One stop interrogation & interviewing resource

[davidbfpo]

Found this on an occassionally used website: http://jiox.blogspot.com/ and this NDIC paper 'Interrogation: WW2, Vietnam & Iraq (2008): http://www.dia.mil/college/pubs/pdf/12010.pdf

Dropped here as it is a current thread, although not Afghan-specific.

Started to skim through, so may add more later. Some great parts, including an Israeli viewpoint and this quote:

The maximum opportunity for intelligence gathering comes in the first hours after an arrest, before others in a group can possibly know that their walls have been breached. The bottom line is fear works. The best way to use this fear is when it is genuine and originates with the source. Fear that is not introduced artificially, but originates solely in the mind of the prisoner, is the most effective.

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davidbfpo

[Outlaw 7]

In reference to a number of answers on this particular thread--and referencing the Intelligence Boards' article on new ways of educing information look at a Tactical Questioning method taught initially at the NTC until late 2007 until a SIGINT MAJ felt 1) it was to difficult to learn by untrained personnel and 2) both he and Ft. H felt it was in violation of the new FM but when challenged by the creator to show cause to the concept Ft. H failed to respond to the challenge as the technique had been taught for a long number of years as part of the Strategic Debriefing course and up through 2006 as part of the EAIT course for JIDC bound interrogators.

The creator discovered the technique years ago while working for over 15 years at the Joint Refugee Operations Center-Berlin (JROC-B) (used in over 5000 strategic debriefings) and it is called the sprial questioning method. It worked extremely well with German, Russian, Czech, Polish, and Hungarian refugess. The creator of the technique also had the opportunity to use the concept in over 800 detainee interrogations, debriefings, and screenings while in Iraq from 2005 to 2006 to include four interrogations conducted surprisingly in German.

When coupled with the culture of the working environment it builds rapid rapport and allows even young inexperienced interrogators to move forward, is great is detecting deception and extremely good at discovering what the detainee is trying to protect when he lies.

What is interesting is when former DEA/ATF LEP types had the class at the NTC they all smiled and commented "that is exactly the way we work--we simply did not have a name for it".

[davidbfpo]

Outlaw 7,

Welcome aboard. Are there any open source references to the spiral questioning method? A Google search was not very helpful, but did find a Abu M link to a 2006 US F2-22.3 Manual: http://www.army.mil/institution/army...f/fm2-22-3.pdf

Thanks

[jmm99]

You have an interesting post in this thread, and another here.

That said, please introduce yourself (e.g., in Tell Us About You). Some of us are old-fashioned and like to know with whom we speak.

Enjoy yourself at SWC.

Mike

[jmm99]

The latter turns up some Google hits - e.g., here and here:

Spiral Questions to Provoke Thinking

Spiral questioning helps students think about the content they are studying in a sequence that begins with basic information and moves to higher levels of thinking and understanding. In this video clip, an 8th grade world geography teacher uses the strategy in her class.

and:

Spiral Questioning: Lessons and questions need to be carefully structured to lead students through a step-by-step process of discovery. Students should first explore using basic cognitive skills- observation, description, identification, recall-and then spiral to eventually higher levels of cognition such as synthesis, application, and interpretation through class discussions.

Please clarify.

Mike

[slapout9]

Outlaw7, is spiral questioning similar to Peak Of Tension Questioning?

[jmm99]

that used in polygraph exams ? - as briefly explained here.

Hey Slap, I'm chasing you around today.

[Outlaw 7]

To answer the various questions raised concerning "spiral questioning". As a former Special Forces Vietnam veteran, and after a long career of strategic debriefing in Berlin, training interrogation reservists, being asked to interrogate in Iraq, having participated in role playing for new interrogator trainees/EAIT trainees, and having worked with S2s/HUMINT Teams on 34 BCT roatations at the NTC I have been in a great position to watch the interrogation field evolve since 1966.

One of the truly major problems that led to Abu Ghriab outside of "others" involvement was the simple fact that the Army has separated Strategic Debriefers from Interrogators---but in fact both functions share a common goal that both Ft. H and TRADOC are overlooking---the person being questioned during Stategic Debriefing based on law and Intelligence Oversight DOES not have to answer a single question whereas in Interrogation the interrogator is trying to get the detainee to answer questions and maybe from a person who simply does not want to talk to you.

I attended a DoD directed training course in early 2005 for all interrogators assigned to the JIDC at Abu Ghraib where the instructor mirrored alot of what I had over the years been using--rapport, rapport, rapport, and building that rapport via culture. All the Army interrogators at that briefing absolutely rejected that advice as it did not match their former Army training---and they were a Strategic Debriefing Bn from Korea.

When I became a "questioner" in 1973--in those days no one really had a name for what we were doing as I was the first US citizen hired to work with an entire questioning team that was basically German. I "became" an interrogator simply because I spoke fluent German-absolutely no training outside of intensive three weeks of mentoring by the other German interrogators.

