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Area native claims Gitmo interrogations staged
Scranton Times-Tribune/Washington Post ^ | 5/2/2005 | Carol D. Leonnig

Posted on 05/02/2005 4:57:10 AM PDT by Born Conservative

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military staged interrogations of terrorism suspects for lawmakers and other officials visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to make it appear they were obtaining valuable intelligence, according to a newly published book written by a former Lackawanna County resident.

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar, a 1993 graduate of Abington Heights High School, said the military chose detainees for the mock interrogations who previously had been cooperative and instructed them to repeat what they had told interrogators in earlier sessions, according to an interview with the CBS television program "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night.

"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative," Mr. Saar, formerly of Clarks Summit and also a graduate of King's College in Wilkes-Barre, told CBS. "They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information," he said, calling it "a fictitious world" created for the visitors.

Mr. Saar worked as a translator at Guantanamo from December 2002 to June 2003. During that time, several members of Congress reported visiting the base, but military officials said they do not know precisely how many.

(Excerpt) Read more at scrantontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: enemycombatant; eriksaar; frickintraitor; gitmo; intelligence

1 posted on 05/02/2005 4:57:10 AM PDT by Born Conservative
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To: Born Conservative

Big deal.

The military has been doing this since the Vietnam war.

Troops would go out at night for an operation. And then re-enact it in the next morning's daylight so that CBS, and the other TV networks, could gather film footage.


2 posted on 05/02/2005 5:07:42 AM PDT by KidGlock (Get in the pit and try to love some one)
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To: Born Conservative

The Washington Post is printing this, and 60 minutes is airing it. They'll do everything in their power to make the Administration look bad and the liberal media will be all over it.


3 posted on 05/02/2005 5:15:59 AM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
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To: Born Conservative
The U.S. Army is asking Gitmo prisoners the same questions ... twice! Oh, the humanity of it all...

Sounds like Erik Saar needs a few years in Gitmo for not knowing when to STFU.

4 posted on 05/02/2005 6:04:30 AM PDT by DTogo (U.S. out of the U.N. & U.N out of the U.S.)
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To: Born Conservative

To ask a set of questions only once to such prisoners would be a shallow exercise indeed. Perhaps the reporter has held a group of subsribers prisoner in the dungeons of their fine publication offices, and knows a bit about how to torture their readers, but that's not hardly the same thing.


5 posted on 05/02/2005 7:00:55 AM PDT by AmericanChef
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To: Born Conservative

This proves it, there is no war on terror. It's all a hoax. Everyone can go home.


6 posted on 05/02/2005 7:57:08 AM PDT by Williams
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: KidGlock

"Troops would go out at night for an operation. And then re-enact it in the next morning" Sounds alot like John Kerry in Nam doesn't it.


8 posted on 05/02/2005 8:30:07 AM PDT by Holicheese (How many more must die Mister Speaker.)
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To: Born Conservative
"They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information," he said, calling it "a fictitious world" created for the visitors.

Isn't that how they try to catch the guy in a lie, by going over information gleaned from the past, to ensure his story stays the same?
9 posted on 05/02/2005 9:20:40 AM PDT by hnorris (Deserve Victory)
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