Why detain the captured at all?

[Presley Cannady]

Assuming...

1. that the vast majority of detainees captured on battlefield are discovered to be worthless as intelligence assets in short order, and
2. detaining fighters doesn't do much to dent the enemy's manpower...

...why bother maintaining them in the first place? Why not release them with some provisions to help them on their way home?

[tequila]

I was just wondering how many we actually capture on the battlefield anymore, as opposed to in raids?

[MikeF]

In my last tour as a company commander, I had a 90% detention/retention rate meaning that if we sent someone away,then they stayed there for a long time (minimum of three months). That took a lot of me putting on the lawyer/DA hat to build the case and sending my boys to Baghdad to testify.

With that said, the majority of dudes stayed as guest in our patrol base for 72 hours. For innocents, they had to stay so that they were not killed. For the bad guys, we could not transport them away b/c the only accessible road had over 100 IEDs over a 1 mile stretch. This bought me time to make a decision to detain or let go before air could be scheduled.

I would estimate that 40% over the bad guys that we held and released provided us valuable intelligence. Most of them were kids (15-24 yrs old) that had been told that Americans would torture them. When we didn't, instead gave them 3 hot meals a day and a cot, smoke cigarettes, and bull#### with them about Michael Jordan, Guns and Roses, Britney Spears, and American porn, they started telling us everything that we needed to hear.

The intel captured allowed us to kill the primary bomb maker and 3 of the top 5 al Qaeda deputies in our area, force the main leader to flee, roll up about 15 caches, find 3 rigged houses, get early warning on two impending attacks, and 30 emplaced IEDs.

If we released someone, then they were tracked. Sometimes we would get to know their parents, some converted to double agents, and others went back to doing bad things. Those that went back to bad things were killed.

My only regret is that I let the primary executor of Shiites go. We captured him, did not know who he was, no locals would make a statement other than a verbal "he's a bad man," and we let him go free. I'm still frustated over that one. That dude was beheading his neighbors.

[Presley Cannady]

Or a bombmaker for that matter?

[William F. Owen]

Originally Posted by Presley Cannady

Assuming...

1. that the vast majority of detainees captured on battlefield are discovered to be worthless as intelligence assets in short order, and
2. detaining fighters doesn't do much to dent the enemy's manpower...

Very odd and mostly wrong assumptions. Irregular warfare requires effective methods of detention and exploitation. Not having them is a sever disadvantage.

...why bother maintaining them in the first place? Why not release them with some provisions to help them on their way home?

because they will see you as a weak enemy and not fear trying to kill you again.

[Presley Cannady]

Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Very odd and mostly wrong assumptions. Irregular warfare requires effective methods of detention and exploitation. Not having them is a sever disadvantage.

1. Are the assumptions that unreasonable? A majority of detainees end up released after vetting, and I've seen little evidence that detention specifically plays a major role in sapping the enemy's strength.

2. In your estimate, how much of battlefield intelligence is sourced from detainee take? Ballpark, 10 percent? 20? 50?

because they will see you as a weak enemy and not fear trying to kill you again.

How does the impression of weakness weigh against, say, the experience of surviving--and not necessarily intact--a firefight against your forces? The state of Shu Han met the enemy brutally while pacifying the Nanzhong rebels, yet released her captives after each fight, presumably on the theory that even insurgents get weary, quit, and bitch about the inevitability of it all to their neighbors and families. I'm curious how well this theory holds up outside of that particular case, but I know of no comparable counterinsurgency in history.

[William F. Owen]

Originally Posted by Presley Cannady

1. Are the assumptions that unreasonable? A majority of detainees end up released after vetting, and I've seen little evidence that detention specifically plays a major role in sapping the enemy's strength.

Can't speak for A'Stan specifically. If the person captured is a true civilian it will have no impact. If he's a player, why let him go? So as he can kill another of your guys two weeks later?

2. In your estimate, how much of battlefield intelligence is sourced from detainee take? Ballpark, 10 percent? 20? 50?

Cannot speak for A'Stan, but in the case of UK in Cyprus, Kenya, Oman and a few other places, intelligence gained from captured personnel was substantial.
If you cannot detain and interrogate, then you are giving up something normally extremely valuable.

I'm curious how well this theory holds up outside of that particular case, but I know of no comparable counterinsurgency in history.

OK,let me ask, what you do when you capture a guy planting an IED, or in a a cellar building IEDs? Let him go? Just from a point of view of logic, how much sense does that make?

Based on the fact that COIN is actually just Irregular Warfare, it clearly makes more sense to detain than not to detain. We can argue about the status of detainees and on what grounds they get detained, but simply having no detention policy is very clearly something that will make you less effective. Even FM3-24 gets it this bit right... as much as it can!

