Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mack4289]

This is a really interesting article about a group of specially trained American military interrogators, known as "gators", whose interrogations (which didn't use torture) led to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It's a very long post, I know, but worth a read. Or, better yet, if you subscribe to the Atlantic, read the whole thing.


http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200705/tracking-zarqawi

A brief description of the gators:

"Most of the gators directly involved in this breakthrough were recruited in 2005. They were young men and women who had accumulated valuable experience conducting hostile interrogation. Some were on active duty, a good number from military-police units. Some were veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, where they had so distinguished themselves that the Special Operations Command had sought them out. Some were working for private contractors such as L-3 Communications; some were civilian employees of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Some had experience in civilian law enforcement or criminal law, and had volunteered to do such work for the military. Some were lawyers. Some had advanced degrees. Some called themselves �reserve bums,� because they signed on for tours of duty in various parts of the world for six months to a year, and then took long, exotic vacations before accepting another job. One raced cars when between jobs; another was an avid surfer who between assignments lived on the best beaches in the world; another had earned a law degree while working as a city cop in Arlington, Texas; another worked as an investigator for the U.S. Attorney�s Office in Montgomery, Alabama. They all loved the work and signed up for the most dangerous and important assignments."

The evolution of their interrogation methods and the (lone?) benefit of the torture at Abu Ghraib:

"The interrogation methods employed by the Task Force were initially notorious. When the hunt started, in 2003, the unit was based at Camp Nama, at Baghdad International Airport, where abuse of detainees quickly became common. According to later press reports in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other news outlets, tactics at Nama ranged from cruel and unusual to simply juvenile�one account described Task Force soldiers shooting detainees with paintballs. In early 2004, both the CIA and the FBI complained to military authorities about such practices. The spy agency then banned its personnel from working at Camp Nama. Interrogators at the facility were reportedly stripping prisoners naked and hosing them down in the cold, beating them, employing �stress positions,� and keeping them awake for long hours. But after the prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib came to light in April 2004, the military cracked down on such practices. By March of last year, 34 Task Force members had been disciplined, and 11 were removed from the unit for mistreating detainees. Later last year, five Army Rangers working at the facility were convicted of punching and kicking prisoners.

The unit was renamed Task Force 145 in the summer of 2004 and was moved to Balad, where the new batch of gators began arriving the following year. According to those interviewed for this story, harsh treatment of detainees had ended. Physical abuse was outlawed, as were sensory deprivation and the withholding or altering of food as punishment. The backlash from Abu Ghraib had produced so many restrictions that gators were no longer permitted to work even a standard good cop/bad cop routine. The interrogation-room cameras were faithfully monitored, and gators who crossed the line would be interrupted in mid-session.

The quest for fresh intel came to rely on subtler methods. Gators worked with the battery of techniques outlined in an Army manual and taught at Fort Huachuca, such as �ego up,� which involved flattery; �ego down,� which meant denigrating a detainee; and various simple con games�tricking a detainee into believing you already knew something you did not, feeding him misinformation about friends or family members, and so forth. Deciding how to approach a detainee was more art than science. Talented gators wrote their own scripts for questioning, adopting whatever roles seemed most appropriate, and adjusting on the fly. They carefully avoided making offers they could not keep, but often dangled �promises� that were subtly incomplete�instead of offering to move a prisoner to a better cell, for instance, a gator might promise to �see the boss� about doing so. Sometimes the promise was kept. Fear, the most useful interrogation tool, was always present. The well-publicized abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere put all detainees on edge, and assurances that the U.S. command had cracked down were not readily believed. The prospect of being shipped to the larger prison�notorious during the American occupation, and even more so during the Saddam era�was enough to persuade many subjects to talk. This was, perhaps, the only constructive thing to result from the Abu Ghraib scandal, which otherwise remains one of the biggest setbacks of the war."

Now, the first step in the breaking of the terrorist who led them to Zarqawi. Basically, the interrogator (Doc) indulged and encouraged the detainee's tendency to believe in conspiracy theories to trick him into giving up his superiors in Al Qaeda.

"Their conversation turned to politics. Like many other detainees, Abu Haydr was fond of conspiracy theories. He complained that the United States was making a big mistake allowing the Shia, the majority in Iraq, to share power with the Sunnis. He lectured Doc on the history of his region, and pointed out that Iraqi Sunnis and the United States shared a very dangerous enemy: Iran. He saw his Shia countrymen not just as natural allies with Iran but as more loyal to Iranian mullahs than to any idea of a greater Iraq. As he saw it�and he presented it as simple fact�the ongoing struggle would determine whether Iraq would survive as a Sunni state or simply become part of a greater Shia Iran. America, Abu Haydr said, would eventually need help from the Sunnis to keep this Shia dynasty from dominating the region.

Doc had heard all this before, but he told Abu Haydr that it was a penetrating insight, that the detainee had come remarkably close to divining America�s true purpose in Iraq. The real reason for the U.S. presence in the region, the gator explained, was to get American forces into position for an attack on Iran. They were building air bases and massing troops. In the coming war, Sunnis and Americans would be allies. Only those capable of looking past the obvious could see it. The detainee warmed to this. All men enjoy having their genius recognized.

