Torture Is for Amateurs'—

Report on the 2006 Seminar for

Civilian Psychologists and Army Interrogators

Jean Maria Arrigo, Ph.D.

Project on Ethics and Art in Testimony, Inc.

Soka University

Abstract

I present a case history of civic-military ethics in which civilian scientists gave voice to moral and military concerns of soldiers. Recently retired, senior army interrogators met with research psychologists in November 2006 to explain the superior efficacy of nonabusive interrogation techniques compared to abusive techniques. I briefly summarize the seminar report, Torture Is for Amateurs (Arrigo & Wagner, 2007), adding illustrative passages from my subsequent interviews with two of the interrogators. But of special interest here, at the International Symposium on Military Ethics, are the practical measures Seminar participants undertook to uphold the soldiers’ national security commitments, to safeguard their current employment as military contractors, and, simultaneously, to authenticate the narrative data on which the scientists based their analyses. I also address the rationale for civic-military collaboration in such a case. In the matter of interrogation, the core military virtue of job competence aligns with the civilian virtue of decency towards enemies, so the formidable liberty-security dilemma did not arise.

Introduction to a Civic-Military Ethics Project

Under the Bush Administration, the Department of Defense (DoD) has been torn over the conduct of interrogations of suspected terrorists. Likewise, psychologists have debated the proper role of psychologists’ involvement in interrogations. Prior to the August 2006 Convention of the American Psychological Association (APA), I invited a recently retired, senior U.S. Army interrogator to send a message to psychologists in the context of my conference presentation (Arrigo, 2006a). Here is an excerpt from his audio-taped address, which I broadcast to the audience (Bennett, 2006):

In my two decades of experience as an interrogator, I know of no competent interrogator that would resort to torture. Not one.

... It is within the framework of mental torture that the American Psychological Association can be of assistance. ...[Y]ou can examine the history and ineffectiveness of torture to discourage abusive behavior on the part of both interrogators and, if it comes to that, the psychologists involved. I offer to contribute confidentially to such a study, and some of my colleagues may also contribute.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility[1] and the Georgetown University Department of Psychology quickly responded to his offer. They sponsored a three-day seminar for seven research psychologists, the interrogator who made the offer, and three of his colleagues, who were also recently retired, senior interrogators and trainers.[2]

The interrogators had been deeply troubled by the wrongdoing and the extreme incompetence of so-called interrogators who abused detainees. Because of the interrogators’ modest ranks as warrant officers— the Military Occupational Specialty of interrogator does not rise above warrant officer —DoD decision makers had not consulted professional interrogators about effective interrogation protocol and did not listen to them, they said. The interrogators sought assistance from psychologists to formulate the case for nonabusive interrogations scientifically and to send this information up the DoD hierarchy.—And that is specifically why I came here today, to address military officers.

Two of the psychologists had publicly opposed coercive interrogations.[3] The other five though were mainly intrigued with the opportunity to understand the psychology of interrogations. They wished to contribute rational, scientific understanding of interrogation to the public debate, which largely rests on fantasies, anecdotes, and ungrounded conjectures. But the psychologists’ understanding of the importance of context led them to expand their analyses far beyond the dynamics of the interrogator-source relationship.

We took pains to protect the anonymity of the interrogators, so as not to jeopardize their employment as military contractors. They used pseudonyms throughout, did not provide telephone numbers and addresses for the participant list, and conducted pre-Seminar and post-Seminar communication through one representative. The Seminar was private, and we did not announce the specific time and location outside of our group. A related meeting with university students and a press conference were scheduled many hours after the departure of the interrogators, except for the one who chose to participate. These are normal accommodations to confidentiality for intelligence professionals but awkward for civilian scholars.

In deference to the interrogators’ commitments to national security, there was no discussion whatever of classified information. Inasmuch as our purpose as psychologists was to understand the dynamics of professional interrogation, not to uncover abuses, the constraints on information rarely interfered.