I had a number of years later the opportunity to attend the German CI/MI School for interrogation at Bad Ems, Germany where I totally surprised senior (COL ranks) German military instructors with the technique and their feedback pushed me to continiously refine the method.

Spiral questioning evolved out of the need to get individuals to talk with you who leagally did not have to answer a single question---the core goal is to build rapport and build it fast and at the same time get a feel for information areas, and to check security issues constantly along the way. I also realized that the core concept of being able to "prove" that the person was lying became second in importance---the main goal in understanding the lying was why was the person lying and I then realized it had to do with protecting something.

BUT at Ft. H in 2006 and still today all you hear from young interrogators and EAIT personnel is "he is lying and I got him to break"---the concept of getting someone to "break" is riding a totally wrong horse.

A simple explanation of the method is as follows;
You set up a number of areas to be covered-pick a point to start and you ask a very simple question on that topic until you have worked your way through the topics--but the question has to be extremely straight forward and simple, then you sart a second round of questioning starting from a different point and you repeat the original question and add more depth to the first question---absolutely no follow up questions which is a urge hard to resist. Once that series is finished you start again at another point and expand on the first part of the questioning.

The questioning is constantly changing and the detainee never sees a pattern, and the questions are always getting deeper in depth and breadth--if there is a cover story in play the detainee quickly loses control over it.

Entire process usually takes about 1-2 hours to complete and once it is complete then you can move into the various approaches that had been identified as potentially working with the individual. And it is constantly tied to the culture of the individual involved.

AND it is tied to the concept of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.

I believe this is what the Intelligence Science Board is looking for in their article concerning educing information for the 21st century. AND you totally avoid the fight over enhanced methods that achieve nothing.

Example---I first unknowingly tried this on a captured high ranking NVA officer in 1969---I knew he had been living like a dog in tunnels and existing on limited amounts of food prior to capture. Threw him into a hot shower, gave him a clean set of clothes, and sat him down in front of a table full of food, and left him totally alone for a week. He was free to roam the CIDG camp but under guard-then sat him down and in a calm fashion started the questioning --three hours later we had the entire supply bunker locations for two full NVA regiments. I had my first taste of cognitive dissonance.

Hope this answers some of the questions that a number of members have posted-before I was stopped from further NTC training I had trained over seven hunderd personnel in this form of questioning--from Pvts to COLs to former LE personnel and believe me even non trained interrogators understand it and after some practice they tend to get the hang of it.

[Outlaw 7]

To answer a few questions:

1. The actual ASI for Strategic Debriefing did not come into the Army system
until the course was developed out of major input from JROC-B. There was defintely no ASI in the 70s until the course was developed.

2. In 1973 through 1983, the 66 MI Group would often came to JROC-B in order to understand what we were doing as our job description and functions in fact became the basic functions of the new Strategic Debriefing Course. This was due to the fact that we would handle on occassions 3-4 thousand refugees per month at the height of say the Polish distrubances. We handled also on occassions handled 4-5k per month with five screeners and 9 debriefers. And this did not include the constant stream of airliner hijackings coming into Berlin. They the 66MI Group had their own debriefing system in the main West German refugee center, but were not handling the sheer volume we were seeing nor were they having the successes we were having on the Collection side.

3. There were a few Army interrogators assigned to the JROC-B in 1973 and into the 80s, but due to their lack of fluency in their language skill sets even coming straight out of DLI they never performed Strategic Debriefing and were put into the Collection Management side of the house.

3. The goal of both is again I underline it -to gain the rapport of the individual thus the ability to gain information-regardless of whether he is a Ansar al Sunnah member or he is a Czech nuclear engineer or a Russian SAM weapons officer. The second goal was/is to detect deception and the last goal was to "see" the cover stories often used by Iraqi's to explain their arrests.

4. Yes I did create the concept in JROC-B and a number of 66 MI Group Interrogation CWOs who came into Berlin during the period 1973 until 1986 to watch our work initially commented "I cannot keep up with your circling as it appears to go nowhere"---once they watched a number of debriefings they fully understood the technique. So I am not so sure that the concept has been around as long as the commenters are alluding to unless someone can show me where in the 66 MI Group something similar was ongoing.

5. If the system is so old and has been around for a long time or is not revoluntionary then why did DOD send in May 2005 a Ph.D with long ties to the HUMINT side to Abu Ghraib to plead with Army interrogators to get onboard with rapport/cultural use in their interrogations. The use of culture has been the core center of Strategic Debriefing for literally years. While the class was mandatory it defintely was not brought into by the Strat Debriefing Bn assigned to Abu Ghraib. The Ph.D was the main investigator who identifed the key failures in Abu Ghraib and his coming back was part of the DOD retraining program for Abu Ghraib.

