Interrogation, war, and gray zones

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0511/p01s01-usmi.html

USA > Military
from the May 11, 2004 edition

Interrogation, war, and gray zones
New photos of prisoner abuse don't answer fundamental question: How did the chain of command break down?

By Peter Grier and Faye Bowers | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – It's called the "Fear-Up Approach." Its point, as explained in a US Army interrogation training manual: exploiting prisoners' preexisting uneasiness to extract information.

It's even permissible to heighten these fears with play-acting - behaving in an overpowering manner, for instance, or throwing things around an interrogation room.

But "Fear-Up" is a gray area, says the manual. Great care must be taken not to violate bans on coercions and real threats.

Of the permissible questioning methods "this approach has the greatest potential to violate the law of war," concludes Intelligence Interrogation Manual FM 34-52.

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Geneva 3:

Interrogation: While POWs the detaining power may interrogate them, POWs are only required to provide their surname, first names, rank, birth date of birth, and their army, regimental, personal or serial number under questioning. POWs, cannot be punished if they do not but are not required to provide additionalany other information. "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." (Third Geneva, Art. 17).

While nonprivileged or unlawful combatants cannot claim the same protections under interrogation as POWs, they are, like all detainees, protected from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as set out under international human rights law and customary international law. Relevant international instruments include Article 75 of Protocol I, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention against Torture. For instance, Article 2 of the Convention against Torture, which the U.S. has ratified, states: "No exceptional circumstance whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Violation of Article 2 is a criminal offense of universal jurisdiction.