The Neuroscience of “Enhanced Interrogation”
Wired reports that studies show that "enhanced interrogation", far from being a reliable source of information, can actually make someone less of an intelligence asset because the stress involved changes the biochemistry of the brain:“There is a vast literature on the effects of extreme stress on motivation, mood and memory, using both animals and humans,” writes Shane O’Mara, a stress ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 22, 2009 11:23
An FBI Interrogator on the Effectiveness of Torture
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and an expert on al-Qaeda operations who has interrogated al-Qaeda members reviews the claims that the Bush Administration's torture techniques were effective and finds them wanting:The inspector general’s report distinguishes between intelligence gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which culminate in waterboarding. While the former produces useful intelligence, according to the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 10, 2009 09:55
How Torture Undermines National Security
Via Patrick Appel, former FBI counterintelligence agent Asha Rangappa explains how the use of torture can undermine the United States' ability to both obtain information and recruit double agents.A second and arguably more important goal of the FBI is to persuade some of these people, or "targets," to change sides and share the information they have about their own governments ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 4, 2009 13:23
Obama DOJ Investigating Bush CIA
The Obama Justice Department has appointed a criminal prosecutor to look into alleged abuses of the CIA under the Bush administration. [Attorney General Eric] Holder has named longtime prosecutor John H. Durham, who has parachuted into crisis situations for both political parties over three decades, to open an early review of nearly a dozen cases of alleged detainee mistreatment at the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 25, 2009 09:31
Cheney Ordered CIA Concealment
An amusing headline from NYT: "Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project." I mean, obviously, Cheney is going to be linked. He's everyone's favorite evil mastermind. The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 12, 2009 08:20
CIA Lying to Congress?
The CIA has been lying to Congress about somethingoranother for years now, sources tell NYT. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said. In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 9, 2009 08:37
How the FBI Broke Saddam
James Gordon Meek has a very interesting two-part story on how FBI Special Agent George Piro successfully interrogated Saddam Hussein. Shockingly, it does not involve waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, nudity, or German shephards. The FBI prides itself on “rapport-based” interrogations that have a high success rate for yielding confessions from the likes of 1993 World trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 28, 2009 07:51
Overstatement of the Day – Torture Edition
"It appears that waterboarding - a torture technique popularized by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - has been picked up overseas." - Andrew Sullivan Now, look, I'm opposed to torturing suspected terrorists. But the United States Government waterboarded a grand total of three of them during the Bush-Cheney tenure. So let's not pretend it was somehow a favorite pastime of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 10, 2009 11:20
Levin: Cheney Lying About CIA Memos
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin claims that former Vice-President Dick Cheney is lying when he claims that classified CIA memos show that Bush Administration ordered torture/enhanced interrogation techniques produced actionable intelligence that saved American lives. Levin, speaking at the Foreign Policy Association's annual dinner in Washington on Wednesday, said an investigation by his committee into detainee abuse ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 29, 2009 14:19
Alexander vs. Cheney on Interrogation
The video embedded below features arguments presented by Dick Cheney in favor of torture (or, if you prefer, "enhanced interrogation techniques"), which are ably demolished by Matthew Alexander, a former member of the United States Air Force who served as an Interrogator in Iraq. He was part of a task force charged with determining the location of Abu Zarqawi.There's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 27, 2009 22:53
Rumsfeld Bible Quotes
Apparently, a lot of people who use Yahoo! are searching for "Rumsfeld bible quotes" today. This rather odd happenstance is apparently a function of a story that circulated earlier in the week about Rumsfeld putting bible verses on the cover sheets of "Worldwide Intelligence Updates" intended for President Bush. Apparently, the story is largely untrue.Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 22, 2009 13:11
White House Lawyers vs. Military Lawyers on Torture
One thing that's also worth noting in the debate over the Bush Administration's torture program is that while the Office of Legal Counsel did sign off on the techniques used (with memos so bad that the lawyers in question are soon to be under investigation for a breach of their professional duties), the fact remains that the Administration also sought ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 22, 2009 09:35
Cheney: Debate Makes America Look Weak
In his speech on national security before the American Enterprise Institute today, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney made the rather surprising argument that debate over the treatment of detainees makes American look weak. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 21, 2009 13:47
Quote of the Day – Torture Trials Edition
"Well, conservative, conshmervative - even Karl Rove would pay good money to see Pelosi handcuffed to Dick Cheney." - Kate McMillan responding to news that the then-Minority Whip and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was briefed on the use of "enhanced interogation techniques" in the fall of 2002 and "gave it her stamp of approval." And, no, the fact ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 8, 2009 08:28
Not Enough Pashto Speakers but Pashto is Not Enough
Stephen Walt repeats the popular lament (and specifically Gareth Porter's) that the United States Government employs a ridiculously small number of Pashto speakers and that this negatively impacts us in Afghanstan. Pat Porter agrees but issues some important caveats: 1) Languages are extremely hard to develop at a sufficient level. Except for the most outrageously talented, most folk can study intensively ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 4, 2009 06:14