[JMA]

Originally Posted by MikeF

In my last tour as a company commander, I had a 90% detention/retention rate meaning that if we sent someone away,then they stayed there for a long time (minimum of three months). That took a lot of me putting on the lawyer/DA hat to build the case and sending my boys to Baghdad to testify.

With that said, the majority of dudes stayed as guest in our patrol base for 72 hours. For innocents, they had to stay so that they were not killed. For the bad guys, we could not transport them away b/c the only accessible road had over 100 IEDs over a 1 mile stretch. This bought me time to make a decision to detain or let go before air could be scheduled.

I would estimate that 40% over the bad guys that we held and released provided us valuable intelligence. Most of them were kids (15-24 yrs old) that had been told that Americans would torture them. When we didn't, instead gave them 3 hot meals a day and a cot, smoke cigarettes, and bull#### with them about Michael Jordan, Guns and Roses, Britney Spears, and American porn, they started telling us everything that we needed to hear.

The intel captured allowed us to kill the primary bomb maker and 3 of the top 5 al Qaeda deputies in our area, force the main leader to flee, roll up about 15 caches, find 3 rigged houses, get early warning on two impending attacks, and 30 emplaced IEDs.

If we released someone, then they were tracked. Sometimes we would get to know their parents, some converted to double agents, and others went back to doing bad things. Those that went back to bad things were killed.

My only regret is that I let the primary executor of Shiites go. We captured him, did not know who he was, no locals would make a statement other than a verbal "he's a bad man," and we let him go free. I'm still frustated over that one. That dude was beheading his neighbors.

I can't follow what you are talking about here. Are these prisoners taken in combat or people picked up at road blocks for during sweeps/searches?

[JMA]

Originally Posted by Presley Cannady

Assuming...

1. that the vast majority of detainees captured on battlefield are discovered to be worthless as intelligence assets in short order, and
2. detaining fighters doesn't do much to dent the enemy's manpower...

...why bother maintaining them in the first place? Why not release them with some provisions to help them on their way home?

You release them and they are back in the front line before you know it. You detain them until the war is over. You do understand the futility of just releasing captives don't you?

[MikeF]

Originally Posted by Presley Cannady

How long does it take to replace an IED?

That's actually the first questions that I wanted answered in my PIR (Priority Intelligence Requirements). During the first three weeks, we'd watch from observation posts to get an idea of the enemy's TTP's. Typically, it was a 72 hour process. Day one, dig. Day two, emplace the IED. Day three, wire it and prepare to blow it.

After we understood the enemy's decision making cycle, in their OOODA loop as some would say, we started killing emplacers. I wanted to make it too costly for them to emplace IEDs. The bad guys turned to using young children. We didn't shoot them.

Or a bombmaker for that matter?

They didn't, and my IED problem went away fast. We went from taking 12 attacks a day to only one every three days. The enemy turned to assassination attempts on key local figures and harrasing attacks on regular folks.

[MikeF]

Originally Posted by JMA

I can't follow what you are talking about here. Are these prisoners taken in combat or people picked up at road blocks for during sweeps/searches?

This was in a village that I was seizing that served as Al Qaeda's headquarters for my area of operations. After we cleared it, I established a patrol base at the former AQ headquarters. We literally took down the Black AQ flaq and replaced it with an Iraqi one.

Most of the prisoners were picked up during patrols for doing something bad- shooting at us, trying to blow us up, etc. The only time that I did sweeps was to bring four guys in so that I could talk to one source without blowing his cover. We didn't really do checkpoints. Instead, we used blocking positions as part of our attempt to limit traffic in and out of the town. That, and some serious curfews until we could get the violence under control.

Bottom line, the tactical questioning of prisoners was very effective for us.

[Uboat509]

This doesn't make sense to me. Are you talking about releasing people taken in arms against us because they won't be kept long enough or provide enough intel? How would that be a good idea? Are you seriously trying to put forward the idea that we tell the troops, "Hey, you know the guy who just took a shot at you but you captured him instead of killing him? Well, take his gun and send him home."? Good luck with that.

[Ken White]

population decline. However, I suspect the 'enemy' KIA count would suddenly climb...

[Uboat509]

Originally Posted by Ken White

population decline. However, I suspect the 'enemy' KIA count would suddenly climb...

That is pretty much what I was thinking as well. There would not be outright executions, before someone hysterically suggests that. There would probably be a lot less enthusiasm to put one's self or one's subordinates in harms way to capture bad guys who will then be released. This would be incredibly bad policy and I can't see any government adopting it, least of all ours.

