Sunday, April 08, 2007

The Abu Ghraib Effect   [Byron York]

The new issue of The Atlantic has a piece by Mark Bowden, "The Ploy," about the American interrogation team in Iraq that found Abu Masab al-Zarqawi. It is teased as "the inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's inner circle — without resorting to torture — and hunted down al-Qaeda's man in Iraq."

The torture reference is interesting, because the story suggests that the legacy of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib has actually been useful to American intelligence agents. Iraqi terrorists do not, it appears, believe the U.S. has cleaned up procedures at Abu Ghraib, so if a detainee is being interrogated elsewhere in Iraq, and it is not going well, and the interrogator suggests that perhaps it's time for the detainee to be transferred to Abu Ghraib — well, that sometimes inspires prisoners to start talking. From Bowden:

Fear, the most useful interrogation tool, was always present. The well-publicized abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere put all detainees on edge, and assurances that the U.S. command had cracked down were not readily believed. The prospect of being shipped to the larger prison — notorious during the American occupation, and even more so during the Saddam era — was enough to persuade many subjects to talk. This was, perhaps, the only constructive thing to result from the Abu Ghraib scandal, which otherwise remains one of the biggest setbacks of the war.

Bowden tells the story of a man named Abu Haydr, who provided the information that ultimately led to Zarqawi. During weeks in captivity at Balad Air Base, Abu Haydr gave the interrogators nothing. "The team had all but given up on getting information from Abu Haydr," Bowden writes. "He had made a final statement, been issued new clothes, and was on the list for transport back to Abu Ghraib." But one interrogator asked for another chance to talk to the prisoner. "He knew Abu Haydr dreaded going back to Abu Ghraib," Bowden continues, "and he had an idea for how to get him talking."

After a lot of extraordinarily clever misdirection, the American interrogator cut to the chase. "You have information you could trade," he told Abu Haydr. "It is your only source of leverage right now. You don't want to go to Abu Ghraib, and I can help you, but you have to give me something in trade." The interrogator made other promises — among other things, he suggested that Abu Haydr might become a big deal in postwar Iraq — but the article suggests that the basis of the interrogator's success, which ultimately led to Zarqawi, was Abu Haydr's dread of going to Abu Ghraib.

04/08 11:40 PMShare