The US & Interrogation (catch all)

[Merv Benson]

Jed, do you have a link?

[Jedburgh]

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Interviewing & Interrogating Militant Islamists: A Law Enforcement Perspective
The paper is unclass, and not even FOUO or LES - but it is not generally available. It is uploaded on BCKS MI Net, but I'll go ahead and repost my comments here regarding the paper.

The perspectives presented here reflect the collective input of professionals with backgrounds in the fields of law enforcement, intelligence analysis and operations, psychology, and psychiatry, and who have conducted interrogations or otherwise been involved in interviews with militant Islamists. The strategies and practices described have been used effectively in interrogation with militant Islamist terrorists and their supporters. These approaches are offered here to law enforcement personnel, not as a prescription or a cookbook, but as a springboard for thoughtful planning and execution of successful interviews and interrogations.....

This is a good paper, broadly covering interrogation methodology in the COE. As the title states, it is written for a LE audience, but it is applicable to all whose mission encompasses interrogations of this nature. If I have a criticism of this paper, it is that it touches on certain key areas too briefly and doesn’t clarify the subject adequately before moving on. The following are just some rambling thoughts on the authors’ work…..

The premise of this paper is the effectiveness of the empathetic approach in interrogation, and they repeatedly emphasize that an overly aggressive/forceful approach tends to be counterproductive. This was also stated clearly back in 1969 by the Army Vietnam-era FM 30-15 Intelligence Interrogation in Chapter 4, Interrogation Support for Stability Operations.

The paper continually mentions, but never clarifies, the individual elements of the triad of factors essential to effective manipulative human communications: the cognitive, emotional and kinesic elements. The authors also allude to the use of control and repeat questions (which every Army interrogator is quite familiar with) but they are never clearly discussed. I agree with the authors’ conclusions within the paper, but I feel by failing to sufficiently amplify the narrative they leave a chunk of the target audience in the dark.

The sections on “Foundations of the Rapport-Based Interview Approach” and “Preparing for the Interview” are fairly solid, and contain many elements with which most professional HUMINT’ers are well aware. However, as many of us have experienced, operational constraints such as time, manpower (both simple numbers and capabilities/experience), language ability/translator availability, area characteristics, etc. all can negatively impact the ideal scenario the authors envision.

For those who haven’t read it, I highly recommend Oreste Pinto’s “The Spycatcher Omnibus”. Lt.Col. Pinto was a CI officer who debriefed/interrogated refugees from WWII continental Europe as they arrived in England. Many statements in this paper are faint echoes of the detailed instructional tales Lt.Col. Pinto relates in his book.

The observations on associative vs linear thought processes are very important, as are those on shame vs guilt in Middle Eastern culture. These two issues certainly deserve a much more detailed study in the context of interrogation.

The paper touches on “developing themes”, as is taught throughout the LE community in the Reid technique (it is also a course that is often made available to Army HUMINT’ers). But this is something I’ve long had mixed feelings about. Sure, a capable, experienced interrogators can subtly blend in a “theme” to help leverage his cognitive interrogation skills to effectively extract information. However, in lesser hands this methodology is nothing more than a longer narrative version of a leading question. And we all understand that’s a no-go.

Finally, I strongly concur with the statement that “the interview may even assume some characteristics common to a negotiation”. After all, interrogation and negotiation are both forms of manipulative human communications. Regarding negotiation, keep in mind that there are two distinct aspects of negotiation, which tend to be separate fields of study. Interest-based negotiation for business and politics, as exemplified by Roger Fisher and William Ury in “Getting to Yes” provides a wealth of value for those smart enough to understand the principles and shift the context. The skills of LE crisis negotiation (hostage/barricade/suicide) also will provide you a significant return on investment the next time you’re sitting down with a source.