[Ken White]

prohibited and the ROE would be tightened to try and make it officially difficult. Officers and NCOs would be told to not allow it and most would try to do so. However, Joe tends to ignore Leaders, niceties and rules when his survival is at stake -- as he should when Leaders implement dumb rules...

[Presley Cannady]

Originally Posted by Ken White

population decline. However, I suspect the 'enemy' KIA count would suddenly climb...

As you would expect, preferably with command sanction. My read of Shu Han's expedition to Nanzhong is that ROE was very loose; she burned thousands of insurgents and civilians alive when the fighting took the villages, but quickly turned the survivors loose with some sort of reparation for their hardship. I ask the question to find out to what extent detention and ROE restrictions mutually interact to advance or deter pacifying an insurgent populace. I also get the impression the COIN camp focuses on ROE at the expense of other means in which to assuage enmity within the host population. So, could a more liberal detention policy offset the impact of a more robust firefight?

[Presley Cannady]

Originally Posted by JMA

You release them and they are back in the front line before you know it.

General Stone releases 10,000 detainees and only 40 return. What I'd like to know is what percentage were dead to rights fighters, and what was the median length of their detention.

You detain them until the war is over. You do understand the futility of just releasing captives don't you?

Well, the hypothesis is that released insurgent can tell his friends, family, and neighbors about the folly of resistance, assuming the message is loud and clear and he gets it. Put another way, a low recidivist rate amongst detainees should correlate to some size web of resources unavailable to the enemy in the future. Given I can only find fragments of evidence from a single case in history, I freely admit this is nothing more than a hypothesis.

[Polarbear1605]

If I remember the numbers correctly we officially processed 80000+ detainees in Iraq up to 2008 or 9 ? Of that number we release 73,000+. Question: Are our soldiers and Marines really that bad when it comes to IDing the enemy? If you catch a civilian with a rifle he is a combatant and therefore a POW. They belong in the POW camp for the duration. This processing detainees under the Rules of Law is not what the US Military is trained for. Now if you want to release a POW in exchange for information....hmmm...OK...especially, if he can tell me something I don't know. In a insurgency you gotta have a system.

[Presley Cannady]

Originally Posted by Polarbear1605

If I remember the numbers correctly we officially processed 80000+ detainees in Iraq up to 2008 or 9 ? Of that number we release 73,000+. Question: Are our soldiers and Marines really that bad when it comes to IDing the enemy? If you catch a civilian with a rifle he is a combatant and therefore a POW. They belong in the POW camp for the duration. This processing detainees under the Rules of Law is not what the US Military is trained for. Now if you want to release a POW in exchange for information....hmmm...OK...especially, if he can tell me something I don't know. In a insurgency you gotta have a system.

Don't know what percentage of detainees are noncombatants inadvertently swept up, but my understanding is that the released also include known insurgents vetted by some process to secure low recidivism.

From Chapter 2, Article 10 of Hague Convention IV 1907

Art. 10. Prisoners of war may be set at liberty on parole if the laws of their country allow, and, in such cases, they are bound, on their personal honour, scrupulously to fulfil, both towards their own Government and the Government by whom they were made prisoners, the engagements they have contracted. In such cases their own Government is bound neither to require of nor accept from them any service incompatible with the parole given.


Art. 11. A prisoner of war cannot be compelled to accept his liberty on parole; similarly the hostile Government is not obliged to accede to the request of the prisoner to be set at liberty on parole.


Art. 12. Prisoners of war liberated on parole and recaptured bearing arms against the Government to whom they had pledged their honour, or against the allies of that Government, forfeit their right to be treated as prisoners of war, and can be brought before the courts.

Clearly the laws of war anticipate the release of prisoners of war within the duration, and other than where where the laws of a belligerent reciprocate there doesn't seem to be any limit on the generosity with which parole may be offered. More to the point, there doesn't seem to be a restriction at all on releasing detainees with no conditions placed on them whatsoever. That last option is precisely what I'm investigating.

[Uboat509]

Originally Posted by Polarbear1605

If I remember the numbers correctly we officially processed 80000+ detainees in Iraq up to 2008 or 9 ? Of that number we release 73,000+. Question: Are our soldiers and Marines really that bad when it comes to IDing the enemy? If you catch a civilian with a rifle he is a combatant and therefore a POW. They belong in the POW camp for the duration. This processing detainees under the Rules of Law is not what the US Military is trained for. Now if you want to release a POW in exchange for information....hmmm...OK...especially, if he can tell me something I don't know. In a insurgency you gotta have a system.

That was definitely an issue for us. We would roll a guy up with proof that he was making IEDs or financing a cell or whatever. We would then have to turn him over to the local legal system for processing. If he knew the right people or had the money, he would be out before our after action reports would be done. That was not every time, mind you, but it was often enough.