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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (12161)	5/1/2009 11:17:58 AM
From: pompsander	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

Bill...when was W/B first authorized as an approved policy of the United States to be used in the interrogation of terrorist suspects? It was NOT an authorized practice for decades, as you allege. The history on this is all spelled out and you claim I have extreme ignorance? Please help me understand then, why the decisions of late 2001-02 were so conroversial and so challenged by the military? What exactly were those decisions and why was the Executive branch involved? ________________ CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described Sources Say Agency's Tactics Lead to Questionable Confessions, Sometimes to Death By BRIAN ROSS and RICHARD ESPOSITO Nov. 18, 2005 Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors. abcnews.go.com __________________________ Bill, if you are saying the technique has been done for decades, who authorized it before...and did we punish the perpetrators? Please help me with my ignorance.

To: Bill who wrote (12161)	5/1/2009 11:24:14 AM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention," the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005. It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer. Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust … than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets." abcnews.go.com