Posted on 05/17/2004 7:12:06 AM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
Sex Abuse Is Poor Interrogation Tool, Israelis Say
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By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Sexual humiliation of the kind practiced by U.S. military police at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) does little to help interrogators gain useful information from prisoners, Israeli counter-terrorism experts said Monday.
Israel, perhaps unique in having public debate and legal guidelines on the use of physical coercion against suspects, does not use Abu Ghraib-type methods despite its close ties with the United States on security matters, they said.
"Under questioning, a terrorist should be made to yield. Sexual abuse goes too far by breaking him, so it's not an option," Ami Ayalon, former chief of Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service, told Reuters.
"A broken man will say anything. That information is worthless."
The United States is reeling from revelations that low-level personnel at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad piled naked Iraqi detainees on top of one another and photographed them simulating sex acts.
New Yorker magazine said the abuses were ordered by U.S. military intelligence as part of the effort to gather information on Iraqi insurgents through interrogation. The Pentagon (news - web sites) denied this, calling the scandal an isolated incident.
For many in Israel, the case recalled charges by a Lebanese guerrilla leader, Mustafa Dirani, that he was sodomized by an Israeli interrogator while in captivity in the mid-1990s.
Ayalon said the Dirani case was exceptional as he had been held by Israeli military intelligence, whose top-secret foreign missions secure it virtual freedom from judicial scrutiny, while the Shin Bet works in Israel and the Palestinian territories under strict Supreme Court guidelines.
"MODERATE PHYSICAL PRESSURE"
Under court restrictions, the Shin Bet can use "moderate physical pressure," including sensory deprivation and shaking short of causing permanent damage, on so-called "ticking bombs" -- suspects it believes know about imminent attacks.
"The Shin Bet has professionalism and oversight, so everyone keeps to these methods. They are effective enough," Ayalon said, adding that interrogators undergo almost three years of Arabic and psychology training before confronting their first suspect.
According to New Yorker correspondent Seymour Hersh, some of Abu Ghraib's abused inmates may have been photographed in the hope they could later be blackmailed into becoming U.S. informants. Israel depends on a vast network of collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) to help its hunt for Palestinian militants waging a 3 1/2-year-old revolt with suicide bombings.
Palestinian advocates say collaborators are recruited on the offer of pay or after Israeli authorities withhold favors such as travel permits, an account confirmed by Shin Bet sources.
But sexual blackmail is almost unheard of.
"An informant risks being caught and killed by his countrymen, so he will only be effective if he works of his own free will, feeling it is worth his while," said Menachem Landau, a retired Shin Bet supervisor of Palestinian collaborators. "Someone acting out of fear will be unreliable and could even end up attacking his handler to clear his name."
The CIA has been aware of this for decades.
The US didn't use sexual humiliation as an interrogation technique. A few perverts in the prison used sexual humiliation for their own gratification. Lynndie England wasn't even supposed to be in the prison block. She went to see her boyfriend, Charles Grainer. Grainer orchestrated the whole humiliation thing to show off for England.
Further proof it was the work of a few low level idiots.
The implication by this AP "news" of when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife kind of reporting, is that higher-ups to Runsfield sanctioned this for gaining intelligence, and should be sacked. On the other hand, taken from the standpoint that this was the work of a few sicky individuals, would be too much of a fair-minded article for anyone at the AP to report on.
I agree!I think it was just a bunch of sexual-perverts who wanted to make a jailhouse porno film and they already had"The Set"in place!
I figured a bottle of Jack Daniels could get anyone to talk.
Aren't you a tad bit too ignorant to be commenting on this forum?
It's all in the editing. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
You can barely spell and have no punctuation skills, yet you want people to support your very hard to comprehend statements.
No doubt you'll respond to this by stating you have a college degree and how dare I criticize your efforts.
My response, in advance, is simply that you cheated in the process of getting your required Engish credits.
Rageaholics foolproof pan-ethnic patented water-for information interrogation tactic: three delicious salty meals a day, no water. Water pitcher placed in sight of unlawful combatatant but just out of reach. Nobody can withstand this for more than a few days.
We could also put the prisoners on a bodybuilder's competition diet.
Chicken, brochli and two red skinned potatoes seven times a day.
After six weeks of that I would have turned on my mother for a bowl of cereal.
A classic example of manufactured news - some reporter goes quote fishing, continues until he finds what he wants, and writes an article around it. No new information, no new insights, just propaganda. al-Rheuters strikes again.
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