Chinese methods used to interrogate Gitmo detainees
The New York Times revealed on Wednesday that a chart of permissible interrogation techniques for detainees at Guantanamo Bay came directly out of a 1957 study of methods used by the Chinese to extract confessions from American prisoners during the Korean War.
The study by sociologist Albert D. Biderman was later used to train American soldiers in how to hold out against similar techniques. That training program was then drawn upon by the CIA and the military for the techniques used at Guantanamo.
According to the Times, "The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency. ... Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article described 'one form of torture' used by the Chinese as forcing American prisoners to stand 'for exceedingly long periods,' sometimes in conditions of 'extreme cold.'"
The Times added that "versions of the same chart, often identified as 'Biderman’s Chart of Coercion,' have circulated on anti-cult sites on the Web, where the methods are used to describe how cults control their members."
A article in the Detroit Free Press commenting on the Times story noted, "If you wanted someone to tell you the truth, would you use coercive tactics that have been perfected in order to elicit false confessions? ... It's depressing enough to learn that our interrogators have in effect been emulating 1950s tactics used against captured Air Force personnel. But it's downright frightening to think that they relied on a study of how interrogators could get their subjects to basically abandon reality as they originally knew it."
However, ABC News legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg disagreed with the Times, telling host Charlie Gibson, "These techniques that were on the chart were not considered torture. And in fact, Biderman says in his report ... that when he told people some of these coercion techniques, they said, 'Is that all there is? Surely you can't manipulate people so easily.'"
Greenburg added, however, "He then goes on in the report -- outside the chart -- to talk about specific torture techniques. And that's the fascinating question. ... Which of those techniques were used?"
This video is from ABCNews.com, broadcast July 2, 2008.
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