Fake interrogations?

April 29, 2005

If this is true, it’s going to be huge.

The U.S. military staged the interrogations of terrorism suspects for members of Congress and other officials visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to make it appear the government was obtaining valuable intelligence, a former Army translator who worked there claims in a new book scheduled for release Monday.

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar said the military chose detainees for the mock interrogations who previously had been cooperative and instructed them to repeat what they had told interrogators in earlier sessions, according to an interview with the CBS television program “60 Minutes,” which is slated to air Sunday night.

“They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative,” Saar told CBS. “They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information,” he said, calling it “a fictitious world” created for the visitors.

The Bush administration has already shown a certain proclivity towards fake journalists and fake news segments, but this is far more serious and could have more widespread repercussions.

Saar is certainly in a position to know what he’s talking about — he was a translator at Guantanamo from December 2002 to June 2003. His allegations are reportedly detailed in his upcoming book, “Inside the Wire,” which I obviously have not yet read.

A spokesman for the U.S. military’s Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay operations, rejected the charge and declined to comment on Saar’s book. The notion of staged interrogations, however, has been suspected by others.

“They couldn’t show people what they were really doing, because what they were really doing was illegal and inhumane,” said [Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights]. “It’s such a fraud. It reminds me of the special concentration camps set up in World War II. They would take the Red Cross there to see there was an orchestra and all sorts of nice things.”

Stay tuned.

This will be huge. How?

It was buried – on page A21 – in today’s Washington Post. Not mentioned on any other blog that I have been to today.

  • >This will be huge. How?

    Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar said the military chose detainees for the mock interrogations who previously had been cooperative and instructed them to repeat what they had told interrogators in earlier sessions, according to an interview with the CBS television program “60 Minutes,� which is slated to air Sunday night.

    Probably after Sunday night, I’m thinkin’.

  • Yes, after 60 Minutes, I’m sure folks will be talking about it. It will be interesting what else comes out about this. I mean, what are they trying to hide? I thought this was an interesting point, and I linked to it.

  • A good general rule of thumb: Thou Shalt Not Get Your News From Someone Trying To Sell A Book.

  • A good general rule of thumb: Thou Shalt Not Get Your News From Someone Trying To Sell A Book.

    Agreed. So hopefully, I’ve heard the last of the bullshit from evangelicals about that “Bible” thingy.

  • This will be huge? Sorry, but permit me some skepticism.

    I have real doubts about any scandal becoming “huge” in this administration. Abu Ghraib is already yesterday’s news, yawn, so what, a few bad apples, let’s move on. We can all think of a yard-long list of things that should be huge and aren’t. People, generally speaking, just don’t give a shit.

    We’re done.

  • I don’t see why this would be huge. People who haven’t cared about the US government’s use of propaganda on its own citizens, use of torture, holding people (including US citizens) incommunicado indefinitely, and the endless other outrages the administration has been responsible for aren’t going to suddenly start caring about a few fake interrogations.

  • This does break some new ground. Bad enough to be making fake news for the general public, but it seems even worse to stage fake events for members of Congress. Now any representative or Senator with pretensions to a mind of his own will have to discount anything the administration ‘shows’ him. The question, “Senator, do you know that wasn’t just something staged by the administration?” should become standard from competent journalists. Lack of a good answer marks the Senator as a rube or a willing tool.

  • Unfortunately nowadays there are damned few Republican members of Congress who have minds of their own or aren’t willing tools when it comes to anything that could reflect badly on the Republican Party or its current head. Perhaps there will be more eventually, but I’m not holding my breath.

  • Quite true. But making them face the question might make what you point out more obvious. Obvious to whom? To the last two or three neutral observers in the country who aren’t turned off by politics, I suppose.
    Actually, there have to be more than that. Every year something like three million teens become eligible to vote. If a third of them get interested in politics, that’s still a decent sized audience. Even preaching to the choir can be effective if you do it 20 years and the choir has 3% annual turnover.

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