6. At the NTC a SIGINT MAJ felt that the technique was to difficult for novice interrogators to understand or incorporate during FSO. He then complained to Ft. H where several GS 14/15s felt that there was a violation of the new FM. When it was pointed out that it has been and was still being taught at Ft. H and when the unclass training slides were submitted for review---after over ten calls to them and over ten emails requesting their input to show due cause---absolutely no response ever came back. Feedback from all classes and from the key core group BCT Company Commanders was at a surprsingly high level--often citing ---"why weren't we taught this before our first, second, or third deployments.
It should be pointed out that from late 2006 until now the NTC never really pushed interrogation or MSO from the role playing perspective and the roles were only maybe one page long so while the BCt exercised the S2 side nothing on thre HUMINT really ever got tested and pushed.

7. The reason that Strategic Debriefers often fail on the crossover is that they were never taught the approaches-and vice versa Interrogators in the basic TRADOC course are never taught spiral questioning. It should be noted that a majority of information gained in Iraq came via the Direct questioning approach that TRADOC did not want taught to new interrogators--and direct questioning rolls naturally out of spiral questioning.

8. It should be noted that the DOD mandatory briefing for interrogators in Abu Ghraib listed a long number of characteristics that an interrogator needed in order to be a great interrogator---by the way nothing on the list reflected actually being trained in interrogation.

9. As an example---during my second rotation into Abu Ghraib a number of AF interrogators right out of Ft. H had been there for about three months. I stepped in on the night shift and after several interrogations had over 15 reports in backlog-the average number of reports in backlog by the AF types 0-2 and that after three months. I was often asked why it was easy for me and they were struggling. They were taught the spiral but really did not understood it nor did they tie it to culture. Again a failure on the Ft. H side---it was presented to them in an 8 hour block of instruction but they never really got a true chance to practice as the instructors had to check the blocks and move them on.

I am attempting to show a methodology that both works, addresses the concerns voiced by the Intelligence Board's paper on educing infomation and definitely side steps the need for enhanced techniques.

So people can accept it or reject it, but it has worked well for me in over 6000 debriefings, interrogations, and screenings. I have seen way to many HUMINT failures from too many poorly trained interrogators.

[Outlaw 7]

Jedburgh---trying to understand your thinking.

Show me the individuals you speak of from the 70s and 80s out here in the field still trying to change the system that is not working. Where are they---they are not in the TRADOC training system nor or in the CTC system or at CAC on the TRISA side. Where are they? Where are they in the development of new educing techniques or theory? Where are they in the development of role playing and role writing? Show me the experienced personnel from the
70s and 80s out here trying to ramp-up 10-15 BCT HUMINTers prior to a deployment when in the 14 months since their return from a deployment they have done absolutely no sustainment training. OR let's see how do you tie a Multifunctional Team (MFT) to the interrogation process or overall HUMINT process when BCT Cmdrs have no idea of what a MFT does. Where are the experienced battlefield forensics types who also have deep interrogation experience?

I am personally not so sure you have read the Intelligence Board's article on Educing Information, nor am I sure you have ever been on a TIGER Team or worked at a BCT level where the system has declared you to be the judge, jury, defense lawyer, and prosecutor.

Blogging is a great past time --join us in the field in either Iraq or Afghanistan and try to make the system work and then tell me it is about me. Show me an interrogation technique from your side that answers how a young interrogator who has 96 hours is to proceed? Show me a technique from you that allows a patrol member to get into easily a conversation with an Afghan national and not make it look like an interrogation to the Afghan. What is the technique in TQ that allows a Company Cmdr to make the decision to release or move up the ladder? What is the questioning technique that is the most effective in getting an Afghan tribal council meeting to reveal information so necessary in counterinsurgency.

You talk the problems to death---where are the solutions?

I could go into how you tie "open source warfare" to interrogation and how that ties nicely into the spiral concept. Or I could discuss the recent research released in Nature magazine concerning "Ecology of Human Warfare" and how it verifies "open source warfare", but I see nothing of that tied into spiral questioning or other forms of interrogation techniques in your blog.

“The goal of the interrogation process is to develop the truth.” This simple
statement captures the spirit that animates Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art. The “truth” awaiting development in this case is what we think we know and what we really know about educing information (EI), a politically neutral term that encompasses often highly controversial human intelligence collection activities such as interrogation, strategic debriefing, and elicitation. In his article, “Approaching Truth: Behavioral Science Lessons on Educing Information from Human Sources,” Dr. Randy Borum explains: “Almost no empirical studies in the social and behavioral sciences directly address the effectiveness of interrogation in general practice, or of specific techniques in generating accurate and useful information from otherwise uncooperative persons (emphasis in the original).”

I was throwing open a discussion on a way of educing information-it can be discussed or ignored as I really do not care. Maybe we have ignored it way to long and so therefore caused the problems at Abu Ghraib, the black sites, or in Bagram or Gitmo.

I am basically tired of having to answer with each new employment position--"do you expect any blowback from Abu Ghraib". So maybe I am extremely interested in the success of educing information so maybe you are right it is about me as I doubt you are being asked "are you expecting any blowback" by anyone writing into this blog.

Have learned from this to avoid your site as a number of others do.