So, I was very pleased when I heard Hugh Hewitt's interview with Col. Stuart Herrington:
HH: This hour, don’t go anywhere. I’m joined by Colonel Stuart Herrington, retired from the United States Army. He’s a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I don’t know who taught him how to read. They had to send out of state for that, then. He’s a graduate of Duquesne University, University of Florida. He has had a career in human and counterintelligence that few can rival in the United States. Most recently, July of 2006, he was asked by the U.S. Army to train a new organization of Army interrogators, which was being prepared for deployment to Iraq. He has been called back to the service of the flag a couple of times to help with various interrogation related matters. I believe he’s also a consultant to ‘24’. Col. Herrington, welcome to the program.
[...]HH: Does the United States military torture people?
SH: Well, I think if you ask the question has it happened, or have things taken place that are wrong, and that went well over the line, I think the answer is yes, regrettably. Was it a controlled policy, i.e. that what they were doing was something that was sanctioned from on high, my own personal opinion is that some of it was, especially the things that the task force was doing in Iraq with respect to the top fifty of Saddam’s henchmen that they caught, and al Qaeda types. And in some cases, it was just stupid young people with bad leadership and bad skills essentially behaving in an extremely counterproductive and undisciplined fashion, and that’s more what applies to Abu Ghraib.
HH: And has order been restored, in your opinion, to the interrogation techniques of the United States military?
SH: Well, I certainly hope so. I can tell you, Hugh, that I was asked to go to Fort Hood this past summer and spend three straight days, 24 hours on the platform, teaching an entire new generation of young Army interrogators. And the thrust of the invitation was that we needed to get it back on track. I thought after I visited Iraq in December, ’03, and saw some things going on that weren’t right and reported them that they’d fix it right away, and I was disappointed in that they took some measures, but there were still a lot of pretty counterproductive and stupid conduct that took place even after I had reported on it and had come back to the States. But I think by now even the dullest and the thickest of skulls has gotten the message that that’s just not the way to do it.
[...]
HH: Now given all that, do you believe that the military is consistently applying what you believe to be good judgment now in its interrogations at Guantanamo and in Iraq?
SH: You know, I really can’t speak from firsthand experience in Guantanamo or Iraq right now, because my Guantanamo visit was within three months after they started it in ’02. My Iraq trip was in December, ’03. That said, there have been so many visitors, including a lot with a lot of credibility, to Guantanamo, who have pronounced that it’s the most human, cleanest, high tech, safest incarceration facility that in some cases, the inspectors have ever seen, that I would tend to believe that in the wake of everything that’s happened, and in the wake of huge investment in Guantanamo, that the American people don’t have to worry about how people are being treated there.
He makes a good case for the proper way to intergate prisoners: You can listen to the interview here. Make sure that you read the rest of the interview or listen to it because he says more on the proper way to integrate prisoners so that you get the information you want without resorting to violence. He also said the following about what would happen if we pulled out of Iraq: HH: John Burns, the New York Times reporter who I’ll be interviewing next hour, it’s a replay of Friday’s interview, suggested that the casualties in Iraq in November, December, were 3,700, but that the night we leave, it’ll be 3,700 in one night, that the bloodbath will be extraordinary, and that we just have to look that squarely in the eyes. Do you agree with that assessment? SH: I think it’s probably even worse than that, but I agree with him that the consequences of our country vacillating in its commitments, and promising people we’re with you all the way, just stand up and vote for democracy, and then turning around after a few years, and saying gee, sorry about that, that’s a pretty bleak prospect, and it says not much good about our country.SH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, when a guy is captured, he’s stressed, he is frightened, and he’s probably expecting to be mistreated, because in most societies in the world, that’s the way it works. Disarming him psychologically, by treating him in a manner the opposite of what he expects, extending decent, humane treatment to him, showing concern for himself, his needs, being nimble in assessing and evaluating the person, and recognizing that getting information from someone is developmental, i.e. you won’t get information from someone, generally speaking, just by saying okay, I’m the captor, you’re the prisoner, tell me what you know. You earn it. I like to say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed probably didn’t give up a lot of the information that he gave up because somebody started water boarding him and beating him up. Instead, they used a very clever approach, and played to his ego and his psychological need to be recognized as the architect of 9/11, and the guy talked. In all of the successful interrogation projects that I’ve ever had anything to do with, extending fundamentally decent treatment to the detainees, we even used to call them guests. And you know, the guards would salute a prisoner if he was an officer, and we give them good food, and we would tell them it was unconditional, regardless of whether they chose to talk with us or not. And that type of an approach has a very high batting average.