During the seminar, the interrogators presented the recent military history of interrogation, the army training schedule for interrogators, techniques of nonabusive interrogations, and evidence for the superiority of nonabusive over abusive techniques. They provided data, so to speak, for the psychologists’ analyses. The abiding difficulty was the authentication of the interrogators’ data for public accountability of the psychologists’ analyses. I will return to this point later.

First, I present a sampling of Seminar findings, with illustrations from oral histories I later conducted with two of the interrogators.

Project Findings

The interrogators easily agreed on a definition of interrogation as “the manner of extracting a maximum amount of accurate information from a detainee in a minimum amount of time, using legal means” (Arrigo & Wagner, 2007, p.395). The psychologists expected a long discussion on the definition of torture. But an interrogator eclipsed this discussion with the assertion: “All these environmental pressures on the detainee — I don’t need them for a successful interrogation, so why even have the discussion.”

The heart of successful interrogation is the relationship between the interrogator and the detainee, according to the interrogators. They focused on the interrogator’s capacity to relate—on his tolerance, sociability, flexible thinking, empathy, situational awareness, self-mastery, cultural knowledge, and linguistic skills—rather than on fixed maneuvers to debilitate the detainee, such as sleep deprivation. An interrogator summarized his method: “Everybody want to talk. My job is to become the person he wants to talk to.”

Social psychologist Clark McCauley reformulated the seventeen named interrogation approaches in terms of social relationship theories. For example, Leon Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory explains

the human need to validate opinions and evaluate abilities in comparison with others..... We want to compare most with those who are similar to us.... Interrogators use this principle in positive approaches that emphasize similarity: joining in anger against those who wronged the source joining in pride about the virtues and accomplishments of the source, joining in concern for the well-being of the source’s family and comrades (McCauley, 2007, p. 401).

In this sample approach to a source (the detainee), one of the interrogators located himself as similar in organizational position: “Look, this is not personal.... Our government said we’d do this, and yours said you’d do that. And we’re just here...” (Martin, 2007). It is almost an existential moment in which the interrogator attempts to foreground the stark interpersonal relationship in the constraints of the immediate situation. For this and many other approaches, honesty is profoundly advantageous: “You’ve got to be very careful. If you tell someone a lie and you get called on it, you’re done.... You have no place to go. None” (Martin, 2007).

What make honesty work for the interrogator instead of against the interrogator are competence in interrogation, a just war, and just conduct of war—and just conduct must be evident to the enemy. The interrogator continued his sample approach to a source with this evidence of just conduct and the implication of honesty: “I’ve already captured you. Okay, look, have we harmed you since you’ve been captured? Didn’t I offer you water? I offered you a cigarette....” “Do you see those guys in the cage over there? Do they look like they’re hurting?” (Martin, 2007).

McCauley drew on French and Raven’s classic theory of the six “bases of social power,” to identify the power effective in different interrogation approaches. (1) Reward power and (2) punishment power characterize the interrogators’ standard positive and negative incentive approaches. (3) Expert power characterizes the futility approach—“We know everything; it’s useless to resist.” (4) Legitimate power of social or organizational position is exercised in direct questioning. (5) Referent power, based on personal attachment, develops when the interrogator befriends the source. (6) Information power develops when the interrogator offers the source a compelling new worldview or identity. One interrogator suggested that information power is most effective with fundamentalist Islamic sources. According to French and Raven, only information power internalizes persuasion; the other means depend on maintenance of the relationship between the persuader and the persuaded. (Paraphrased from McCauley, 2007, p. 405.)

Forensic psychologist Allison D. Redlich compared military and police interrogations. Principally they diverge in purpose (intelligence gathering versus confession), targets (suspected political enemies versus suspected criminals) and, currently, the acceptability of coercive methods (condoned versus illegal). Systematic studies of the effectiveness of coercive military interrogations have not been reported. However, the highest U.S. courts and scientists do not view coercive police interrogation as an effective means of producing accurate, meaningful statements. (Paraphrased from Redlich, 2007, pp. 426-427.)

