Comments on: More on Interrogations http://washingtonindependent.com/2497/more-on-interrogations National News in Context Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:39:16 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: declineandfall http://washingtonindependent.com/2497/more-on-interrogations/comment-page-1#comment-2189 declineandfall Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.washingtonindependent.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=2497#comment-2189 They started taping all military interrogations in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib scandal hit, and were met with the same "don't you trust us?" response by some people. I always thought of it as an ass-saving measure. It's very common for a detainee to allege abuse by a previous interrogator in order to distract the new guy from asking important questions. With the recordings, you can just say to the investigator, "watch the tapes, and we can discuss anything that concerns you." It was also useful to go back and look for signs of deception that I might have missed the first time, and we also used the tapes to do spot-checks on our interpreters. Bottom line: recordings should be mandatory. And yes, they should also be classified. They started taping all military interrogations in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib scandal hit, and were met with the same "don’t you trust us?" response by some people. I always thought of it as an ass-saving measure. It’s very common for a detainee to allege abuse by a previous interrogator in order to distract the new guy from asking important questions. With the recordings, you can just say to the investigator, "watch the tapes, and we can discuss anything that concerns you." It was also useful to go back and look for signs of deception that I might have missed the first time, and we also used the tapes to do spot-checks on our interpreters.

Bottom line: recordings should be mandatory. And yes, they should also be classified.

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