Respect called key to interrogating
Torturing detainees counterproductive, S.L. panelists say
If more American questioners had adopted that approach — treating captives with respect and gaining their trust — many stunning examples of torture would not have happened and the information developed would have been more reliable, according to speakers at a public discussion Sunday.
You can't gain valuable rapport by torture and the information given by the victims may not be accurate, speakers said.
The forum was a panel discussion of torture in American military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. The panel, moderated by Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, met at the Salt Lake Main Library, in a session sponsored by the SLC Film Center.
As members of the audience filed into the library's auditorium, Veterans for Peace and Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice handed out fliers for an antiwar event scheduled in the auditorium at 2 p.m. on March 19.
Before the panelists spoke, the audience watched a 1 1/2 hour long TV documentary, "The Torture Question," broadcast late this past year by "Nightline" on Public Broadcasting Service stations. It showed horrific images of torture committed by U.S. troops.
It's impossible to build rapport if a questioner is pulling out the captive's toenails, he said. With his top-secret clearance, Nelson added, he has never seen a case where there is a "ticking time bomb" that requires such urgent response that a questioner has to resort to torture.
Besides, he said, "It doesn't work."
Nelson is concerned that the torture that has been practiced in military prisons will have a lasting impact. (The use of torture was banned by a late 2005 law sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.)
People will remember "the actions of our interrogators today for generations to come," he said. The real goal is "winning a goal but doing it right."
Former Utah legislator David Irvine, who is a retired brigadier general in the Army and who is still involved in courts-martial, said principles of military law that were developed over many years are valid and important. They ban torture of captives.
Irving was concerned that no high-ranking officers have been charged in the recent torture cases. "The most significant thing that came from Nuremberg (war crimes trials of Nazis after World War II), is the notion that commanders are legally responsible for the conduct of their troops," he said.
"How many of us ever dreamt in this great country . . . we would ever be discussing the torture of human beings as a matter of official U.S. policy?" Anderson asked.
Michael Posner, president of the group Human Rights First, said the abuse by Americans at Abu Grahib prison, Iraq, was part of a much larger pattern. The group is concerned about what people don't see pictures of — torture in a truck, in a van or on the front lines, he said.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
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