Babinich: Wasn't it mentioned in an earlier post in this thread that beating, please excuse me I'll substitute the word torture, does not always work?
It almost never works. The problem with the "time is of the essence" idea is that there usually isn't enough information to go off of.
Lets say for example someone gets popped at a roadblock with blasting caps. The interrogators are brought in to get to work quickly. Hamid tells you that he was hired to take a box of supplies from Kabul to Jalalabad and meet up with a guy there at the market to receive payment.
So what do you do at this point? You've got very limited time, maybe half an hour before the person that was supposed to receive the blasting caps realizes what's up. Do you...
assume that Hamid will be cooperative and try to get him to help?
beat the hell out of Hamid assuming that he knows more than he's telling you, and hope to break him in half an hour?
Insurgent groups have done a great job at segmenting information...to the point where US forces were acting on just about every piece of "intel" that came out people's mouths, regardless of how wild or unsubstantiated.
The interrogation of Zubaydah is pretty much text book on what works, and what becomes the ravings of a mad man taken as fact. That "intel" which is provided to get people to stop beating on you is incredibly time consuming to verify, and mixed with just enough facts to seem plausible. That is why torture sucks as a means of getting information.
|
