Torture at Abu Ghraib followed CIA's manual

[Tinoire]

Torture at Abu Ghraib followed CIA's manual

By Alfred W. McCoy | May 14, 2004

THE PHOTOS from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison are snapshots not of simple brutality or a breakdown in discipline but of CIA torture techniques that have metastasized over the past 50 years like an undetected cancer inside the US intelligence community. From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led secret research into coercion and consciousness that reached a billion dollars at peak. After experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, electric shocks, and sensory deprivation, this CIA research produced a new method of torture that was psychological, not physical -- best described as "no touch" torture.

<snip>

After codification in the CIA's "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual in 1963, the new method was disseminated globally to police in Asia and Latin America through USAID's Office of Public Safety. Following allegations of torture by USAID's police trainees in Brazil, the US Senate closed down the office in 1975.

After it was abolished, the agency continued to disseminate its torture methods through the US Army's Mobile Training Teams, which were active in Central America during the 1980s. In 1997, the Baltimore Sun published chilling extracts of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual" that had been distributed to allied militaries for 20 years. In the 10 years between the last known use of these manuals in the early 1990s and the arrest of Al Qaeda suspects since September 2001, torture was maintained as a US intelligence practice by delivering suspects to foreign agencies, including the Philippine National Police, who broke a bomb plot in 1995.

<snip>

Once the war on terror started, however, the US use of no-touch torture resumed, first surfacing at Bagram Air Base near Kabul in early 2002, where Pentagon investigators found two Afghans had died during interrogation. In reports from Iraq, the methods are strikingly similar to those detailed in the Kubark manual.

Following the CIA's two-part technique, last September General Miller instructed US military police at Abu Ghraib to soften up high-priority detainees in the initial disorientation phase for later "successful interrogation and exploitation" by CIA and military intelligence. As often happens in no-touch torture sessions, this process soon moved beyond sleep and sensory deprivation to sexual humiliation. The question, in the second, still unexamined phase, is whether US Army intelligence and CIA operatives administered the prescribed mix of interrogation and self-inflicted pain -- but outside the frame of these photographs. If so, the soldiers now facing courts-martial would have been following standard interrogation procedure.

<snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/14/torture_at_abu_ghraib_followed_cias_manual/

[mike_c]

1. wow, great op-ed article....

eom

[ithacan]

2. actually it does sound just like the kind of stuff

that was taught at the School of the Americas...

[G_j]

5. maybe

some DUers will finally start taking the SOA seriously. :shrug:

[City Lights]

9. Great picture.

:thumbsup:

[JohnOneillsMemory]

23. Including its chief apologist Wesley Clark, the Genius Generalissimo. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. It seems that when the Nazis left Germany

they just moved into the CIA and didn't skip a beat. What we are seeing today is the culmination of years of hard work. :puke:

[xray s]

4. it's the sewer of American foreign policy

the things that have been done in our name, out of sight, is like the sewers running under your home and through your neighborhood. You know in the back of you mind they are there, but you have no interest in sticking your head in the river of shit that runs just below the surface...

[mike_c]

7. Negroponte knows all about that river....

on edit:

John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. As such he supported and carried out a US-sponsored policy of violations to human rights and international law. Among other things he supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980's. The base was used as a secret detention and torture center, in August 2001 excavations at the base discovered the first of the corpses of the 185 people, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at this base.

During his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. The infamous Battalion 316, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people. Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with them, while lying to Congress.

http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/negroponte/eng.html

[Just Me]

19. Appallingly, that war criminal has a well-paid government position.

:puke:

[G_j]

6. "Torture by the book"

great article!!!! thank you !

here's some more related info:
www.soaw.org/new/

From Abu Ghraib to Latin America: Map of U.S. Pattern of Abuse Grows

Torture of Iraqi Soldiers Indicative of Ongoing Policy of Systematic and Illegal Abuse

Recent reports of the torture of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib military prison near Baghdad are part of a larger pattern of abuse and torture at the hands of U.S. soldiers, U.S.-trained soliders, “independent contractors” and intelligence agents around the world. In fact, U.S. Army intelligence manuals advocating torture techniques and how to circumvent laws on due process, arrest and detention were used for at least a decade to train Latin American soldiers at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC.

