An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare: "I will never forgive myself."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare
By Eric Fair
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page A19

Aman with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.

That dream, along with a host of other nightmares, has plagued me since my return from Iraq in the summer of 2004. Though the man in this particular nightmare has no face, I know who he is. I assisted in his interrogation at a detention facility in Fallujah. I was one of two civilian interrogators assigned to the division interrogation facility (DIF) of the 82nd Airborne Division. The man, whose name I've long since forgotten, was a suspected associate of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, the Baath Party leader in Anbar province who had been captured two months earlier.

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong....

(The writer served in the Army from 1995 to 2000 as an Arabic linguist and worked in Iraq as a contract interrogator in early 2004.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801680.html

[illinoisprogressive]

1. He is going to be suicidal. I hate the torture but, the ones who

make these guys do torture in the first place are to blame. Most of the kids are ordered to and they are the ones who become suicidal. I hate everything about this war and this administration. Everything is garbage and sludge about both.

[BlooInBloo]

13. I'm ok with that.

[E-Z-B]

15. I'm offended by that. I happen to know Eric Fair.

He's an honorable man, and he went over thinking he was defending his country. He quickly realized what was going on over there, and came home shortly afterwards. When I asked him who he voted for in 2004, he said "Bush". When I asked why, he said something along the lines "only because iraq is in self-destruction, and he didn't want a dem to take responsibility for that".

[varkam]

21. Such compassion. eom

[NYC]

2. Mistakes?

...Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself...

I find that an odd choice of words.

[rebel with a cause]

3. Decisions might be a better one to use.

"I cannot ignore the decisions I made." This is more one of taking responsibility for his own actions, he had to decide to obey these orders. Even those in the military make a decision to obey orders they know are wrong, but this young man was not even in the military. He was a civilian. I hope he can come to forgive himself, but I believe to do this he will need to speak out and speak out loud about what is happening over there.

Edited for spelling.

[Hissyspit]

4. I posted a transcript of a radio show with this guy about a year ago. He said

that he knew of only ONE instance where the torture resulted in useful information for soldiers. Otherwise, it was basically worthless and their job was really to get confessions out of of mostly innocent people. I will look for the link. I'm pretty sure this is the same guy.

[Solly Mack]

5. And no matter how many people come forward

my government will continue to pretend that each and every case was an isolated case and that it was all done by a few bad apples - because my government will never admit torture and abuse are government policy.

So they'll try a few soldiers, even send a few to jail for a little while - and then call it case closed...because the liberty people would never - ever - engage in crimes against humanity. America would never - ever - violate the Geneva Conventions. My goodness no! America is a beacon of light to those seeking freedom from oppression, the giver of hope to those seeking asylum from abusive governments.

Ho hum...and the myth beats on....

[JohnyCanuck]

6. K & R n/t

[malaise]

7. Sometimes I wonder

why these young men and women didn't refuse to obey these orders and face the consequences. You see now they are permanently imprisoned in their own minds. Sadly they all made choices to violate the Geneva conventions and to torture people who did not look like them so that they would not be punished for obeying the law.

My sympathy is for the poor tortured Iraqis whose country was invaded and occupied. No one could force me to torture another human being. Whoever was giving those orders would have had to execute me, lock me up, whatever.

[hootinholler]

8. There were some studies done about captive/captor behavior...

Very chilling. Basically normal people can be manipulated into becomming severe oppressors. Wish I saved the link to them.

-Hoot

[MountainLaurel]

17. The Stanford Prison experiments

Are what you're speaking of, I believe.

[Heywood J]

20. Milgram's might be more applicable.

Those were the ones where ordinary people kept shocking the "learner" even though they heard cries of pain, begging them to stop, etc.

[gratuitous]

16. My understanding is that it's a complicated phenomenon

And one that doesn't happen overnight. But military indoctrination isn't just to train a person's body, but to train a person's mind as well. And they've had centuries to work on techniques to overcome human reticence about killing and torture.