Social psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, asked, “What accounts for the popular belief in the effectiveness of torture interrogation” as in intelligence tool? Among other reasons, she noted the typical lack of discrimination between behavioral compliance and cognitive compliance in the target of coercion. We observe that the bully and batterer succeed in generating compliant behavior in the target. However, the interrogator seeks compliance with cognitive demands. Coercion typically produces cognitive resistance though, not compliance. (Janoff-Bulman, 2007, p. 430, paraphrased).

Cultural and political psychologist Fathali M. Moghaddam explained how torture of enemies can serve as a low-cost means (initially) for political leaders to gain supporters, irrespective of the value of torture as an intelligence tool. A long line of psychological research demonstrates that frustrated groups tend to displace aggression onto outsiders; at times of intergroup conflict, leaders can gain support from insiders by advocating aggression against outsiders. (Paraphrased from Moghaddam, 2007, pp. 438-489).

One of the interrogators and I addressed the conundrum: how do abusive interrogations persist in the “War on Terror,” over the practical objections of senior interrogators? (Arrigo & Bennett, 2007). Although the behavior of interrogator and source and the conditions of detention occupy the limelight in public controversies, every interrogation is deeply embedded in a web of organizational precedents and procedures. We examined three major organizational factors. (1) Interrogation experts are positioned too low in the military hierarchy to govern interrogation practices. Since the late 1980s when the DoD reduced human intelligence collection in favor of imagery intelligence collection, the highest rank available for interrogators has been warrant officer. (2) With the invasion of Iraq in 2003, sudden demand for interrogators exceeded the supply, resulting in low standards for selection, training, and placement of new military interrogators. The Seminar interrogators further stated that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has no acknowledged training program, and the public record of their interrogations suggests there is no formal CIA training as understood by military interrogators. (3) Political and military authorities have promoted unwarranted exemptions to nonabusive interrogation protocols. The most notable is the Presidential Signing Statement that can exempt the CIA from torture restrictions under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. But the presumption of minimal prosecution of offenders realistically allows some Special Operations Forces, military police, and field commanders without proper interrogation training to abuse detainees in pseudo-interrogations. One particularly damaging consequence of ignorance is the demand that every interrogation be fruitful. All procedures and operations have failure rates. Not every bombing mission is successful (Martin, 2007).

Social psychologist Robin Vallacher explored the effects of torture in society considered as a dynamical system. The introduction of an extreme phenomenon such as torture has the potential to transform both the larger social system and the mental states of individuals within the system. This transformation is especially likely when external threat amplifies feedback loops between mental states and social states, making them highly responsive to each other—as terrorist threat and abuse of suspects feed each other in the War on Terror. Because torture occurs under such “high-temperature” conditions, it can trigger a series of changes in other elements (thoughts, actions), thereby promoting fundamental change in individual minds, society values, and government policies. (We will see an example of this later when recurring reports of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay—social states—led to the temporary breakdown—mental state—of an interrogator on the verge of deployment to one of these detention centers.) To reverse this scenario, negative feedback loops among the elements must be introduced so that a change in one element is compensated rather than reinforced by changes in other elements. The International Symposium on Military Ethics itself functions in this way, as ethics education compensates for, rather than reinforces, the consequences of abusive interrogations. A system-wide reversal of feedback loops might be achieved through an effective leader whose policies emphasize humanity, justice, and morality. (Paraphrased from Robin Vallacher, 2007, p. 446.)

As the psychologists learned during the course of the Seminar, in the matter of interrogation the core military virtue of job competence aligns with the civilian virtue of decency towards enemies. The formidable liberty-security dilemma, therefore, did not arise.

Authentication of the Interrogators’ Narrative Data

Now I return to the methodological problem of authenticating the interrogators’ narrative data for the scientists’ analyses. This was the greatest challenge to producing a publishable report for a scientific journal. The interrogators had participated on promise of a scientific report, not opinion pieces in newspaper editorial pages. As scientists, we could not write, “Well, we spent a weekend talking to anonymous army interrogators, and here’s what we think....” Narrative data are acceptable, but records must be available for inspection.

