were the Abu Ghraib offenders just creating wounds to assist the interrogators? Because I thought that was their explanation — they were “softening up” the prisoners before the interrogators arrived.

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

“In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick [ the senior enlisted man charged for Abu Ghraib] repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell–

By: david moran

david moran — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I am one of Sherwood F. Moran’s grandsons (note that he often is confused with my father / his son Sherwood R. Moran). Anyone who wants to learn more about this unusual individual will want to read the family bio just posted at http://home.comcast.net/~drmoran/home.htm (can’t get Google to pick it up yet). We wrote this bio partly in response to Stephen Budiansky’s unfortunate comment recently on Weekend America radio that “we don’t know much about this guy.” (Not knocking SB; his article was very fine.)
thanks, David Moran