Memos shed light on CIA use of sleep deprivation

[kpete]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Memos shed light on CIA use of sleep deprivation

Though widely perceived as more effective and less objectionable than other interrogation methods, memos show it's harsher and more controversial than most realize. And it could be brought back.

By Greg Miller
May 10, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- As President Obama prepared last month to release secret memos on the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods, the White House fielded a flurry of last-minute appeals.

One came from former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who expressed disbelief that the administration was prepared to expose methods it might later decide it needed.

"Are you telling me that under all conditions of threat, you will never interfere with the sleep cycle of a detainee?" Hayden asked a top White House official, according to sources familiar with the exchange.

From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA's interrogation program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, far more than the most violent approaches. And it is among the methods the agency fought hardest to keep.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogate10-2009may10,0,1512131.story

[Bette Noir]

1. This is what we used to call "brainwashing."

We considered it part of the arsenal of the bad guys.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Now that the CIA has been exposed as being no different from Stalin's NKVD

I don't want to hear any complains about Stalin's harsh measures against the Soviet version of America's Religious Right and GOP.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

3. I'm wondering

If months of interrupted sleep because of Very Loud Noise causing someone to not get rest or dream or process info from their day or life, would that be as effective or intrusive or "torturous" as mere days of no sleep at all?

:graybox:



Any psychologists want to give an opinion? Or lawyers who are in the know? Or agents who might "know" about things like torture and it's effects?

I welcome all opinions, and your occupation not needed.

[Grins]

4. Menachem Begin on his sleep torture

Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, was tortured by the KGB. From his book, White Nights:

"In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.

"I came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them.

"He did not promise them their liberty; he did not promise them food to sate themselves. He promised them - if they signed - uninterrupted sleep! And, having signed, there was nothing in the world that could move them to risk again such nights and such days."