Proceeding uncertainly, we authenticated the data by novel means. First, I transcribed my dense, handwritten notes of the interrogators’ Seminar presentations. Each interrogator corrected and added to the transcript with a different font color. I printed the richly amended transcript in color and archived it with other Seminar materials, in my Intelligence Ethics Collection at Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. Second, the interrogator who initiated the project sent identifying information for the interrogators, under seal, directly to the archivist for the Intelligence Ethics Collection at Hoover. Lastly, I conducted oral history interviews of two of the interrogators concerning their moral development (still using their pseudonyms and including no classified information). Public access to the amended Seminar transcript is not restricted; public access to the oral histories and to the interrogators’ identities are restricted for various time periods. So this was an earnest attempt to authenticate narrative data for analysis by scientists, under difficult conditions of civic-military collaboration.

Ethicists usually focus on criteria for ethical decisions, perhaps expanding the discussion to the moral characters of the actors, to situational factors, to outcomes of decisions, and to dynamics of decision making. But, from a psychological perspective, the life course of the particular person who identifies and engages a particular ethical issue is also crucial to its understanding and resolution. The following, abridged passage begins with the interrogator’s role in the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq and leads up to his retirement shortly before the Seminar (Bennett, 2006; 2007).

This was late August, 2002. Of course, being conscientious about my job, I wanted to see, okay, what’s this all about? Now the huge advantage that I had over you [the interviewer] is that I had a terminal with “top secret” written across the top.... At best, I could make a circumstantial case that there could be WMD. But, I said, I don’t have access to the same level of information that the president does. He must know something that I don’t.

But then I went to Iraq. And that was priority intelligence requirement number one: find some WMD. My unit spoke to physicists at universities who may not themselves have been involved but they might know a colleague. And then you go out in the populace: “Has anyone ever seen someone bury something in the middle of the night?” And nothing. I mean, there were some leads, but they all petered out. The blinders came off [me], and at that point it became a fraud. WMD was just a pretext.

And I think the reason that this disillusionment had such a profound effect on me is this idealistic notion that, we’re not perfect, but we’re trying, damn it; that America is a force for good. That just hit me almost like a physical force. How could I be let down like this by my own country? When I so closely identified myself and built who I am on the fact that I’m a proud American. I felt betrayed by my own government, on so many levels. I mean, there’s the one layer where, “Hey, this is my ass you’re sending out here to Iraq. This is me in the line of fire.” All the way from that elementary level to more ideological reasons. That was so profound on me that I had to seek help from a mental health professional. [laughs]

And then my number was coming up to go back again. I was struggling the whole time with we shouldn’t be in Iraq, so how could I go back there? And as the date grew closer for me, I became more anxious. And the conflicting emotions that came with all that, because of what was happening at Gitmo, the people who were there and why they were there and how they were being held. And yet I didn’t want to let anyone down. I felt a sense of shame of not being able to pull my weight. And then a week before, I broke down. I just cried uncontrollably in the office of the psychologist there. And I was just beside myself that I was of this state. That damn it, if I am so right in my position, then why aren’t others with me?

But the clincher for it was when I told the psychologist I wasn’t sure if I could reconcile having a conscience and going to Gitmo, to the point where I wasn’t sure if I would make it back from Gitmo alive. I could see myself committing suicide if the pressures became too much.—But of course that was the final straw.... I retired. What if this were ten years earlier, and I wasn’t eligible to retire yet?

In short, a soldier who was an interrogator for two decades confronted evidence that the war to which the civilian administration committed him was fraudulent, and then he experienced corruption and stigmatization of his Military Occupational Specialty. This portrait of one of the Seminar interrogators authenticates the data in another way, by showing the depth of his moral and professional identity as a soldier and interrogator.

Follow-up on a Civic-Military Ethics Project

Experiences like this interrogator’s, when repeated across many soldiers, strike the military at its heart, which is honor in service of one’s country. In such cases, I propose that the voting citizenry, which is ultimately responsible for war policy, owes assistance in the rehabilitation of military morale and reputation. The November 2006 Seminar for Psychologists and Interrogators made a small contribution in this direction. (The gain to psychology was substantial, but that is another topic.) The Seminar side-stepped institutional problems by involving only veterans, rather than soldiers on active duty, and by excluding classified information—simplifications I would recommend to other scholars pursuing cases of civil-military ethics.

