First, the interrogation practices he cited, which were allegedly witnessed by FBI agents in Guantanamo, are consistent with practices that were approved by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and U.S. military commanders. For example, the agent who recounted seeing detainees "chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, with no chair, food or water," who had "urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18-24 hours" was describing, in vivid terms, what the Defense Department refers to as a "stress position" -- a technique that was approved for a time by Secretary Rumsfeld for Guantanamo as well as by commanders in Iraq. The agent who stated that he saw detainees held in rooms so frigid that they were "left shaking in cold" and the agent who saw a detainee "almost unconscious in a room with a temperature probably over 100 degrees" next to a pile of his own hair were both describing a technique known as "environmental manipulation" -- using extremes of hot and cold to induce suffering and stress -- that was at various points approved in both Guantanamo and Iraq.

Second, as disturbing as it may seem, these and other interrogation methods approved by the Bush administration were among the favored methods of the Soviet secret police at the height of Stalin's terror. Techniques such as "stress positions" (which include forcing prisoners to stand or squat for extended periods of time, or binding them in painful, contorted postures), sleep deprivation, exposure to heat and cold, long periods of isolation, often with deprivation of light and sound, removal of clothing, and threatening prisoners with dogs (all of which were approved by U.S. officials in the last three years) were developed and perfected by the Soviet NKVD -- the predecessor of the KGB --during that terrible time. The Soviets employed these methods, often in combination, to cause fear, disorientation, humiliation, and physical pain, without leaving physical scars. In fact, these were among the most notorious techniques used to coerce confessions from the victims of Stalin’s show trials in the 1930’s. Knowledge of these methods undoubtedly passed to modern interrogators from their predecessors, who may well have learned of them from the documented record of the Soviet police state.

Stalin used these techniques because they were effective, not in getting the truth out of prisoners, but in making them lie -- to confess to crimes they did not commit so that their spirits would be broken along with their bodies. Such cruel methods obviously have no place in a democratic society that upholds the law. Just as important, they should be of no use to a society that needs accurate intelligence from detainees, rather than forced and false confessions. Congress should require a clear set of interrogation rules that forbid all US government agencies from engaging in such conduct.

Sincerely,
Tom Malinowski
Washington Advocacy Director
Human Rights Watch