“We see a consistent pattern of the Pentagon claiming to work for democracy,” says Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, “while in their prisons and training centers, reports of torture and human rights abuses continue to surface.“

Over 64,000 Latin American soldiers have been trained in combat skills and psychological warfare at the SOA/WHINSEC. Graduates of the school are consistently involved in human rights abuses and atrocities in Latin America.

In September of 1996, the Pentagon, under intense public pressure, released the classified training manuals used at the SOA. The Washington Post reported that the manuals promoted executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion (“U.S. Instructed Latins on Executions, Torture,” 9/21/96). The manuals recommended the imprisonment of family members of those who support “union organizing or recruiting,” those who distribute “propaganda in favor of the interest of workers,” those who “sympathize with demonstrations or strikes,” and those who make “accusations that the government has failed to meet the basic needs of the people.” The training manuals are available: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=98 .

..more..
-------------------

http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=423

Torture by the Book Thursday, May 6th 2004

Vikram Dodd

from The Guardian

In Britain the debate about photographs depicting abuse of Iraqi prisoners has centred on their authenticity. In the US there are no doubts about the pictures showing what American soldiers did in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. But the photos raise a larger question. Did a gang of reservists from Virginia hit on ways of mistreating Muslim prisoners to maximise their humiliation all by themselves? President Bush says the photos disgust him. However, there is growing evidence that the abuses in Abu Ghraib were no aberrant act, but a warped product of US policy and the practices of its intelligence community.

In emails released by his family, Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, a guard at Abu Ghraib, says military intelligence used dogs to intimidate prisoners, leading to "positive results and information". In one email he wrote: "We have had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours." Sgt Frederick said that he queried some of the abuses: "I questioned this and the answer I got was: this is how military intelligence wants it done." Another guard supports his claim that intelligence people controlled Abu Ghraib, as does the former head of US military prisons in Iraq, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski.

<snip>
Part of the interrogating team at Abu Ghraib was from the CIA. There are clues from that organisation's history that it has found ill-treating detainees to be useful in the past. Two CIA interrogation manuals surfaced in 1997 after the Baltimore Sun obtained them under freedom of information laws. Reading them in the context of the pictures from Iraq and accounts from Guantánamo suggests that the advice they contain is still being applied.

One, dating from 1983, was written for use in Honduras. Entitled "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual", it states: "The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy."

<snip>

..more..

[G_j]

18. National Security Archive: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm

PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 122

Cold War U.S. Interrogation Manuals Counseled "Coercive Techniques"
Cheney Informed of "Objectionable" Interrogation Guides in 1992
"Inconsistent with U.S. Government Policy"
National Security Archive Posts CIA Training Manuals from 60s, 80s, and
Investigative memos on earlier controversy on human rights abuses

For Further Information:
Thomas Blanton 202 994-7000
Peter Kornbluh 202 994-7116

Washington D.C. May 12, 2004: CIA interrogation manuals written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive techniques" such as those used to mistreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to the declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The Archive also posted a secret 1992 report written for then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney warning that U.S. Army intelligence manuals that incorporated the earlier work of the CIA for training Latin American military officers in interrogation and counterintelligence techniques contained "offensive and objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility, and could result in significant embarrassment."

The two CIA manuals, "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual-1983" and "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation-July 1963," were originally obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Baltimore Sun in 1997. The KUBARK manual includes a detailed section on "The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources," with concrete assessments on employing "Threats and Fear," "Pain," and "Debility." The language of the 1983 "Exploitation" manual drew heavily on the language of the earlier manual, as well as on Army Intelligence field manuals from the mid 1960s generated by "Project X"-a military effort to create training guides drawn from counterinsurgency experience in Vietnam. Recommendations on prisoner interrogation included the threat of violence and deprivation and noted that no threat should be made unless the questioner "has approval to carry out the threat." The interrogator "is able to manipulate the subject's environment," the 1983 manual states, "to create unpleasant or intolerable situations, to disrupt patterns of time, space, and sensory perception."

After Congress began investigating reports of Central American atrocities in the mid 1980s, particularly in Honduras, the CIA's "Human Resource Exploitation" manual was hand edited to alter passages that appeared to advocate coercion and stress techniques to be used on prisoners. CIA officials attached a new prologue page on the manual stating: "The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults or exposure to inhumane treatment of any kind as an aid to interrogation is prohibited by law, both international and domestic; it is neither authorized nor condoned"-making it clear that authorities were well aware these abusive practices were illegal and immoral, even as they continued then and now.