Finally, mindful of the psychologists’ commitment to take the interrogators’ concerns up the chain of command, on December 17, 2007, I met with the Legal Counsel of my California Senator Diane Feinstein, who is on the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security.[4] (See Appendix A.) Here are the four legislative requests I brought from the interrogators. Although the first three seem minor and directly concern only the army, the interrogators believe that institutional inertia precludes these changes without outside assistance:

1. Raise the cap on the rank of interrogators.

The highest rank open to interrogators is the specialist position of warrant officer, below the rank of all commissioned officers, lieutenant through general. Superiors lacking expertise in interrogation often create policy and direct training and interrogations, to disastrous effect. A solution to this problem is to establish for interrogators a specialist officer rank, on the model of the Limited Duty Officer in the Navy and the Marine Corps. The Limited Duty Officer can rise to a rank equivalent to Army colonel but always works within his or her specialty, unlike the General Officer who works in many areas.

2. Promote trained, seasoned interrogators within the position of interrogator.

Seasoned interrogators are promoted to managerial positions, so that interrogator positions tend to be staffed by relative novices. This practice accords with the pyramidal personnel structure of the military. The pyramidal structure is unsuitable for the specialty of interrogation though. A higher proportion of seasoned interrogators should be promoted within the position of interrogator. These seasoned interrogators are needed for “hardened” and especially significant interrogatees. As one interrogator said, “You don’t put your B team up against the A team of the enemy.” Unskilled interrogators and their commanders become frustrated with poor results and may turn to violence, whereas the true problem is the incompetence of the interrogators.

3. Screen interrogator trainees for interpersonal skills.

At present there is no screening of trainees for interpersonal skills at Fort Huachuca. Yet instructors are pressured to pass almost all students because of the goal of producing many new interrogators. Trainees lacking interpersonal skills, empathy, and an humane attitude are useless as interrogators though and only burden the system later on. Screening of interrogation trainees at Ft. Huachuca is essential.

4. Revoke the exemption of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogators from the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

Interrogation can only be professionalized if all interrogators adhere to the same standards. The appropriate standard at this time is the U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogations. Exemptions for the CIA demoralize and delegitimize all Department of Defense interrogators. In addition, trained, seasoned, military interrogators assert that these exemptions are counterproductive.

The field of psychology has benefited from November 2006 Seminar for Civilian Psychologists and Military Interrogators. I hope that the military will benefit, that officers will pursue at least the organizational changes needed to support ethical, professional interrogators.

End Notes

[1] Psychologists for Social Responsibility (http://www.PsySR.org), is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 1982, with a current membership of about 700. Its mission is to help build cultures of peace with justice through the application of psychological knowledge and skills.

[2] Thanks to Colleen Cordes, Executive Director of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), for managing the seminar, to the David and Carol Myers Foundation for funding it, and to Fathali Moghaddam for hosting it at Georgetown University Department of Psychology. Ray Bennett (pseudonym) organized the interrogators. Richard Wagner, President of PsySR, organized the research psychologists. Jean Maria Arrigo served as liaison between the psychologists and interrogators and archived the Seminar materials.

[3] R.M. Wagner was President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, which takes a public policy position against coercive interrogation. J.M. Arrigo was a dissenting member of the American Psychological Association’s June 2005 Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS), which formulated APA policy for psychologists’ participation in interrogations (American Psychological Association, 2005).

[4] I am grateful to Colleen Cordes for arranging the meeting with Gregory Smith, Legal Counsel to Senator Diane Feinstein, briefing me, and accompanying me.

References

American Psychological Association. (2005, June). Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security. Washington, DC: Author. [Available at http://www.apa.org/releases/PENSTaskForceReportFinal.pdf.]