�The others are ignorant,� Abu Haydr said, referring to Mary and Lenny. �They know nothing of Iraq or the Koran. I have never felt comfortable talking with them.�

It was not a surprising comment. Detainees often tried to play one team of gators off another. But Doc saw it as an opening, and hit upon a ploy. He told the prisoner that he now understood his full importance. He said he was not surprised that Abu Haydr had been able to lead his questioners around by their noses. Then he took a more mendacious leap. He told Abu Haydr that he, Doc, wasn�t just another gator; that he was, in fact, in charge of the Compound�s entire interrogation mill. He was the Boss; that was why he had waited until the last minute to step in.

�I believe you are a very important man,� he told Abu Haydr. �I think you have a position of power in the insurgency, and I think I am in a position to help you.�

Abu Haydr was listening with interest.

�We both know what I want,� Doc said. �You have information you could trade. It is your only source of leverage right now. You don�t want to go to Abu Ghraib, and I can help you, but you have to give me something in trade. A guy as smart as you�you are the type of Sunni we can use to shape the future of Iraq.� If Abu Haydr would betray his organization, Doc implied, the Americans would make him a very big man indeed.

There was no sign that the detainee knew he was being played. He nodded sagely. This was the kind of moment gators live for. Interrogation, at its most artful, is a contest of wits.

.... Doc pressed his advantage.

�You and I know the name of a person in your organization who you are very close to,� Doc said. �I need you to tell me that name so that I know I can trust you. Then we can begin negotiating.� In fact, the American had no particular person in mind. His best hope was that Abu Haydr might name a heretofore unknown mid-level insurrectionist.

Ever circumspect, Abu Haydr pondered his response even longer than usual.

At last he said, �Abu Ayyub al-Masri.�

Doc was flabbergasted. Masri was the senior adviser to Zarqawi, the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The gator hid his surprise and excitement. He thanked the prisoner, pretending that this was the name he had expected. "

Abu Haydr had been due to leave the prison where the gators worked to be transferred somewhere else. Doc's interrogation was a last minute thing that resulted in Haydr staying there. But Doc hadn't been Haydr's regular interrogator and Doc's trick p*ssed them off (for territorial reasons). So they kept Doc away from the prisoner but Doc used this internal tension to his advantage, eventually coaxing Haydr into leading them to Zarqawi.

"Despite Abu Haydr�s insistence that he speak only to �Dr. Matthew,� his interrogation resumed with the regular team of gators. Lenny promptly told him that their colleague had lied when he said he was in charge.

Doc was infuriated, and he took his outrage to his commander. Lenny was more concerned about protecting his turf than the mission, Doc complained, and demanded that he be reassigned, but this request, too, was denied. Concerned that his breakthrough would be squandered, Doc decided to go behind his commander�s back. He paid the first of many unauthorized visits to Abu Haydr�s cell in the holding block, away from the cameras monitoring the interrogation rooms. He told Abu Haydr that his colleagues were not allowed to reveal that he was in charge.

�I�m still around, and I�m still watching,� Doc told him. �Talk to them as if you were talking to me.�

Abu Haydr asked how much information he would have to give to earn Doc�s assistance.

�Right now, you are at about 40 percent,� he was told, �but you must never mention our deal to anyone.� Doc swore him to secrecy about their informal talks.

And, curiously, the feud between the gators began to help the interrogation. Abu Haydr seemed to enjoy the subterfuge. Doc�s visits with him were unauthorized; if his fellow gators found out about them, they would be furious, as would his commander. So Doc, unable to deliver the captive�s information himself, had to persuade Abu Haydr to talk, not to him but to Mary and Lenny. He stayed vague about what information he wanted and kept using the percentage scale to push the detainee. Sure enough, Abu Haydr responded.

....Still, even though he clearly relished his �secret� sessions with Doc, Abu Haydr protected the men at the very top of the organization. The ploy played upon his belief that he was operating in a multilayered reality, and at a deeper level than those around him; the secrecy just reinforced the ruse that Doc was a high-level connection. In the middle of this process, Mary started questioning Abu Haydr with the older gator they called Tom, and Lenny continued on in separate shifts by himself.

In early June, after Doc told the prisoner he was at �90 percent,� Abu Haydr promised to give up a vital piece of information at his next session. And he did.

�My friend is Sheikh al-Rahman,� he told Mary and Tom.

He explained that Rahman, a figure well-known to the Task Force, met regularly with Zarqawi. He said that whenever they met, Rahman observed a security ritual that involved changing cars a number of times. Only when he got into a small blue car, Abu Haydr said, would he be taken directly to Zarqawi."

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Very good post , thanks.

On the other hand The Atlantic ought not be in the business of giving away interrogation techniques of US forces. Al Qaeda will probably read that article in the Atlantic and prepare their agents.

[mack4289]

[Hater Depot]

One very effective tactic the Israelis have used is to keep a guy in solitary confinement for quite a while, in a regular prison, and when he comes out his friends are like, great you're out! we saved some food for you! etc. And he spills the beans to them, who then spill the beans to the authorities.

The best part is that this is pretty commonly known. The guy likely knows that his friends are going to snitch him out, but he's just so happy to be with him he can't help himself.

[The_Conservative]

[mack4289]