Indeed, similar material had already been incorporated into seven Spanish-language training guides. More than a thousand copies of these manuals were distributed for use in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru, and at the School of the Americas between 1987 and 1991. An inquiry was triggered in mid 1991 when the Southern Command evaluated the manuals for use in expanding military support programs in Colombia.

<snip>

[starroute]

8. Thanks for posting this

I've been trying to find out how the intelligence types got from the MK-ULTRA stuff of the early 50's -- the unsuccessful search for an infallible method of "mind control" -- to these more general ego-breakdown techniques.

I know that a lot of the methods came out of studies of brainwashing that were done after the Korean War. And the 1963 date cited for that manual suggests their adoption was part of the general James-Bond-worshipping / CIA-running-amok period of 1962-65 (eg, the coup in Iraq that brought the Baathists to power, the betrayal of Nelson Mandela, the coup in Indonesia.)

But I'd sure like to know the details of who worked all this up, who gave the orders to put it into place, and why they thought it would be a good idea.

[Desperadoe]

13. Maybe we should be looking at Rev. Moon

Seems to me that his cult used to be fairly adept at this mind control stuff. So much so that captivated followers, called "moonies" often had to be sent to extensive rehabilitation to bring them back to reality.

He sure has come a long way......maybe this is why.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Hey Tinoire..maybe you have them

I recall a Johns Hopkins manual being online for large population control and can no longer find the link...good article

[Tinoire]

12. I don't sorry

:( I remember seeing something here a while ago but I didn't book-mark it. I'll make a mental note though and PM you if I ever come across it. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Dirk39]

15. Try this link:

http://www.sntp.net/education/leipzig_connection_8.htm

or this:
PROPAGANDA & PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE STUDIES
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
POPULATION COMMUNICATION SERVICES PROJECT
http://www.africa2000.com/PNDX/jhupage.htm


I'm not sure, if these are the studies, you're looking for, if not,
o.k.
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

16. That's them! Thanks

[Just Me]

20. Wow,...I saved that link to my favorites.

I found this quote accurately reflective of what is happening today:

"World War Three will be a guerilla information war, with no division between military and civilian participation."
-- Marshall McLuhan

[teryang]

11. This is a good article

...but I think "no touch" is a description of a range of torture which is added to a repertoire which is really better characterized as no visible scars. Physical violence is included.

In addition to the effectiveness there is also the original notion that maybe the Red Cross wouldn't notice or that there would be a paucity of physical evidence.

[Stone_Spirits]

14. I think that is an accurate description -nt

[G_j]

17. kick

[G_j]

28. another

:kick:

[HereSince1628]

21. Yet another connection among the 1970's, CIA and Bushit

Its like the gravitational center of the rabbithole.

[truthisfreedom]

22. "...CIA torture techniques that have metastasized over the past 50 years"

the operative word being "metastasized." like cancer.

[pacifictiger]

24. here's another article on the background of 'techniques'

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3566427&thesection=...

a few exerpts
-----------
Experts in torture are not surprised by the details in the stories of abuse which continue to emerge from US-run prisons in Iraq. And the more that emerges the less it seems to be the work of a handful of sadists or perverts.
-------
The techniques, which rest on principles of psychological disorientation rather than inflicting physical pain, were pioneered in Russia and China after the Second World War. They included humiliation, hooding, disorientation and depriving prisoners of sleep, warmth, water, food and human dignity. The KGB and Chinese secret police passed them on to the North Koreans during the Korean war,
---------
In Israel what was called "moderate physical force" was once lawful and security forces ended up torturing as many as 85 per cent of Palestinian security detainees " thousands of people" before Israel's Supreme Court in 1999 outlawed acts such as shaking prisoners, hoods, frog crouching, chair perching and sleep deprivation.

Despite this, according to Human Rights Watch, the practice seems to have increased in the past year and the head of the American defence contracting firm implicated in the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib visited an Israeli "anti-terror" training camp in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.
--------

[G_j]

26. lots of good stuff in this thread

..I've bookmarked it

[mulethree]

25. budget techniques?

These CIA manuals are interesting reading, but they seem to have many techniques which are more effective. Mind tricks galore but which would seem to be expensive in terms of expertise, stress, numbers and time of interrogators.

Are they using these more primitive techniques just for time and money reasons? Or perhaps the sexual humiliation approach has proven especially productive with Iraqi's for cultural reasons?

[G_j]

27. kick