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Iraqi prisoners face quick-fire interrogators
In a brick-lined cave set into a cliff above the Tigris river, American soldiers interrogate another Iraqi prisoner. He sits on a metal chair, his face to the wall. A woman soldiers stands over him, her arm stretched up against the wall above his head. On the other side stand a second US soldier and an Arabic translator. The questions are rapid. âWho gave you the pistol? When? Did he give you money? Who is he working for?â The prisoner tries to keep up. âIbrahim Mohammed. Last week. No, yes. He told me 50,000 dinars. I donât know.â The prisoner was picked up a few days earlier in a raid near Saddam Husseinâs hometown of Tikrit on suspicion that he belonged to an Islamic cell plotting attacks on US troops.
| The faster the questioning goes, the less opportunity to think up new lies. I'm not sure what's with the babe, though... |
He is one of thousands of Iraqis seized since the war which ousted Saddam in April as US soldiers try to stamp out almost daily attacks on their soldiers and bases. All are rigorously interrogated, a process which takes several hours, sometimes days. âWe call it the train ride,â said Captain Tim Morrow, a US Army intelligence officer. âWe go fast and furious with questions to try to trip them up. It takes hours; weâve usually got to run them around before we get to the truth.â This prisoner, says Morrow, is a suspected low-level member of the âArmy of Mohammedâ, a small anti-American guerrilla cell which US forces say is operating around Tikrit. The interrogators want the names of its leaders and financial backers.
| Most of what they actually get is the names of other cannon fodder or the aliases of runners. The controllers try to keep their contact with the snuffies to a minimum. It's when they catch the runners that things start to pay off â but the runners have to be sorted out from the cannon fodder chaff... |
âWeâre just trying to get another couple of names out of him,â said Morrow. âHeâs given us names and parts of names, but we think theyâre phoney. Weâll keep going till we get what we think he knows.â The prisoners captured by Morrowâs unit of the 4th Infantry Division are brought to their base in Tikrit, a sprawling estate of mansions with river views built for Saddam and his family and friends. They are kept in a two-roomed building with bars on the windows and razor wire at the door, known to soldiers as âthe cageâ. Around 50 men in traditional Arab robes or T-shirts and trousers are crammed in together, sitting and sleeping on pieces of cardboard on the floor.
| Don't make them comfortable... |
They are given food and water three times a day and are allowed to smoke, if they ask the bored sentry at the door for a light.
| ... but don't physically mistreat them. |
One by one they are taken down to the cave for questioning. The technique involves no physical violence, says Morrow. The detainees are classed as âEPOWsâ or enemy prisoners of war and as such held under the rules of the Geneva Conventions which stipulate that interrogators cannot use force or violence to extract information. âWe donât beat people. We donât do anything that could be termed abuse,â said Morrow. âWe canât do anything which makes them think weâre about to harm them, like put a gun to their head.â
| Most of them aren't worth putting originality into. The information they have is routine. |
Thatâs not to say the prisoners donât come in for a bit of rough handling. When they are moved around the base, detainees are made to lie on the floor of a vehicle with sandbags on their heads âto keep them disoriented.â And the unguarded chatter of lower ranking soldiers suggests the rules are sometimes forgotten altogether.
Excited after a successful raid which netted several Iraqi suspects, a US military police sergeant explained how one detainee was made to kneel with his head against the front of an armoured jeep while another vehicle was reversed towards him, stopping only when his head was in a vice between two bumpers. âWe scared the shit out of him!â the soldier laughed.
| If true, they could find themselves facing a court martial. Somehow, very few of these tales ever turn out to be true... |
Under the threat of attack by Iraqi guerrillas armed with rifles, machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and remote-controlled bombs, US soldiers are scared too. Most of the attacks occur in the âSunni Triangleâ, the heartland of support for Saddam which runs west from Baghdad and some 150 km (95 miles) north of Tikrit. This is where US forces have concentrated their after-dark raids on suspected guerrilla hideouts, detaining dozens of Iraqis each night. Military officials say the sweeps help foil resistance and capture Iraqis plotting against the US-led occupation. âWe work our way up the hierarchy,â said Morrow. âIf heâs a shooter, I want to know who pays him. The information we get from detainees is good, itâs definitely worth the trouble.â But at least 20 per cent of prisoners at the Tikrit base have been released without charge. Some were detained as a result of false information given by people hoping to settle old family scores or business feuds. Other suspects are sent âup the chainâ to more permanent detention facilities, only to be released a few weeks later.
| They're suspected runners who turn out to be cannon fodder... |
Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said probably as many Iraqis are freed as are arrested by US forces each day. The statistic illustrates the dilemma the US military faces in its tactic of aggressive raids and detentions. Each case of mistaken identity, or wrongful arrest, may serve only to alienate more Iraqis. âI was happy with the coalition. I tried to help them,â said one of the detainees in âthe cageâ who said he had worked as a translator for US forces before his arrest. âNow they have done this. Put me here. How could they do this?â
| The AK probably had something to do with it... |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-10-03 |
