Interrogation Rules Were Issued Before Iraq Abuses

WASHINGTON -- Shortly before U.S. troops photographed a series of abuses against Iraqi prisoners last fall, their commander issued guidelines allowing interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation and the presence of military dogs -- if written permission was given.

Pentagon officials say the commander, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, never granted such written permission. But the now-infamous photos of U.S. forces abusing prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison demonstrate that sometimes extreme versions of techniques were used after the orders were issued in October 2003.

A report by the International Red Cross organization, moreover, says that some of the techniques were employed in several places in Iraq in the months before the commander's order.

The one-page directive, titled "Interrogation Rules of Engagement," was provided to U.S. senators this week by the Pentagon. Issued by Gen. Sanchez, head of U.S. forces in Iraq, it distinguished between techniques that were acceptable in all circumstances and those that required his approval. But it's not clear how it was received by troops in the field, whether it was viewed as tacit permission for all the techniques or as a caution.

A Red Cross official said some measures on the list, such as "stress positions," sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation, would be prohibited under the Geneva Conventions if used systematically against prisoners. "These techniques, to the extent I understand them, when applied constantly to prisoners would not comply with the Geneva Conventions," said Christophe Girod, head of the ICRC delegation to the U.S.

In Senate testimony yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Pentagon lawyers concluded that the techniques in Gen. Sanchez's orders were "deemed to be consistent with the Geneva Conventions."

Also yesterday, U.S. lawmakers were shown new photos and video clips depicting forced sex, humiliation and other abuses being committed against Iraqi prisoners. The photos and videos haven't been made available to the press or public. Leaving the closed-door screening, Colorado Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell said, "I don't know how the hell these people got into our Army," the Associated Press reported. Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, said the pictures showed "cruel and sadistic torture."

The rules on interrogation practices appear to have grown out of an August visit to Iraq by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then overseeing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the time, senior defense officials in Baghdad and the Pentagon were complaining that they weren't getting enough intelligence from prisoners to help put down attacks on U.S. soldiers.

Gen. Miller shared with commanders in Iraq the "special operating procedures" in use at Guantanamo Bay as "an example on how [Iraq commanders] should generate their own procedures," Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told senators on Tuesday. Those Guantanamo guidelines are classified.

But there was a key difference: The Pentagon has said that prisoners at Guantanamo, many of them captured during the Afghanistan war, are not prisoners of war but "unlawful combatants" not covered by the Geneva Conventions, though officials say they are treated in a manner "consistent" with those conventions. In Iraq, however, officials have said the Geneva Conventions do apply.

THE RULES

The "interrogation rules of engagement" distributed by U.S. military in Iraq last fall

APPROVED APPROACHES

• Direct

• Incentive

• Incentive removal

• Emotional love/hate

• Fear up harsh

• Fear up mild

• Reduced fear

• Pride and ego up

• Futility

• We know all

• Establish your identity

• Repetition

• File and dossier

• Rapid fire

• Silence

ALLOWED WITH COMMANDING GENERAL'S OK

• Change of scenery down

• Dietary manipulation

• Environmental manipulation

• Sleep adjustment

• Isolation for longer than 30 days

• Presence of military working dogs

• Sleep management

• Sensory deprivation

• Stress positions

SAFEGUARDS

• Techniques must be annotated in questioning strategy

• Approaches must always be humane and lawful

• Detainees will NEVER be touched in a malicious or unwanted manner

• Wounded or medically burdened detainees must be medically cleared prior to interrogation

• The Geneva Conventions apply within Combined Joint Task Force-7

• Source: U.S. Army

UNSNIP

Senior Army officials acknowledged in congressional testimony this week that Gen. Sanchez's harsher rules of engagement fall into a legally murky territory. The Army's official interrogation manual says that U.S. troops can't use "stress positions for a prolonged period of time" or subject detainees to "abnormal sleep deprivation," Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's top intelligence officer, said. "Stress positions" are stances designed to induce physical stress in prisoners, for instance requiring them to hold their arms above their heads.

Gen. Alexander told Congress this week that before Gen. Sanchez promulgated his rules in October, Army lawyers "looked at [them] and said, 'So what is [abnormal] sleep deprivation?' " Eventually, the lawyers concluded that depriving prisoners of sleep for as long as 72 hours didn't violate the standards set by the Army manual or the Geneva Conventions.

Similarly, they concluded that soldiers could force prisoners to assume "stress positions" for 45 minutes without violating the Army guidelines against the "prolonged" use of this tactic.

Among the techniques that don't require prior approval in advance under the rules issued last fall are silence, repetition, "emotional love/hate," and "fear up harsh," in which an interrogator behaves in a heavy, overpowering manner, yelling and even hurling objects, in an effort to implant fear in a suspect. The rules say that all interrogations, including those that use harsh techniques, must be "humane and lawful" and specify that "the Geneva Conventions apply." Gen. Alexander said that he was "not aware of any situations" in which Gen. Sanchez gave permission for the harsher techniques to be employed.

The published photos from Abu Ghraib appear to have been taken between October and December of last year. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who oversaw all Iraq prisons, was given a draft of a Red Cross report alleging interrogation abuses on Dec. 14, according to Army officials. Officials say that Gen. Sanchez's command received the report in February.

A Red Cross report delivered to U.S. officials in February suggested that before the Sanchez order was issued, U.S. military interrogators already were using very harsh techniques. For instance, "high value detainees" were held in solitary confinement for months at a time in windowless cells at Baghdad International Airport beginning in June and continuing at least through November, the Red Cross said. The report says that was a "serious violation" of the Geneva Conventions. Under the Gen. Sanchez guidelines, prisoners could be subjected to "isolation for longer than 30 days" with the general's approval.

"Psychological coercion [was] used by the military intelligence in a systematic way," the Red Cross report says. Prisoners under interrogation were forced "to remain for prolonged periods in stress positions, such as squatting or standing with or without arms lifted," it says. Gen. Sanchez's guidelines permit use of "stress positions" for a maximum of 45 minutes, with his approval.

Prisoners were hooded "to disorient them and also to prevent them from breathing freely ... for periods from a few hours to up to two to four consecutive days," the Red Cross report says. Under the Gen. Sanchez rules, "sensory deprivation" for a maximum of 72 hours was allowed with the commanding general's approval.

Some legal experts on the rules of war and human rights dispute the Pentagon's reading of the Geneva Conventions, noting that the agreements place very strict limitations on interrogation and ban coercion, humiliation, threats, insults or disadvantageous treatment to extract information.

The Third Geneva Convention, which covers prisoners of war, says every POW need only give his name, rank, date of birth and serial number. It says that "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted" to secure information and prisoners who refuse to answer "may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." The Fourth Geneva Convention, which covers persons held under foreign occupation, has less precise rules on interrogation but still bans all "physical or moral coercion" to obtain information.

Gary Solis, an expert in the law of war at Georgetown University law school and a former Marine judge, says the writers of the Geneva Conventions couldn't anticipate every action by a detaining power, "so what they depended on was the generality that [prisoners] would be treated in a humane way. ... There's no getting around it, we have ignored provisions of the Geneva Convention in favor of gathering intelligence."

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration has wrestled with the Geneva Conventions and what officials characterize as a life and death need to extract intelligence to head off similar attacks.

Write to Carla Anne Robbins at carla.robbins@wsj.com7, Greg Jaffe at greg.jaffe@wsj.com8 and David S. Cloud at david.cloud@wsj.com9

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