Why don't more folks disobey unlawful orders? You probably don't need to look any further than the current trial of Lt. Ehren Watada. While the opinion split here at DU is atypical of the larger society (that is, my totally subjective and unscientific gut feeling is that a larger percentage of people at DU support Lt. Watada than the percentage of folks in the rest of the country), you still get highly strident posts against Lt. Watada, excoriating him for everything from abandoning his buddies to charges that he's seeking to supplant the chain of command with his own judgment or that he's a terrorist sympathizer.

How much tougher is it, then, for someone with a creeping self-doubt about what he or she is doing to really sit down and evaluate the actions and the orders being carried out all around? Everyone else seems okay with this. I'm just one of four people keeping this guy awake, so it's not all me or my fault. Am I really torturing this guy in the cell? Aren't I just waking him up and making him stand in a corner naked? That's not really so tortuous, is it?

I surmise that it's only after separation from the situation and a chance for a thoughtful review that the flashbacks and the nightmares bubble up to the conscious surface and begin the self-examination that was put off in the moment. And for folks whose consciences have survived their indoctrination and tour, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[windbreeze]

18. why do we think

new recruits are sent to boot camp, where they are conditioned, day after day for weeks on end, to do what they are ordered to do, and to do it, W/O QUESTION...the ones giving the orders are the ones who should be held responsible, and we suspect that went right to the top, right?...we should all hang our heads in shame that any of this was done in our name....but then, chances are, if we knew the whole truth, about everything that's happened, including 9/11...we most likely would not be able to handle that truth...
wb..

[malaise]

19. All your comments are valid

and it's easy for me to write about it but I cannot and will not torture another human being. Kill me first.

[Solon]

23. This is one thing I just don't understand...

The "Just following orders" excuse just doesn't cut it, especially for me. To be honest, I have trouble following true good advise and orders, I'm too iconoclastic, its just a personality trait. Probably why I'd never cut it in the military, the entire culture of it is just repulsive to me. This doesn't mean I lack discipline, its just that I follow my OWN values and orders, so to speak, before anyone else's.

[malaise]

25. That's the point

I challenged my parents and my mother's church before I was a teenager. I never went along with the herd. Sorry.

[Senator]

9. BushCheney Must Be Sent to The Hague

Americans simply can't bring the level of objectivity necessary to deal with this level of depravity.

It's way above our pay grade.

It's also the price of re-admission to the world community.

--

[Felinity]

10. We can dream K&R

Peace Palace, seat of the International Court of Justice

[rateyes]

11. OK, it 's time to subpoena this guy,

and put him before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for questioning. The fish rots from the head down.

It's sickening to know that this country's executive branch is headed by war criminals. Assholes.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. k/r for an excellent article.

[BlackVelvet04]

14. Not forgiving himself is counterproductive......

"Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself."

It's time for him to make a lot of noise about what is going on. Self-forgiveness will probably be a lot easier when there is action to change what is happening.

[Solon]

22. This guy deserves prison, not sympathy...

I just cannot work up any sympathy for this asshole, let him suffer, even if its in his own head, for it still pales in comparison to what he did to the prisoners.

[Heywood J]

24. This "asshole" can deliver you

his commanding officers and the names of those who ordered the torture. I doubt we're giving him sympathy, but we do want his testimony.

[GliderGuider]

26. The Forgiveness Project

Please look here:
http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/

People forgive the unforgivable.
The unforgivable are forgiven.
And the healing can begin.

In particular, see this link:
http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories/eric-lomax

Eric Lomax

If you are a victim of torture you never totally recover. You may cope with the physical damage, but the psychological damage stays with you forever.

snip...

My turning point came in 1987 when I came across The Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture. For the first time I was able to unload the hate that had become my prison. Seeing the change in me, my wife wrote to Nagase. The letter he wrote back was full of compassion, and I think at that moment I lost whatever hard armour I had wrapped around me and began to think the unthinkable.

snip...

After our meeting I felt I’d come to some kind of peace and resolution. Forgiveness is possible when someone is ready to accept forgiveness. Some time the hating has to stop.