Roots of Abu Ghraib in CIA techniques: 50 years of refining, teaching torture found in interrogation manuals

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 5, 2004 by James Hodge, Linda Cooper

Likewise, the Schlesinger panel found that the "CIA's detention and interrogation practices contributed to a loss of accountability at Abu Ghraib," but it claims it did not have a mandate or "sufficient access to CIA information" to pursue the matter.

Fay concludes that techniques such as "removing clothing, isolating people for long periods of time, using stress positions, exploiting fear of dogs and implementing sleep and light deprivation" were "new ideas" that some U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib learned while working in Afghanistan and the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The methods, however, are anything but "new." An examination of CIA interrogation manuals shows that they date back before the Vietnam War, supporting charges by human rights advocates that Abu Ghraib is no aberration. What is new is that photographic evidence became public.

Interrogation manual

The authors of the CIA's 1963 KUBARK Interrogation manual--a guide on the art of using fear, threats and pain to cause debility or psychological regression--were hilly aware of the illegality of their methods: "KUBARK's lack of executive authority abroad and its operational need for facelessness make it particularly vulnerable to attack in the courts or the press."

The Fay report noted that the death of the Iraqi found In the shower remained unsolved due partly to the fact that "CIA officers operating at Abu Ghraib used alias' [sic] and never revealed their true names."

The KUBARK manual notes that prior approval "must be obtained for the interrogation of any source against his will and under any of the following circumstances: If bodily harm is to be inflicted" or "if medical, chemical or electrical methods or materials are to be used."

Before using an interrogation site, "it should be studied carefully.... The electric current should be known in advance, so that transformers and other modifying devices will be on hand if needed."

It notes that psychological rather than physical debility will break a suspect sooner: "The threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more effectively than coercion itself. The threat to inflict pain can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain." Elsewhere, it notes, "Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress."

The manual, which cites numerous psychological studies and says all detainees should be given a psychological assessment, contains descriptions of different personality types and which techniques to use to interrogate them.

"If a coercive technique is to be used, or if two or more are to be employed jointly, they should be ... carefully selected to match his personality."

"Persons with intense guilt feelings," it advises, "may cease resistance and cooperate if punished in some way because of the gratification induced by punishment."

All of the basic techniques used in Iraq are found in the manual's pages: sexual humiliation, the use of stress positions and sensory deprivation.