The pliers, Jenkins...

This is a theoretical exercise, because I am in no position to judge the strength, if any, of a terrorist threat against this country.  But, on the assumption that there is, and that it is a real one, I want to discuss the uses and mis-uses of harsh treatment and/or torture on suspects.

More years ago than I care to remember, I was a member of the Army Interrogation unit, and in those rather innocent days, we had a golden rule – never touch the prisoner!  Of course, our ‘prisoners’ were usually special forces, or air crew being trained in resistance to interrogation.  Also, we only had them for 24 hours, although they had been ‘on the run’ for some time before that, so that they arrived cold, wet and hungry.  We kept them that way – natch!  But, we never touched them.  Special forces were, as you would expect, very tough and very resistant, but on those occasions when we had normal troops it was amazing to me how a period of harsh discomfort plus the effects of being stripped and hooded could, in effect, break a man’s resolve.  Even more important, when they were exhausted, tricks could be played on them which would provide us with useful leverage either against them or against their comrades.

I did not take part in the

Northern Ireland

campaign but I am sure that similar methods were employed against the terrorists there with, I suspect, excellent results.  I can see no reason why today they should not be employed against any Islamist suspects we detain in this country.  It would require the building of a specialist interrogation centre, and the formation (or re-formation) of a specialist interrogation unit along with all the technical support personnel that would be required.  There would have to be civil and legal oversight of the establishment to ensure nothing took place that was outside of what the civil authorities permitted.  But it should include stripping, hooding and verbal assaults from the guards.  Prisoners should be chained outside in the open, soaked with water and kept very hungry, plus a number of other ‘discomfort’ techniques.  This treatment should be allowed for a maximum of 72 hours, although, of course, that would not be made public.

All of that procedure I call ‘harsh treatment’.  It will cause no long term damage to a healthy man and doctors would be on hand to deal with anyone who was medically feeble for any reason.  None of the information could be used in a court of law, it would be for intelligence purposes only.

If, but only if, a civil society is under serious and sustained attack by terrorist organisations, then I think it is entitled to use these techniques for the protection of its own citizens – or you and me, as I fondly think of them!  In the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario, the golden rule of never touching the prisoner should be broken but only under supervision and with the permission of higher authority.  In real life, these occasions would be very rare, but if, say, one had a prisoner with direct knowledge of something like the Armagh bomb atrocity, then the infliction of direct pain should be allowed.

Comments

[Smith]

Would it not also be productive to extend this to incidents beyond terrorism? Drugs and organised crime, for instance, present a sustained attack upon civil society in this country, much more so than terrorism does at the moment. It has proved impossible to penetrate many of the advanced networks of organised crime. So, why not use harsh treatment to gather intelligence in such cases?

[David Duff]

Oh dear, Smith has me on the hip! My immediate re-action is to repeat my opinion that all drugs should be legalised. The money raised in tax and saved from disbanding the echelons of law-(non)enforcement organisations could be spent on anti-drug propoganda and re-hab centres. The organised crime syndicates would then wither on the vine.

However, I admit that my view is unlikely to prevail. If society truly wanted to attack the drug problem it would, and should, start by attacking the consumers not the suppliers. This is equally unlikey to occur, because any political party trying that on would lose votes wholesale.

Having waffled on thus in order to give myself time to think, then yes, I do think that 'harsh treatment' as described above should be used to extract intelligence from low-level dealers in order to get at the big boys. Again, nothing obtained by these methods could be used in a court.

[Chicken Yoghurt]

But how do you factor mistaken identity into the process?

[Chicken Yoghurt]

And isn't "harsh treatment" inherently useless as a means of gleaning information? Aren't people prone to saying what their captors want to hear when under duress?

[David Duff]

"But how do you factor mistaken identity into the process?"

You can't. To err is human!

To your second point: No, remember we would be looking for *information*, not *confessions* to a crime. We would want names, addresses, 'phone numbers, locations, dates and times, etc, etc. The interrogator will not be'suggesting' answers to the subject, and anything he gets can be checked upon. Indeed, mostly it will be a question of cross referencing it against information from other sources.

[Chicken Yoghurt]

"You can't. To err is human!"

So I suppose "harsh treatment" is ok until it's you or yours being hosed down and starved. Or does one lie back and think of England?

[David Duff]

Now, now, 'Chick', all I'm saying is that "shit happens!" Anyway, my definition of 'harsh treatment' will not, and I know whereof I speak, do a healthy man (or woman), lasting harm. It is just harsh, not torture, and there is a strict time limit. And the benefits, assuming one's country was under sustained terrorist attack, would be immense.