Arrigo, Jean Maria. (2006a, August). Visible remedies for invisible settings and sources of torture. Presented to the American Psychological Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Arrigo, Jean Maria, & Bennett, Ray. (2007). Organizational supports for abusive interrogations in the “War on Terror.” In J.M. Arrigo & R.M. Wagner, 2007, Special issue of Peace and Conflict, 13 (4), pp. 411-421.

Arrigo, Jean Maria, & Wagner, Richard M. (2007). Torture is for amateurs—Report of the Seminar for Psychologists and Interrogators on Rethinking the psychology of Torture, November 10-12, 2006, Washington, DC. In J.M. Arrigo & R.M. Wagner, 2007, ibid. Pp. 393-398.

Bennett, Ray (pseudonym). (2006, November 13, & 2007, August 18). Having a conscience and going to Gitmo—Oral history of an interrogator. Interviews conducted by J.M. Arrigo. Intelligence Ethics Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, H.R. 2863, Title X.

Janoff-Bulman. (2007). Erroneous assumptions: Popular belief in the effectiveness of torture interrogation. In J.M. Arrigo & R.M. Wagner, 2007, ibid. Pp. 423-428.

MacCauley, Clark. (2007). Toward a social psychology of professional military interrogation. In J.M. Arrigo & R.M. Wagner, 2007, ibid. Pp. 399-410.

Martin, William (pseudonym). (2007, December 15). People don’t want to associate with you if you’re not a good person—Oral history of an interrogator. Interview conducted by J. M. Arrigo. Intelligence Ethics Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Moghaddam, Fathali M. (2007). Interrogation policy and American psychology in global context. In J.M. Arrigo & R.M. Wagner, 2007, ibid. Pp. 437-443.

Vallacher, Robin R. (2007). Local acts, global consequences: A dynamical systems perspective on torture. In J.M. Arrigo & R.M. Wagner, 2007, ibid. Pp. 445-450.

Appendix

Jean Maria Arrigo, Ph.D.

110 Oxford St.

Irvine, CA 92612

December 16, 2007

Senator Dianne Feinstein

United States Senate

331 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Feinstein:

Please promote the legislative proposals I bring to you from four recently retired, senior U.S. Army interrogators and their colleagues. These interrogators do not believe that the U.S. Army can effect the first three changes, concerning rank and training of interrogators, without congressional assistance, due to institutional inertia. The fourth, concerning the McCain Amendment, is clearly a congressional prerogative.

I am a social psychologist who studies ethics of political and military intelligence. At the request of one of the interrogators, I initiated the November 10-12, 2006, Seminar for Psychologists and Interrogators on Rethinking the Psychology of Torture. Psychologists for Social Responsibility and Georgetown University sponsored the Seminar. The four interrogators participated. Our final report, Torture Is for Amateurs, has just been published as a special issue of the journal Peace and Conflict (J.M. Arrigo & R.V. Wagner, Editors, December 2007). The paper written by one of the interrogators and myself on “Institutional Supports for Abusive Interrogations” lays out the rationale for the proposed regulatory changes.

1. Raise the cap on the rank of interrogators

2. Promote trained, seasoned interrogators within the position of interrogator

3. Screen interrogator trainees for interpersonal skills

4. Revoke the exemption of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogators from the standards of the McCain Amendment.

Interrogation can only be professionalized if all interrogators adhere to the same standards. The appropriate standard at this time is the U.S. Army Interrogation Manual. Exemptions for the CIA demoralize and delegitimize all Department of Defense interrogators. In addition, trained, seasoned, military interrogators assert that these exemptions are counterproductive.

Although the interrogators have used pseudonyms to protect their employment as military contractors, validating information has been archived with the Seminar materials in the Intelligence Ethics Collection at Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. Their proposals are supported by the (enclosed) July 31, 2006, Statement on Interrogations Practices to the House Committee on the Armed Services, signed by 20 Interrogators and Interrogation Technicians.

Thank you for considering these very practical, institutional measures to restore efficacy and moral legitimacy to U.S. interrogations. The Seminar interrogators, with whom I have met again this weekend, look forward to your early reply due to the urgency of the situation.

Sincerely,

Jean Maria Arrigo, Ph.D.