Why Iraq prisoners no longer talking
Sources blame Abu Ghraib scandal, weakness of female interrogators

Posted: January 18, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

2005 WorldNetDaily.com

U.S. military interrogators in Iraq tell Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin
prisoners are doing far less talking since the publicity of the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal and the crackdown on harsh techniques used in
questioning them.

"Do you want to know why there are so many successful attacks –
attacks that are not averted because of good intelligence?" asked one
military source familiar with the situation. "Because we're getting next
to nothing out of the prisoners. Our information flow has dried up."

That's the story told by several military sources, all of whom work
closely with prisoners or interrogators.

But some counterintelligence analysts in Baghdad see other problems with
recent interrogations.

A memo obtained by the premium, weekly, online intelligence newsletter
G2 Bulletin, published by WND, from a source in Centcom reveals the
general ineffectiveness of female interrogators in Iraq.

"(Female) interrogation techniques are ineffective because they fail to
provide useful information, and the detainees, once released,
communicate to other (insurgent) personnel that there is nothing to be
afraid of from (female) interrogators: just maintain your innocence and
give no information and they will release you in 72 hours," said the
memo.

However, there are exceptions, the memo suggests. Women interrogators at
Abu Ghraib and some other detention facilities use more effective
techniques. As a result, the terrorists have specifically targeted these
women for attacks.

The memo says there have been at least three documented reports in the
last month of captured insurgents stating that female interrogators are
not effective because they do not threaten or intimidate the prisoners.

Last spring, in a story on Iraq headlined, "U.S. losing 'hearts,
minds,'" WND reported that the Army was switching to kinder, gentler
interrogation tactics of Iraqi detainees. This was before several U.S.
guards at a Baghdad prison recently were criminally charged with abusing
detainees.

At that time, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq
put limits on harsh questioning tactics. Sanchez passed around a memo
saying interrogators could use no harsh techniques – no "Mutt-n-Jeff"
approaches or any "pride-and-ego-down" approaches – without his
permission, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

"Mutt-n-Jeff" refers to a good-cop, bad-cop routine to pry information
out of a detainee. And "ego down" involves deflating a defiant detainee
whose pride is his armor against questioning.

WND also first reported – even before the war started – the shortage
of those trained to be military police and Arabic-language
interrogators. The military brass now says the prison abuse in part
stemmed from these shortages.